LAND TENURE AND LAND POLICY 6$ I 



the different classes of farmers from the standpoint of citizenship, 

 while labor income judges them from the standpoint of economic 

 efficiency. A man who has $700 to spend in making his home modern 

 or sending his children to college or in helping in rural betterment, 

 must necessarily be a better and more desirable citizen than one who 

 has half that amount. 



206. A NATIONAL WASTE 1 

 BY W. D. BOYCE 



During the next week the great national hegira, the flight of the 

 unsatisfied renter for fields new and untried, begins and ends. This 

 flight of the dissatisfied renter is one of the most costly follies of our 

 great American unrest. The cost to the farming business of the 

 country each year for this annual farm moving week mounts into the 

 millions of dollars. And the pity of it all is that practically no one is 

 the winner thereby; all parties to the transaction lose more than 

 they win. The renter loses, the landlord loses, the general community 

 and the nation at large lose. 



Farming is a permanent business; it is no "fly by night" occupa- 

 tion. No man can start business on a farm without more expense and 

 labor the first year than will be required to continue it on the same 

 scale the second and each succeeding year. No man can pull up 

 stakes and leave a farm at the close of the year without sacrificing the 

 results of labor which he has done the past or preceding year and 

 which he could not realize upon before the coming year results 

 which his successor will not be able to realize upon to anywhere near 

 the extent which he himself could had he remained there. He loses 

 without his successor gaming what he loses. 



The renter who ends harvest knowing that he will move in the 

 spring, will not do as good a job of hauling out manure and fall plow- 

 ing as he would were he going to stay; nor does he take as good care 

 of the buildings and other improvements. You cannot blame him; k 

 is inherent human nature not to labor for another man's harvest; 

 you would do the same thing if you were in his shoes. But the 

 farm itself suffers through his lack of care for it. The landlord, the 

 coming tenant, the community, and the nation at large suffer because 

 of the depreciated productiveness of that farm; and no one gains 

 thereby. 



1 An editorial in The Farming Business, February 26, 1916. 



