The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1916-04-21
As Farm Land Goes Up.

1t looks like a good augury-the fact
announced by bulletin from the agri'
cultural department, that the value OF
farm lands in the United States is in.
creasing at the rate of five per cent q
year. The value of these lands, without
the Improvements taking the country
through, is now S45.55 per acre, against
$40.s5 year ago, S403l the year before
that, and $3.50 the year before that. In
1910 it was 1920. In 1000, it was only
1857. In sense, this increase is a good
indication. 1t means gain in the
wealth of the farmer; and upon the
wealth of the farmer all other wealth
still rests in this preponderantly agricul-
! tural country. The farmers we'll being
| is the corner-stO of our national pros
perity. And yet the fact that farm land
is on the upgrade so rapidly carries with
it some disquieting thoughts. Dearer
land means scarcer land for the people
who are going back to it, Generally
speaking, it means narrower margin be-
tween the farmers investment and the
price he gets for his products. 1t may
also mean higher prices for food. 1t
raises more impossible barrier between
the man who works for wages and the
owning class. 1t squints more and more
at that thing which formerly we had not
in this country, and which we thought
we were never going to have-a landless
proletariat. It moves American life
step nearer to the social condition of
Europe.
+ The ideal state of the working populs-
ton in this country was found when free
land was to be had by anyone who was
willing to take it and live on it. That
condition left the laborer always q chance
to escape from wage service An increase
of the average value of farm land from
SIS in 1900 to S45 in 1916 is a most mo-
mentous, and even an alarming, fact for
the wageworker who looks about him for
an escape from that condition. If this
tendency continues at the present rate,
five per cent year, the hope of some
time becoming a landowner will by an
other decennial period apparently be at
an end for the wage Garner, and the cur
tain, for him, will be rung up on a pure
ly proletarian epoch.
However, there are bright spots in the !
even for the landless workers. |
If land is scarcer, less of it suffices for a |
than heretofore. The average |
size of farms is steadily decreasing, and |
the average production per acre increas
ing. Nor is there any tendency toward I
"landlordism" along with the increase
In the value of land. The total number
Of farms in the United States operated
by their owners increased by 2S0,3s2
from 1900 to 1910. 1t is true that the
number of farms operated by tenants
also increased by 1924 200, but tenant
farming in the northern and western
states is not carried on as in Europe,
in large estates, where many tenants
are under one landlord. 1t is independ
snt or original farming, no less than in
he case of farms operated by the own
RS. The tenant farmer is no less his
,wn master than the owning farmer
Tenant farming is always open to the
thrifty wageworkers WHO'S willing to mas
er its principles. Furthermore, with the
opening Of new drainage and irrigation
Projects, which are bound TO bring
realty added area of land into cultiva-
ion, new opportunities are continually
rising for the wageworker to become
he owner OF a farm. The door of oppor- I
unity for the wageworker 70 cease be-
ng a wageworker is still open, and prob
bly, viii remain so during the life OF the
resent generation.-Bo Transcript.