Large Holdings 43 



But we must remember that poor lands usu- 

 ally raise poor people. I do not conceive it to 

 be necessary that all the lands in any common- 

 wealth should support farm families in the 

 sense in which we have understood it in the 

 past. It is much better for the commonwealth, 

 both from the economic and social points of 

 view, that many of the lands should be de- 

 voted to forests or even allowed to run wild 

 than that they produce people that are only 

 half alive. I should want to keep the conser- 

 vatism of the agricultural peoples, but I 

 should want this conservatism to be construc- 

 tive and progressive. 



I am not ready to admit that the traditional 

 "independent" farm family on 80 or 100 

 acres is always necessarily essential, as we 

 have been taught, to the maintenance of demo- 

 cratic institutions or to the best development 

 of agriculture. The size of holdings and the 

 relation of the family to the land, are likely to 

 change radically in many regions, and we must 

 be prepared to accept the fact. The Ameri- 

 can has a traditional fear of large estates, but 



