The Leavenworth echo. [volume] (Leavenworth, Wash.) 1904-current, 1907-01-04
The Small Farm.

which were brought out when the area
devoted to agriculture in this country
was limited were we'll thrashed over
and. 1t must be confessed, produced lit
tie result. The cry then was for more
land. and in search of it ambitious
farmers and their sons from the At
lantic coast peopled the vast prairies,
the plains and the foothills of the re-
gions described generally as the
"west." Mr.. ]. ]. Hills recent warning
about our national waste of resources
has been made the text of sermons
upon wasteful culture in producing
crops. 1t is said that one acre well
titled should yield as much as has been
produced by two and even five by the
methods heretofore followed.
But in estimating the causes at work
in stimulating American land hunger
the productive capacity Is not the only
feature to consider Practical men
look to the selling value of farms quite
as much as to the value of crops to be
raised When people preached that ten
acres were enough, good farm land in
the whole eastern area ranged from
$50 per acre up. A man who wanted
10 start in had to be satisfied with
little or not start at all unless he was
a capitalist or willing to run into
debt. 1t was seen that wild land could
be cleared and put under cultivation
and sold at big advance within a few
years. Many farmers farmed 1T just
to get the land in shape, live off from
1t and pay expenses until buyer ap-
peared who would pay well for the i'm
provements. There was money in that
kind Of farming if done on the scale of
100 and 200 acre holdings.
In thinking of land values and the
increase to be expected from the set
Element of the country and the growth
Of commerce. the ambitious farmer nat
urally looked to the regions where land
was cheap, and that was in the country
Of virgin soil. If he or his neighbor
had doubled on the cost price of fifty
acres by selling out he wanted to make
the ileW speculation worth while and
reap the bmaft on hundreds of acres
No doubt but me of the easy money
farming the critics complain of was
due to IT. fem Of venture. But in
The l1lg rel t,,e American farmer has
enlarged n.s views according to the
growth of his family wants. An old
and noble ambition was that of having
sons ana daughters settle around the
paternal homestead. For this cheap
land was necessity. Than, too, came
the desire to educate children and set
them up in business in town. For this
ready money was needed, and that
could be had by working the richest
land for all it was worth, crAtng down
the finest timber for market and so on
to the end of the resources in sight.
1t is urged at times that the limit of
spreading out has been reached that
vacant sections no longer beckon the
settler; that the land already under the
pillow must yield more to the acre. the
tiller concentrating his energies upon
small area. But that is an old world
idea rather than one to be suggested
from present conditions in America,
in so far as some regions are concern
ed. The peasant farmer of Europe
merely seeks hi bread and clothes, and
that means scantiness of both. For
him five acres may do. The American
wants to be man of the crowd and
see r. sons aspire to the best that the
country can offer. He doesn't propose
to live all his days in sight of where
he was born and die without ever rid
ing on a railway train or seeing a
trolley humming over the course. With
the increase of farm values, taxation
and the necessity of high standard of
maintenance the size of the farm will
regulate itself. Landowners must
work the soil for all it is worth. and in
time its actual productive capacity will
fix its price Then farmers will see
their profit in good tlllage, let the plot
be 80 or 500 acres more or less.