Yankees moving west carried their slips along, and immigrants from other nations quickly adopted these hardy, transportable plants. For many a new homesteader in the raw frontier territory of Minnesota, those roots from Mom s garden were a last tie to an eastern home. Today, when those plants grow where no houses are, they are reminders of a time when farms were much smaller. I have lived in Minnesota since 1964, and in that time I have lived through what were widely described as three farm crises, in which Minnesota farmers were forced off their land in large numbers. But even when farm bankruptcies and farm sales are not in the headlines, farm size has continued to grow, farmers have continued to leave the land, and small towns have continued to shrink.
Economists talk about economies of scale i.e., bigger is better.
Economists point out that food and fiber is cheaper in the United States than anywhere else in the world. They did not view the earth they tilled as a purely economic commodity. They wanted a certain amount of sweetness and light. The rhubarb patches and lilac trees say so. A high eyes to acres ratio is eminently desirable.