The morning call., 1893-11-27
FARM POPULATION.

Commenting on the drift of population
from the rural districts to the cities, the
New York Sun draws attention to the
effect of labor-saving agricultural ma
chinery on the demand for rural labor,
and reasons that il boys born on farms
migrate to the cities when they grow up it
is because they can get nothing to do on
the farms. 1t points out how the work of
thousands of farmhands is now done by
the reaper, the self-binder. the header. the
hay rake, the steam thrashing machine,
the grain drill, the broadcast seeder aud a
thousand other devices, and it argues that
the men displaced by these modern i'm
proyements have been compelled to resort
to the cities in search of employment.
For time the increase in the number of
farms offset the diminution of work on
each; between 1850 and 1890 the number
of farms increased 231 per cent, as against
an increase of 40 per cent in the total
population; but a point has now been
reached when the increase in the acreage
of cultivated land proceeds slowly. most
available localities being taken up. Hence
the Sun argues that in the early future
the surplus population of the farms will
crowd the ranks of the class engaged in
duu uISl!lDublOu W oil I'LL
comfortable degree.
The Suns argument is we'll worth study.
1t is not quite new. Nearly forty years
ago, at the time OF the Crimean War, the
attention of the British Government was
drawn to the depopulatiOn of the agricul-
tural districts Of England in consequence
OF the drift of the laboring class to the
cities; the military auth critics reported
that the recruits picked up in cities were
inferior in physique and endurance to the
soldiers who used to be enlisted from the
yeomanry of the rural districts. There,
as here, the movement of population APP
peared to bode no good to the interests of
the nation.
But whatever may be the result of a
congested population in English cities, and
however injuriously the development of
labor-saviDg agricultural machinery may
threaten to work here, there is one point
in the controversy which the Sun has over
looked. Improvements ia agricultural
methods are not confined to the machinery
employed. They extend to every branch
of agriculture. including the treatment of
the soil. and this involves a demand for
an increased supply of labor. We have In
this country no high farming, nor anything
which would pass under that name In the
productive shires of England. Our farm
ers scratch the surface of the soil, scatter
lot of seed on it, and trust the crop to
providence. Thus our average wheatyield
to the acre is about one-half that of the
great wheat countries Of Great Britain. II
goes without saying that this will not last.
A time will come when land in this cOun-
try will be required to give maximum
and not minimum yield, and then labor
will be wanted on the farms.
High farming has been difficult in this
country in consequence of the size Of the
farms. No farmer can till quarter sec
ton so thoroughly as to make the land do
its full duty. Subsoil blowing. thorough
cultivation. intelligent manuring and scen-
tifc irrigating are Impossible to farmer
who has to handle 100 acres without
large force of hired labor. He may admit
the benefit he would derive from these
modern improvements. but he cannotavail
himself OF them. He is land poor. II he
were working farm of forty acres he
could take advantage Of the latest discov-
cries in agricultural science. and would
probably have more money at the end of
the year than be now gets out of 160 acres.
Sooner or later this will break upon the
rural mind, and farms will be subdiyided.
Mortgages will be foreclosed and new
owners will sell in small parcels. Owners
who are under no compulsion to sell will
realize that by splitting up their farms
among their sons and sons-in-law their
holdings may be made to yield a return
far greater than they did as an entirety.
And when that comes about there will be
a new demand for labor in the rural por-
tons of the country. japan, with an area
Tess than that of California, supports
population of over 100000: it does so
by splitting up its farms into small par
cells, 80 that five acres is fair average,
and the man who works ten acres has to
employ many hands.