These are facts, not theories. Here is another quotation from Prince Kropotkin's book. It also relates to America—
The crop from each acre was small, but the machinery was so perfected that in this way 300 days of one man's labour produced from 200 to 300 quarters of wheat; in other words, the areas of land being of no account, every man produced in one day his yearly bread food.
I shall only make one more quotation. It alludes to the intensive wheat-growing on Major Hallett's method in France, and is as follows:—
In fact, the 8½ bushels required for one man's annual food were actually grown at the Tomblaine station on a surface of 2250 square feet, or 47 feet square, i.e. on very nearly one-twentieth of an acre.
Now remember that our agricultural labourers crowd into the towns and compete with the town labourers for work. Remember that we have millions of acres of land lying idle, and generally from a quarter to three-quarters of a million of men unemployed. Then consider this position.
Here we have a million acres of good land producing nothing, and half a million men also producing nothing. Land and labour, the two factors of wealth production, both idle. Could we not set the men to work? Of course we could. Would it pay? To be sure it would pay.
In America, on soil no better than ours, one man can by one day's labour produce one man's year's bread. That is, 8½ bushels of wheat.
Suppose we organise our out-of-works under skilled farmers, and give them the best machinery. Suppose they only produce one-half the American product. They will still be earning more than their keep.
Or set them to work, under skilled directors, on the French or the Belgian plan, at the intensive cultivation of vegetables. Let them grow huge crops of potatoes, carrots, beans, peas, onions; and in the coal counties, where fuel is cheap, let them raise tomatoes and grapes, under glass, and they will produce wealth, and be no longer starvelings or paupers.
Another good plan would be to allow a Municipality to obtain land, under a Compulsory Purchase Act, at a fair rent and near a town, and to relet the land to gardeners and small farmers, to work on the French and Belgian systems. Let the local Corporation find the capital to make soil and lay down heating and draining pipes. Let the Corporation charge rent and interest, buy the produce from the growers and resell it to the citizens, and let the tenant gardeners be granted fixity of tenure and fair payment for improvements, and we shall increase and improve our food supply, lessen the overcrowding in our towns, and reduce the unemployed to the small number of lazy men who will not work.