Robert Ransom Poole, Commissioner of Agriculture, Alabama.Mr. Poole says the farmers in the sandy counties of Alabama are more progressive than the large farmers. Mr. Poole thinks that if the farmers could be induced to sell off their lands in smaller tracts (than three hundred and twenty to two thousand) it would be much better for the country as a whole, but the person who owns property paying from ten to fifteen per cent on the investment is very loath to part with it.

Harry Hammond, Cotton Planter, Beech Island, South Carolina. "I know of no record in history where a race of small proprietors has been prosperous. Everywhere they seem to form the wretched residuum of labor after all other occupations are supplied."

William Budge, Farmer and Real Estate Dealer, Grand Forks, North Dakota.-Mr. Budge says there are several big farms in North Dakota, and mentions one of above seven thousand acres. He adds that he would like to see them all out of the way. They take up so much space that they hurt the school districts. The owners ship in their supplies and ship their wheat out, and ship their men in and out. The plowing is done with gang plows. . One man can handle one hundred and sixty acres on a farm of that kind. The employees are generally single men. The farm owners hire a crew in the spring and let them go in the fall, except one or two to take care of the farm. Mr. Budge thinks some of the big farms are profitable and some are not, depending on how they are handled. The land has grown in value, and money is made in that way.

Brynjolf Prom, Banker and Farmer, Milton, North Dakota.Mr. Prom (who owns and farms 1120 acres) says the effect of bonanza farming is not good. The bonanza farmers do not patronize the villages, but ship in goods from the east, and act as wholesale grocery houses for themselves. They are also probably a drawback in the way of school privileges, which they do not need, and if there are small farms wedged in between bonanza farms the occupants of the small farms suffer. The bonanza farms are divided up into different parts with a foreman for each part. Each has a little village of its own. The hired help are usually single men; only the foreman is married. The bonanza farms are well conducted upon strictly business principles, the farming is done more scientifically and economically than on the small farms, and the percentage of profit is larger; but the general results to the people of the country are not good, and the people would generally favor the abolition of bonanza farming.

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M. F. Greeley, Stock Farmer; Editor of the "Dakota Farmer," Gary, South Dakota.-Mr. Greeley considers bonanza farming a curse to the country and to the man who tries it. If carried too far, after population gets more dense, it will keep thousands of men from having homes of their own. It employs men in squads, thus eliminating their individuality and independence. Those employed on these farms have to work with the worst kind of men. The soil is abused and then goes to other people in small holdings to be built up by careful rotation, stock farming and tillage. The bonanza farms are owned by men who spend their money in the cities or in other States. They rot the public schools, and detract much from the social life of the country. Mr. Greeley does not know of one very large farm that has been running for some time that is now paying, and says bonanza farming is on the decrease.

Franklin Dye, Farmer, Secretary of State Board of Agriculture of New Jersey. Mr. Dye believes that the subdivision of bonanza farms into small tracts would be beneficial by increasing the population and giving employment to more people. The opportunity to use improved machinery on a very large scale on these farms tends to make their competition diastrous to Eastern farmers.

LeGrand Powers, Expert in Agriculture, U. S. Census Bureau, Washington, D. C.-Mr. Powers says all the big farms, including the Dalrymple farm in Dakota, are in the market for breaking up, just as the big farms in Southern Minnesota have been cut up.

Social Viewpoint or Individual Viewpoint?-Thus far in this chapter the question of the size of the farm has been considered from the social standpoint. The views once held by Thomas Jefferson on the subject of a rural versus an urban population have undergone much change in the last hundred years. But the question is still an important social problem, and one which may well engage the powers of the true statesman. The social aspect of this question takes on significance from the fact that the rural population of to-day determines very largely the character of the nation to-morrow. The country birth rate exceeds the city birth rate. Children on farms are an economic asset, in the city an economic liability. The children of the farm to-day recruit the city to-morrow. Hence if the country is to be occupied by an

