The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-09-16
ny FRANK c. CARPENTER

BY FRANK c. CARPENTER
 RIGA, Latvia, Sept. 15.-
 Oh, poor German guest
 This is no place for thee to rest What woulost thou in our wretched
 hut?
 Within 1t thou canst not remain,
 The smoke will drive thee forth
 again;
 For in the yard are wind and rain Listen, l will advise thee well;
 Go to the bottommost part of Hell Where the devil makes his fire!
 There's the place to cool thy ire;
 For there is neither smoke nor rain
 This verse is from an old folk song of the Latvians. It gives tn, feeling of the new republic in regar( to the German Balts whose grea1 estates have been confiscated by the government and are now being di- vided among the peasants. In 8 former letter I wrote of this move ment in Esthonia, the little republic that joins this on the north. The same conditions prevail here. All o1 the large properties are being di- vided, the Baltic barons who owned them being left only from 120 tc 250 acres out of the thousands each had in the past.
 The estates of the Balts comprised more than 60 per cent of the whole country. There were hundreds ol them and their average size was over 5000 acres. There were many of 10000 acreT and some which ran up into 100,00n acres and more. The estate of Dundega, for instance, con tained 1SO,0O0 acres. These estates have been built up throughout the centuries in which the lands have been in the hands of the Balts They have brought the lands under cultivation, have scientifically farm d
 
 ods. In many cases they have built mansions where they have enter tained and lived like feudal lords the peasants cultivatng their lands and taking somewhat the place the retainers had in the Middle Ages
 Today the barons have given up all hope of holding their properties Some of the estates have already been confiscated, and eight hundred of these nabobs of the past are each reduced to about 125 acres. Thirty thousand neW farms have been laid out since the republic was organized. and thirty thousand more will be created this year. In all there will soon be more than one hundred thousand new landholders living on properties which were held by @ few hundred before the war A tract three-fourths as large as tie state of Massachusetts has thus been opened to settlement. Hun dreds of surveyors are at work, and the new holdings are being dis tributed as fast as the lines can be drawn. Not only the estates of the barons, but government lands and others are being allotted, and an entire new land system is in prog ress.
 The Rush For Farms
 The desire for real estate in Flu rope surpasses that of all others and there are several applicants for every good piece of property. am told that there are at least 1o0, 900 men who want lands, and that their desires vary with their condi tions and surroundings and their peculiar ambitions. The tracts to be allotted are of different sizes, rang ing from industrial sites near the towns and garden patches of five or ten acres, up to the hundred acres or more to the dirt farmers who ex- pect to live on the land and get all of their sustenance from it.
 Many of the new farms have only 37 acres, and their average size is abe ut 55 acres. In each case the land Is sold at low prices, with long terms of payment. Some of the mortgages run from 30 to 50 years, and for the first five years no interest is charged. The men pay nothing upon taking over the lands. but they must prove their good faith and their pros- poets of payment.
 Motoring Through Latvia
 I have just returned from a trip V ith the assistant secretary of agrf- CT uture through the country near Riga. We have motored over some of the estates that are now being suhbdivided and I have talked with tht. farmers. So far the chief allot-
 in V- insl.s of Livonia. Courland and Mitau. I,stt gale, which is near Russia and is inN lbited largely by Roman Cath olics. has not been much subdivided. The, pro perty there resembles that Of RusA ia, the farmers living in the vil- iages and going out to work on the lands In the first three provinces the dustoms are more like those of Gernl my. It is to them that this let ter ra lates.
 .-The1 assistant secretary of agricul- ture tA Ills me that some of the land is beint granted on long leases with a low N lluation and nominal rental in such a way that the man can pay fer his property gradually and H. nally gel a fee simple title. The whole GO untry has been subdivided into dissuscts and each district has it's own land organization. Each ap- plicant must prove that he has enough halp to cultivate his holding, and horee. and cows and sufficient machinery He must give his expe- rience as a farmer, and furnish also a reputatIma for thrift and good character. lrhis evidence is brought before the lCcal committee. and, if they approv., the application, 1t is sent to the district committee who pssses upom 1t and forwards 1t to the state central committee which has the final deeSaion. 8
 al mi tee. The agriAultural official replied
 Tt is large k. md embraces the best classes of our people. One-half Of it's members bt Png tC the Parlia- ment, and amonas the others are spe- cial government officials and tech nical staff.
 Among the FarIa ers..
 As we drove aover the country l where. The old cabins have new roofs, and new ,Aobins are every where being conEt ructed. The new he uses of the farine rs are about like those of our pioneei s, when they cut down the logs to N ake their homes in the days of the ct 'lonists. The or dinary cabin has two or three rooms, and nearby are addu ional cabins for stables and storage. The buildings are better than thes with which our country was started. They have good and all, of the houses have stoves of brick mich run from the floor to the ceif1a and send warmth throughout the whole house. Once heated, the stos e will keep warm all day and all might. There are ovens in many tf tGh stoves, and in one six-room house I visited there was a hall through th~ center, on each side of which was stove m the wall. warming both ahe hall and $La aAi iAfr tro h It had as y,e1 no furni- tnra and the nennle sNee 70 on the