Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1921-11-18
FARMERS ARE DEPARTING
GOOD Land Said to be Easier to Get
in Foreign Counties.
MANY HAVE RECENTLY GONE TO PERU
Richest Lands May be Had in Mexico
at Small Prioe-Whi!e Many Are
Leaving Thousands Coming in From
= Europe.
BY Frederick J. Haskin.

| OPS' o.
BY Frederick J. Haskin.
Washington, D. c., Nov. 1O.-Ameri-
can farmers are beginning to leave the
United States in considerable numbers
for countries where good land is easier
to get
Recently a colony composed of over
200 families left for Peru, where the
! Peruvian government has granted the
co,onists a tract of 650O00 acres of
agricultural and forest land. More and
more American farmers are going to
Australia and the Australian govern
ment is making every effort to have
them. come and stay. In Mexico land
of the richest kind may be had for a
very low price, and many enterprising
young American farmers are taking
advantages of the fact, as confidence
in the present Mexican government
grows. American farmers have been
| going to Canada for years, and the
| number Of them who ctoss the north
ern border is always on the increase.
The reason for this emigration is
obvious. In this country there is no
longer any free government land which
| is worth the taking, while private
holdings Of land are held at such high
valuation that an Investment in them
for agricultural purposes will not pay
| fair return. The young American,
farm raised, who has from two to ten
thousand dollars to invest in a farm,
soon learns, if he is alert, that he can
not get profitable start for that
money in the United States, and that
he can get one in another country.
Americans are poor colonizers, loath
! to leave home, slow to learn new
languages and customs. They lag be-
hind almost all of the European peo-
pies in colonizing the undeveloped
nar s. of the earth. But the need for
! land is the primary need of the human
race. Men will go, in the long run,
where they can get the best land for
the least money.
| European Farmers Go Elsewhere.
At the same time that our farmers
are leaving, record breaking numbers
of Europeans are coming in. But they
are not. to any considerable extent,
taking the place of the departing
farmers. 1t is perfectly well known In
Europe that all of the free and cheap
land in the United States is gone. II
! is known that South America and
! Mexico and Australia are now the
havens of the land-hungry and the
dispossessed. The intelligent German
and other European farmers, OF the
! type that came to the United States 40
years ago. are now going to Brazil and
! Mexico. In both Of those countries
there are large German colonies.
Italian and Spanish farmers head for
the Argentine, which lis now full OF
them. Meantime we are getting, not
! farmers who would feed US, but immi-
| grants of the type who hope to make
a living in the large cities, chiefly by
petty trade. While our farmers go out,
a host of peddlers, tailors, shopkeepers,
bootblacks and walters is pouring in.
1t needs no special argument to
prove that this is not desirable con-
dition. The question is to what extent
it may be improved. II
In part, no doubt, ,it.is inevitable. AS
the country fills up the amount of lard
available fa. settlement is bound to
decrease. Men seeking land are sure to
go elsewhere, both from this country
andN from other countries. No doubt
| the next generations, with population
increasing at it's present rate, must see
the United States become more and
more a land which men leave.
The unhealthy and avoidable part OF
the situation is that although our
farmers are leaving us, our land is only
half cultivated. If our agricultural
. lands were all in the highest possible
state of productivity, if the nation
were doing all in its power to feed
! itsself, like Belgium or the Nether-
/ lands for example, then it would be in
cvitablc that young men seeking farms
should go elsewhere. But when these
young men go away leaving grea'
areas of farm land in the northwest
crn states abandoned, and great areas
Of swamp in the south unreclaimed
and stump lands in the northwest, rich
in soil that are being neither reforest
ed no. cleared for agriculture, then
there is a sickness in the industrial
system of the country just as serious
as a failure Of assimilation in the hu-
man body.
Value of Land Speculative.
All who have studied this question
seem to agree that the basic trouble
lies in the speculative price at which
lands are held in this country. with
the population of the earth increasing
all of the time, nothing is so certain as
that land will constantly increase IN
value. Euy any piece of productive
land and hold it long enough and you
can sell it at great advance. This
increment works with the force ana
regularity of a Law of nature. AS a
\ result, all land in this country, and III
/ every other country where no free Iand