HUMAN EFFORT AS A FACTOR IN PRODUCTION 261 



upon the same lines. It has been repeatedly pointed out that the 

 man who owns the land upon which he works will work harder and 

 more wisely; he will take pride in his work; and will be conscious of 

 a lasting benefit to be received from every improvement in the char- 

 acter of his farming; conscious, too, that slovenly work or harmful 

 methods will have a permanent effect in lessening the productivity 

 of his labor in the future. 



Undoubtedly this is in large measure true. 1 Still we have 

 awakened of late to the fact that absolute ownership of the ground he 

 tilled has also left the ignorant or careless farmer free to abuse it as 

 he would. It is well to face the fact that much laziness and ineffi- 

 ciency has been tolerated among those who work our farms, simply 

 because ownership of the land has meant that they could be neither 

 controlled nor dispossessed. With the coming of a better knowledge 

 of the science of agriculture we may expect to find the beneficial effect 

 of ownership reappearing and its most conspicuous abuses tending to 

 be eliminated. 



78. INCREASING EFFICIENCY THROUGH JOINT ACTION 3 



If a merchant go into a new town to open a business, he need not 

 feel entirely strange, for he is soon invited to join a chamber of com- 

 merce or a merchants' association, which, though recognizing the 

 proper place of competition, attacks with vigor the problems which 

 all merchants have in common. If a skilled mechanic move to a new 

 city, he finds common ground in the labor union, and he does not feel 

 alone. But for the farmer there is no organization that compares 

 with the merchants' association or the trade union for strength of 

 influence and efficiency. 



To overcome this deficiency and to provide a competent organiza- 

 tion, there is pending in the national Congress a joint resolution calling 



1 A recent survey of 272 owner farms and 179 tenant farms in Missouri (see 

 Bulletin 121, Missouri Experiment Station) found that "one-tenth of the 'owner 

 farms have acreage crop yields of less than 75 per cent of the average for the 

 region, while one-fourth of the tenants are in this group." One-half of the tenants 

 had "crop yields which are less than 90 per cent of the average yield for the region 

 while only 30 per cent of owners fall below this line. The results as a whole show 

 that the owner farmers rank higher in crop yields than do either part owner or 

 tenant farmers." 



2 From Report on Unemployment of the Commission of Immigration and 

 Housing of California, December, 1914, p. 23. 



