Many publicists are alarmed at the lessened production of farm products in comparison with imports, and fear that the balance of trade will be seriously turned against us, with a rise in the rate of exchange. It is not to be expected that we shall maintain our former rate of export of raw crops, nor is it desirable from the point of view of maintaining the fertility of our lands that we should do so; but the maintenance of production is now to depend on farming every acre better, in larger farms as well as in smaller farms, rather than on taking up new acres.
The ultimate importance of agriculture to civilization, in other words, lies not in the number of persons it supports, but in the fact that it must continue to provide supplies for the populations of the earth when mining and exploitation are done, when there are no new lands, and when we shall have taken away all the first flush of the earth's bounty. The character of the farm man, therefore, becomes of supreme importance, and all the institutions of society must lend themselves to this personal problem.
We shall never again be a rural people. We want the cities to grow; and as they grow they should learn how to manage themselves. How they shall meet their questions of population is not my problem; and I have no suggestions to make on that subject.
The abandoned farms. [1]
If persons move from any part of the country until there is a marked absolute falling off in population, it must follow that certain lands shall be left unused, or shall be combined with adjacent lands into larger business units. It is no anomaly that there are "abandoned farms" (they are seldom really abandoned, but more or less unused), and it is natural that they should be in the remoter, hillier, and poorer regions. So are shop buildings abandoned on back streets, and likewise factories on lonely streams.
Some farms in the remote or difficult regions are still well utilized, because a skillful man has met the situation; others may be very nearly or quite disused; between the two extremes there is every shade of condition. Some farms are falling into disuse for one reason and some for another. In some cases, it is because the family is merely broken up and is moving off. In other cases, it is because the farm can no longer make a good living for a man and his family, giving him the things that a man of the twentieth century wants. A farm in the hill region that was large enough to support a man fifty or seventy-five years ago, may not support him at the present time with all his increase in desires [(page 106)].
It is no solution of any question merely to put other families back on disused farms. It is worse than no solution to place there a more ignorant family than was on the place originally; and yet there is a movement all over the country to place raw foreigners on such farms as owners or renters. Because these farms are cheap, they appeal to city people, and they become temptations to real estate dealers. Bargain-counter farms are rarely good investments.
What is to be done with these farms is, at bottom, a plain economic question. If they will not pay in ordinary farming, no one should be forced to occupy them. They might be well utilized, in many cases, for community or county forestry purposes. Every county in the East that has many remote and difficult hill lands could probably profit by a system of public forestry, organized on a comprehensive state plan.
I have said that farms are abandoned for all kinds of reasons. It does not follow because a family has given up a certain farm that the place has ever been really tested on its merits; the man may not have been a farmer at all, but only a resident. Misfortune in the family, or the lack of children, may be the reason for the desertion. So it happens that some so-called abandoned farms are first-class properties to purchase as ordinary farms.
The best lands will naturally be the first to be taken up by persons who know. And the value of land for farming will depend very much on its accessibility and nearness to market. Even though it is possible to raise two hundred and fifty bushels of potatoes on a distant hilltop, it does not follow that it is profitable to raise them there. Many persons who are now living on difficult lands, would undoubtedly be much better off if they were in cities or towns; but as a rule, a man cannot safely enter a new business after forty years of age.