Agriculturists are familiar with the results obtained by Major Hallett's growing what he called "pedigree cereals"; that is to say, by using as seed only the best ears in his crop; and by giving to each grain sufficient space he obtained sometimes as much as 2500 grains for one grain planted. Even better results were obtained by Grandeau.[170]
We are only beginning to know how much can be produced out of an acre of ground. One thing, however, is certain: where labor is cheap and land limited as in the case of our unemployed, there is no method known by which labor can produce better results than by putting it to what is called "intensive culture"; and as the secrets of intensive culture become more known, it becomes clear that if the state would only take the trouble to set aside a certain amount of land for the purpose, it could without further expense than that of the first installation make able-bodied unemployed and unemployables self-supporting.
This is not a question of fertility; it is simply a question of space. Unfertile land is made fertile by intensive culture. It has been said that the Paris gardener defies the soil and the climate. Every truck gardener there stipulates in renting land that he "may carry away his soil down to a certain depth, when he quits his tenancy."[171] In other words, soil is now a manufacture; we are no longer confined to fertile areas; we can make any area fertile by the application to it of industry and intelligence.
Municipalities can contribute enormously to the fertility of the land around them. A district near Paris, called Genevilliers, was a few years ago a desert tract of sand. The city poured over this tract the sewage of the city after a filtration that deprived it of its offensive features. This tract has become of fabulous fertility; but the municipality having failed to buy this land before this operation, the increased value of the land has accrued to the persons who happened to be the owners of it; whereas if the city had begun by purchasing the land at the price at which it could have been purchased before this operation, it would have had here a tract of enormous value that, by the farm colony system, would have greatly contributed to relieve the city of the burden of pauperism.
It would seem as though the art of using manure were practically unknown in this country by the farmers. The results that can be obtained in this way are given in the Farmer's Bulletin, No. 242, where an intelligent use of manure resulted in crops of 6.7 tons of hay for every acre of cultivation;[172] and this not by the application of any extraordinary science, but simply by recognizing the obvious fact that manure must be spread daily and not allowed to lose most of its value from being piled into heaps, where it burns and degenerates.[173]
The farm colony must be so organized that it furnishes work summer and winter. As its name implies, the colony is not confined to work on land. Many skilled workmen would lose their skill if they were put to farm work. Swiss colonies, therefore, have a few industries established in each colony to which skilled workmen are put. This occupies unskilled inmates during the winter months when the weather is too inclement for out of door work, and also teaches them. Moreover, in a self-supporting farm colony there is work which can be done by the aged and the infirm, teaming, taking care of animals, plucking fruits and vegetables, preparing them for preserving, and all the small jobs that attend large housekeeping.
The farm colony plan will in part relieve the state of the expense of old-age pensions. Every industry will provide pensions for its own workers and thus the state will be relieved by the guilds; but there will always be some aged left unsupported by such private industries as will continue to exist by the side of the guilds. Of these it may be expedient to relieve some in their own homes; but many will find in the free farm colony an abiding place more congenial to themselves than the almshouse, and far less expensive to the state. It will be more congenial because there will be no more disgrace attending a free farm colony than any other state employment, and because it will be organized so as to render its work as agreeable as possible. It will never be so attractive as work outside the colony because it will be subject to the kind of regulations that attend all big institutions, so there is little fear of these colonies becoming larger than is good for the community. But it will be a home rather than an almshouse, and it will be less expensive to the state because of the work which even the aged can do.
The farm colony furnishes a system by means of which the state can compel the unwilling, able-bodied tramp and pauper to earn his own livelihood; where it can afford work to the unemployed without cost to the state; and can utilize to the utmost possible the services of those who are not able-bodied.
It must not be imagined that discipline of a harsh character is necessary. There are in every one of these colonies in Europe dark cells, where a man who will not work, or will not obey rules, is confined and kept on bread and water until he consents to work and to obey rules; and the very fact of the existence of these cells, and of this system, has been found sufficient to secure good work and obedience to rules without using the dark cells except under exceptional circumstances. The director of one of the Dutch colonies told me that he did not use the dark cell once a year.
There is no reason why the farm colony system should not be extended to the treatment of all crime except that we have prisons, prison managers, and a prison administration which stand in the way of radical prison reform; and the general stupidity which prefers the ills we have to the blessings which, obvious as they are, we have not imagination enough to comprehend. The folly of keeping an enormous population of criminals idle, within four walls, at an enormous expense to the community, when we could keep them busy to their great advantage, physical, intellectual, and moral, without a penny of cost to the community, is one of those things which future generations will find it difficult to believe.[174]