72 THE FARMER AND THE NEW DAY 



cept possibly for harvesting. In some cases such a 

 place will be occupied by a family which has partial 

 support from other sources, but desires the country life 

 and work for the sake of health or the better education 

 of children, or just for sheer love of the country itself. 

 There is evidence that the number of these little farms 

 is increasing quite rapidly, particularly near the Atlan- 

 tic seaboard, north and south. Negro farmers in the 

 south and recent negro immigrants to the north seem 

 to seek these small places rather than continue as wage 

 workers. There is every reason to suppose that with 

 the growth of cities and the resultant better markets 

 and the increase in the price of land, very small farms 

 will become a characteristic feature of American agri- 

 culture and will have a considerable influence upon cer- 

 tain types of production. 



The Workingman's Homestead. This is primarily 

 not a matter of growing food but a chance to get a 

 house. It is an expression of the desire to leave the 

 crowded tenement and to find a separate house with 

 land enough about it to insure good health, sunshine, 

 and privacy. These little plots of one-tenth or per- 

 haps not over one-twentieth of an acre, worked night 

 and morning by the head of the house with more or less 

 help from other members of the family, will grow a 

 considerable quantity of fresh vegetables and fruits, 

 accomplish quite a substantial saving in money, induce 

 a larger consumption of fresh fruit and vegetables of 

 much better quality than has heretofore been the case. 

 This is by no means all the good that mav come. In 

 such a home, family life can be better developed than in 

 the tenement. Children are educated by contact with 

 growing things and get a little at least of the same ad- 

 vantage that comes to the farm boy who learns early 



