112 
WISCONSIN STATE AGItlCULTURAL SOCIETY. 
constitute, and must constitute, almost one-half of the human fam¬ 
ily. As the tree has the root and the stem that take half and half 
of the common substance, so the human race fastens itself to the 
land with a moiety of its entire strength. This rooting will be done 
best, will give the strongest hold and most nourishment, when each 
farmer owns the land he tills, puts into it his personal power, and 
gets back from it his independence and position. 
The tendency always is, as the democratic, the popular element, 
gets uppermost, as the people take the front, to divide and subdivide 
land. This tendency puts farmers as a class of workmen on a fair 
footing, spreads prosperity more evenly through them, and marshals 
them as a body in solid rank and even file into the army of industry. 
On the other hand, extended ownership, as in England, divides the 
class within itself, and yields a large number of farm-hands, with 
no interest or inheritance to the land they till. These, already de¬ 
pendent, easily slip into ignorance and destitution, and drag down 
and degrade the toil they undertake. A calling that does not re¬ 
deem its workmen will never be found compatible with class honor, 
material enlightenment, or that universal progress with which phi¬ 
lanthropy busies itself. The question of pervasive interest is not. 
What attainments have this or that farmer; how much has he accu¬ 
mulated? but. What is the standard of social comforts which be¬ 
longs to the class? 
There are two conditions of a comparatively even distribution of 
wealth, and thus of its social opportunities; that all property, and 
especially real estate, by the laws of inheritance and transfer, shall 
be pliant, easily passing from hand to hand, and divided between 
many hands; and that there shall be relatively equal intelligence, 
or at least skill, among the owners and cultivators of the soil. The 
last is to us the point of special interest. Property tends to pass 
into the possession of those who can use it to the best advantage. 
They covet it more than others; can pay more for it than others; 
and can realize more from it than others. If ten farmers with equal 
farms were to live side by side, one of whom had unusual skill and 
industry, while the remainder were deficient in these qualities, the 
thrifty farmer would, in the lapse of years, inevitably encroach up¬ 
on his neighbors. It is not in industry as in the dream of Pharaoh, 
the fat ears, not the lean ears, devour their fellows. If land, there¬ 
fore, is to be anything like evenly distributed among farmers, 
thrift and intelligence must first be divided among them. 
