916 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIV. No. 363. 



period of awakenment on this important 

 subject began a few years ago, and prob- 

 ably received its first strong impulse from 

 the League of American Wheelmen. Many 

 states have appropriated money to aid in 

 building state highways : New Jersey, New 

 York, Rhode Island, Vermont, Maryland, 

 California and many other states now have 

 highway commissions. Wherever state 

 funds are appropriated, the laws require the 

 counties to share in the expense. The most 

 striking feature of the reports of the high- 

 way commissioners is the demajid for state 

 highways, notwithstanding the. require- 

 ment for contribution b}'^ the counties. 

 The controlling reason for this demand ap- 

 pears to be the fact, now universally recog- 

 nized, that the building of these improved 

 State highways has vastly enhanced the 

 values of contiguous and neighboring prop- 

 erty. The United States Department of 

 Agriculture, through its office of Public 

 Eoad Inquiries, took up this matter a few 

 years ago, and has been engaged in dissemi- 

 nating among the people information upon 

 road conditions in Europe and America and 

 in teaching improved methods. 



' Farm Ownership and Tenancj^ in Dela- 

 ware. A Study of Farm Tenancy ' : Lb 

 Grand Powers, Chief Statistician for Agri- 

 culture, U. >S. Census. 



The growth of farm tenancy, which has 

 been noted in many States of our nation 

 during the last thirty years, is a part of a 

 social movement profoundly affecting the 

 status of many families in the United 

 States. It was the appreciation of this fact 

 that led the government, by the tenth and 

 subsequent censuses, to collect statistics re- 

 lating to the subject. According to the 

 twelfth census of the United States, there 

 were in the state of Delaware, June 1, 

 1900, 9,687 farms. The number has stead- 

 ily increased since 1850. In that year 

 there were 6,063 ; in 1860, 6,568 ; in 1870, 

 7,615; in 1880, 8,749; in 1890, 9,381. 



Of the farms of 1900, 4,876, or 50.4 per 

 cent., were operated by tenants; 4,680, 

 or 48.3 per cent., by individuals who owned 

 the whole or a part of the land they tilled ; 

 and 131, or 1.3 per cent., were cultivated 

 for their owners by salaried managers or 

 overseers. A large number of the last- 

 mentioned class were farms connected with 

 public institutions, or the property of cor- 

 porations, and most of the others were 

 holdings of wealthy individuals and were 

 operated as much for the pleasure as for the 

 profit of the owners. During the last 

 twenty years there has been a steady de- 

 crease in the number of farms operated by 

 their owners, accompanied by a more 

 marked increase of those operated by ten- 

 ants. This actual and relative increase in 

 the number of farm tenants has taken place 

 under circumstances which have operated 

 to assist a large number of families in ris- 

 ing from, wage service to farm tenancy 

 or ownership. None of the facts presented 

 indicate the existence of a movement in 

 Delaware toward the concentration of the 

 ownership of farm property or its trans- 

 fer to the hands of a fixed class of non-resi- 

 dent landlords. They lead to the conclusion 

 that the titles to rented farms in Delaware 

 are vested in a large number of persons, 

 the majority of whom have, at some time in 

 their lives, operated the farms now owned 

 by them. This conclusion is warranted 

 by the results of the investigation of the 

 twelfth census concerning the ownership of 

 rented farms. The ownership of rented 

 farms is held under conditions that insure 

 to capable and industrious wage-earners or 

 tenants greater opportunities of becoming 

 farm owners than ever existed in this 

 country before 1850, or than is presented at 

 this time in any other nation on the globe. 



' What Next ? Is it Socialism ? ' Walter 

 S. Logan, New York. 



The present is industrial chaos. Where 

 organization comes out of the chaos it is 



