SOME ECONOMIC INTERESTS 145 



AGRARIAN ARISTOCRACY AND POPULATION 

 PRESSURE * 



E. C. HAYES 



THE agricultural sections of America have in general by no 

 means reached that balance between population and resources 

 which tends ultimately to establish itself. They are in a period 

 of transition. The coming changes will offer opportunity for 

 great improvements, but they will bring with them one great 

 danger, namely, that of too rigid social stratification. 



At first sight such stratification seems inevitable. Omitting 

 qualifications, this tendency may be thus stated : when land be- 

 comes worth hundreds of dollars per acre, as it already has in 

 certain sections, the landless youth can seldom, if ever, succeed 

 in buying a farm, and if he remains in the country must be a 

 tenant or a hired laborer. On the other hand, those who own 

 land will be in a position to buy more. Thus ownership of land 

 may be expected to concentrate and the number of landless 

 dwellers in the country to increase. This tendency will be 

 strongest where land is most productive and most valuable, and 

 therefore hardest for the landless to purchase, and at the same 

 time requiring the employment of a large number of hands to 

 tend its heavy crops. The application of scientific methods to 

 agriculture which will be necessary to make the best lands pay 

 for their cost requires capital, and this will put an additional 

 obstacle in the way of the landless youth and add to the tendency 

 created by the high cost of land to develop a small body of 

 wealthy agrarian aristocrats with a large body of tenants or paid 

 farm hands. 



There are, however, three counteracting tendencies. First, the 

 more intensive the agriculture, the smaller the number of acres 

 which the landless youth must buy in order to become inde- 

 pendent and to support a family. The increased price of good 

 land and the demand for fine fruits, vegetables and meats may be 

 expected to force a more intensive cultivation, which makes 

 fewer acres suffice for the maintenance of a household. So long 



i Adapted from "Introduction to the Study of Sociology," Appleton, 

 N. Y., pp. 47-50. 