8 The popular usage of two words in our vocabulary throws an interesting side light on this question of town and country. From the Latin urbs (a city) comes our word "urbane"; from the Latin rus (the country) comes our word rustic. Webster's dictionary defines these two terms as follows: urbane; courteous in manners, polite, refined; rustic; rude, awkward, rough.

inferior class to-day, the city and the nation of to-morrow will consist of an inferior class. In two important matters the city is now superior to the country, namely, public education and care of public health. The child wanting a high school and college education must go to the city. In matters of health, however, from Jefferson's day down almost to the World War, popular opinion seemed to hold that the open country with its fresh air was the home of good health, and the city was the home of the physically unfit. But the World War, with its military draft and consequent medical examinations of millions of young men from both country and city, showed that although country people have a better chance for long life, yet they also suffer from a greater number of preventable physical defects. The city consumer who would favor the bringing into our country and settling on the farms there the cheaper labor of the Orient or even those European peasants whose standards of living are low, has a sadly shortsighted view of his country's welfare. Any public policy which attempts to build up the city at the expense of the country, such as a protective tariff on manufactured goods, may easily cause a migration from the country to the city, or conversely, a migration to the country of immigrants and others with an un-American standard of living. The important thing, from the standpoint of a noble and powerful nation, is to have a country population with a high standard of living. And such a high standard of living is fundamentally a question of the individual farmer's economic welfare, although this standard includes wants of a so-called higher order. In short, the private welfare of the farmer is the public welfare of the state.

The question of the size of the farm may be briefly considered from the standpoint then of the individual farmer. The fundamental question is the same-What will produce the highest net returns? Under the law of survival of the fittest, those farmers will survive whose farms conform most nearly to this economic test.

Family Size Farm.-Numerous investigations and "surveys have been made recently, looking into the size of the farm business, thanks to the newly discovered science of farm management. Only a few of these can be mentioned here. W. J. Spillman, while Chief of the Office of Farm Management, conducted such a survey in Chester County, Pennsylvania. This study emphasizes the "small-farm fallacy" (as some call it), and shows that less profits come from small farms than from large farms. Farms of from 30 to 40 acres required for each crop acre $15.00 worth of machinery,

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as compared with $9.00 worth on farms of 160 acres and over. Thus on small farms the expense of operation is much greater per unit of product than on large farms of similar type. The larger the farm the larger the total income, but the per cent of profits is independent of the magnitude of the business. A Nebraska farm management survey reached the conclusion that a "family size farm" pays best (Fig. 7). This is a farm which furnishes work for the younger members of the family and varies in size from two hundred to two hundred and fifty acres in eastern Nebraska. A farm management survey in Missouri, on the "Size of Farm Business," also finds that large farms yield more profits

than small farms (Figs. 8 and 9). On the large farm, 77.2 acres of crops per man are produced as compared with 15.9 on a small farm. The horse on a large farm cares for 21.2 crop acres, as compared with 7.3 acres on the small farm. Numerous other "surveys" in New York State and other states point to similar conclusions. In the Weekly News Letter of the Department of Agriculture for March 15, 1916, we find this statement, "Recent farm-management surveys indicate that the farmer with but little capital can, as a rule, make a better living by renting and operating a comparatively large farm than by putting his money into a small farm which he can buy outright."

Whether this statement be accepted for the whole truth or not (and it likely is not), it wisely stresses the factor of the purely commercial or economic aspect of a farm enterprise.

In Australia the 300-acre wheat farm has proved too small. In Dakota the 7,000-acre wheat farm has proved too large. Only actual experimentation can tell us what is the economical size of a wheat farm, or of any other kind of a farm. The experimenta

tion of the past, carried on in the various countries, as chronicled in the preceding pages, tends to prove that while big farms have bad features and good features, so also the small farms have good features and bad features. The socially desired solution of this problem coincides with the individually desired solution, namely, that sized farm which yields its owner the highest net returns.