The ranch. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1902-1914, 1908-11-15


clearing of the logged-off lands of the
Pacific Northwest that utilizes the
waste or idle labor now in our midst.
It's distinctive features are
1. 1t will enable the landowner to
have his land cleared at minimum
expense.
2. 1t will allow him from ten to
twenty years in which to pay for this
without interest.
8. 1t will not cost other taxpayers
in the community one single cent.
4. 1t will materially benefit every
person in the county or state by in
creasing the circulating medium of
exchange on a perfectly sound basis.
5. This new currency is of such a
character that it directly enters the
channels of trade and constantly cir
culates through the arteries of COM
merce.
1t is selfevident that the cheaper
land can be cleared, the better not
only for the owner, who has more to
spend with merchants, but also for
the entire community, since it tends
to distribute profits. A man who
comes with $1,000 and is compelled to
acres cleared of roots and stumps,
has nothing left with which to build
a house. buy trees, vines, COW, chick
ems, etc. If he is to live among us,
he must perforce be carried" in some
form by the community.
BY the plan herein advocated all this
is avoided. He is not only able to
use his own $1,000 in fitting up a
home at once, but the community sup
plies itself with evidences of the Gre
alton of another $1,000 of wealth and
employs to it's own advantage labor
that would otherwise remain idle.
Every idle man in community is an
item of expense, since labor is a con-
dition of life. Every tramp, hobo or
unemployed workman lives either on
past savings or on the product OF
someone else's laJor. 1t pays society,
therefore, to find productive employ
ment for each and every one OF it's
members.
Feew indeed are the men able and
willing to get out and make living
from the soil by the prosaic means
of digging, hoeing weeds, milking
COWS, feeding chickens and the thou
sand and one little things that make
for success, who have the cash to pay
for freeing five or ten acres of the
''stubble" left by the first reapers in
our fertile wilderness. A plan, how
ever, that allows twenty years in
which to pay the cost, allows 1T to
come directly from the soil-the only
legitimate place from which it should
come. Land that will not repay the
cost of clearing and afford livel1-
hood to the worker is comparatively
worthless for productive purposes-at
present
If interest be charged the individual,
it must needs come from the fruits
of the farmers toll and necessarily
leaves less for him to expend in the
purchase of lie good things OF life
for self and wife and little ones. Ii
interest be collected by the public, it
is merely case of taking from one
pocket and putting into others. Ii
it is paid to the individual who may
happen to hold the Service Certifi-
Gates" at a given time in the year, 1t
not only imposes a useless burden on
the farmer, but Injuries the entire
community by forcing money strln-
gency each year at about the time said
interest becomes due.
1t would seem that plan which
proposes a manifest Improvement OF
conditions of living for some Of the
people should command the instant
and enthusiastic endorsement of every
other citizen if it does not cost him
ANYTHING. Almost anyone can afford
to be generous when it requires nc
outlay of time or energy on his part.
The plan herein outlined places the
entire cost of clearing the land on the
shoulders of the owner, but distributes
the payments through term of years.