We must, of course, do the best we can to help the man who actually lives on one of these difficult farms, to enable him to make the very most of his opportunities. This is being done through many agencies. He has been taught in methods of soil handling, fertilizing, grass-growing, stock-raising, drainage, and many other particular features. But it is also important that we do not encourage others to enter the same condition.
So I have no fear of the abandoned farm, although I wish that we had a fundamental treatment of the whole situation,—like state programs,—so that lands in the process of returning to nature may be managed in a large and systematic way, that they might contribute the best results to the community and the country. We now know how to make these lands productive, but there is a larger question than this. Such lands—once farmed and now going fallow—may be found from California to Maine. In many cases they are not being abandoned rapidly enough, and this accounts for the human tragedy connected with some of the old homesteads. But they will all be used in good time, and we shall need them.
Little of the older country is worn out. Some of the best land values now lie in the old East and South. Movement to these lands from the Western lands is now beginning, and this is a sound tendency, as are most spontaneous movements inside the farming business itself; the railroads and real estate dealers may be expected to even up the situation.
The new farming.
Although the ratio of farmers to the whole population may still decrease, the actual number of farmers will increase. The rural districts will fill up. More young men and women will remain on farms and more persons will go from towns to farms as rapidly as the business becomes as lucrative as other businesses requiring equal investment, risks, and intelligence. The open country will probably fill up mostly with the natural increase of the country population, and there will be some to spare for the cities. We shall face the question of congestion of farm districts.
The general growth of population will make additional demands on the farm, not only because there will be more persons to supply, but also because desires increase with the increase of wealth. It may require no more food to sustain a well-to-do person than a poor-to-do person, but as one increases his income he greatly extends the range of his food and improves its quality. Luxuries increase.
But beyond his actual food, one's desires increase directly with his income; and, aside from the minerals and metals, most of the material that is used in the arts and manufactures, in clothing, shelter, and adornment, is raised from the land. The human-food products do not comprise one-half the output of the land.
We have covered in a way the "easy" farming regions. But in the end, all the country will be needed for productive uses; and the best civilization will come only when we conquer the difficult places as well as utilize the easy ones. We shall develop greater skill in farming than we have yet dreamed of. The raw and ragged open country that we see everywhere from trolley-lines and railway-trains is not at all a necessary condition; it is only a phase of a transition period between the original conquest of the country and the growing utilization of our resources. The more completely we conquer and utilize it, the more resourceful and hopeful our people should be. Country life will become more differentiated and complex. Speaking broadly, we are now in the rough and crude stage of our agricultural development; but the situation will develop only as it pays and satisfies persons to live in the country.
To meet the economic, social, educational, religious, and other needs of these great open regions will require the very best efforts that our people can put forth; and our institutions are not now sufficiently developed to meet the situation adequately.