farmer's viewpoint 133 



from the speculator and the manipulator of the world markets. Two 

 good sawmills where twenty per cent of the land is tilled in a county 

 of the Great Lakes district, are worth more to these farmers of the 

 county than a condition of sixty per cent of the land cleared, com- 

 petition trebled and the local market spoiled for lack of manufac- 

 tures. This competition is especially painful in one-crop districts, 

 potato, fruit, etc., and it is doubly bad where the average farmer is 

 poor and compelled to sell for what he can get. 



2. The farmer needs labor, cheap and convenient, usually for 

 short periods. Without other business a district can not keep itself 

 supplied. 



3. The farmer needs railways. The farm furnishes about two 

 hundred and fifty pounds of freight per acre and year, the forest 

 about one thousand and the manufacturer exceeds them both. 



4. The farmer wants good roads and schools and yet low 

 taxes. The state taxes, and these in the long run determine school 

 and road, are not paid by the farmer. In the United States the 

 farmer owns less than one-third of the property, is assessed at about 

 sixty per cent of its value and usually pays about sixty or seventy- 

 five per cent of the average tax rate for the state, so he contributes 

 less than twenty per cent to the state tax burden. 



It is evident that to the farmer there is very little inducement to 

 urge agricultural use of lands wherever this brings competition and 

 reduces manufacture and local market. In the past this phase of 

 the question was clouded because most farmers were as much spec- 

 ulators as they were farmers; they wanted to feel that their farm 

 was increasing in value and that they would make money by selling 

 out if they chose to do so. The utter fallacy of this reasoning to the 

 real farmer is apparent ; all he gained by the boost was a larger tax 

 assessent, for his crop, and his income was not increased by it. A 

 few boost sales in a county frequently upset farm assessment though 

 they did not add a cent to the income of ninety-nine per cent of the 

 farmers. 



g. The income from the land has always been regarded as an 

 important criterion of its use. A century ago before railway and 

 modern manufacture, wood was cheap, over large areas it had no 

 value at all, while food was a necessity and measured by a day's 

 wage was high in price everywhere. Accordingly, the incomes from 

 forests were very small and even foresters like Hundeshagen and 

 Cotta felt that only the state could afl^ord forestry on anything like 



