FARMING THAT IS NOT FARMING 73 



in life to deal with things practical. Not the least of 

 its advantages is that it creates respect for the farmer. 

 This movement had gained quite a headway in Europe 

 prior to the war. It had shown itself chiefly in what 

 are called the " garden cities " of England and to some 

 extent in this country. No workingmen in the world 

 are housed so well or, on the whole, live so well as those 

 grouped in separate houses, not over eight families to 

 an acre. Do farmers realize the difference between a 

 housing plan that takes care of perhaps forty people on 

 an acre and a housing plan, or lack of plan, that pur- 

 ports to care for 4,000 people on an acre? This arith- 

 metic preaches its own sermon on behalf of humanity. 

 In some cases more ambitious workmen will undertake 

 larger areas perhaps the one-acre or two-acre plot, 

 in which case more of the work will be done by the 

 women and children in the family, or by the man him- 

 self if employed chiefly in the winter, with light summer 

 work. More and more frequently the workingman 

 who can get enough land will seek to retire from wage 

 earning before he reaches the dead line, because when 

 his children are grown it may be possible for him and 

 his wife to earn very comfortably the larger share of 

 their living from this small plot. Before the war Bel- 

 gium was perhaps the best instance of the development, 

 on a large scale, of the workingman's homestead inso- 

 far as numbers are concerned. Thousands upon thou- 

 sands of Belgian workingmen living on " farms " of 

 an acre or one-half an acre went many miles every day 

 to and from their work. This was only possible where 

 rapid transit at very low fares was common. In Bel- 

 gium the government-owned railways provided these re- 

 quirements. It is clear also that this movement in- 

 volves the cooperation of large employers of labor, not 



