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      We have not only one land problem in America, but no less than three distinct land problems. The most important of these problems has long faced the peoples of Europe and Asia, but is just beginning to be considered in America--the problem of providing land upon which to grow food for our rapidly increasing population. The second land problem, altho relatively first in importance today, is that of maintaining soil fertility, and the third problem that of preventing land monopoly.

      In discussing this question I shall deal only with agricultural lands. This is a farmers' gathering, and I shall take it for granted that you are all farmers, and interested in that phase of the question. We will probably have quite enough to discuss without taking up the problems of the city.

LAND SHORTAGE

      Until recent years few Americans thought of a land shortage. The government offered a quarter section of land to practically everyone who was willing to meet the very lenient residence and improvement requirements. If any American of more than 35 years of age has failed to possess himself of land it is because he has prefered (sic) to enjoy the comforts of the older communities instead of meeting the hardships of the frontier.

      The day has come when but little arable land remains unoccupied. Some land will be brought into use by drainage, irrigation, and a knowledge of crop adaptation, but the area will be relatively small, certainly not sufficient to keep pace with the present increase in population of food consumption. The vital point of the land question is, how can we produce sufficient food for all earth's children if they are doubled in numbers?

      In answering this question I must turn to two well known economic laws, the first called the law of diminishing returns in agriculture, and the second the law of Malthus.

      The farmer works for profit. He wishes to apply upon land the amount of labor and capital that will give to him the greatest net

returns. Every farmer recognizes that the farm with the best buildings, the acre producing the largest yield, or the steer carrying the greatest amount of fat, may not be returning a profit to the owner. Too much labor and capital may have been used in constructing the buildings, producing the large yield or fattening the steer.

      The following table of results obtained at the world's oldest experiment station at Rothamsted, England, and given in Hopkins, "Soil Fertility and Permanent Agriculture," illustrates the law.

      The figures given are the averages for thirteen years. The first and second applications of fertilizer produced almost equal increases in the yield of wheat. Extra additions of fertilizer increase the yield but little. Beyond the second application of ammonium salts the law began to operate and the increase in yield would not pay for the additional fertilizer required. There is for every crop and under all conditions a limit beyond which the application of more fertilizer is not profitable.

      It is also unprofitable to apply too much labor to land. In Nebraska, for example, the advocates of very deep plowing have not made the greatest profit, and the man who demonstrated that he could increase his yield of corn by shallow cultivation during the summer months was bankrupted by his experiment. The slight increase in yield would not pay for the cost of cultivation.

      Let us suppose that a man owns a quarter section of land, and plants it all to corn. It receives poor cultivation but nevertheless pays him a profit. If he hires a man to assist him, he would probably increase the yield sufficient to pay the wages of the man, and make a profit in addition. If he should hire another man and the three men expend their labor upon the corn the yield would doubtless be increased sufficient to pay the man's wages, so that the employer would have furnished labor for another man and produced more corn, but would not have increased his profits. If another man were added to the force the yield might be increased, but not sufficient to pay

for his labor, so the employer would secure less net return. Each additional man hired would detract still more from the profits of the employer as noted in Figure I.

      In the diagram the rectangle O M represents the value of corn the farmer could raise on his land if he worked it all himself. The cost of producing the corn is represented by the line H L P. The rectangle A N represents the increase by the addition of another worker. Similarly B P, C Q, and D R represent the increase resulting from the employment of additional laborers. The farmer makes a good profit by employing one man, but the employment of another man is a matter of indifference. As more men are employed, the yield is increased, but not sufficient to pay for the cost of the labor.

      If the price of corn should rise while the cost of labor remained stationary, the farmer could employ more men with profit, since the added value of the corn produced would pay for a large amount of labor. As population increases, productive area remaining the same, the natural tendency is for the price of foodstuffs to increase more rapidly than the price of labor.

      The competition for employment might become so keen that the man would work for lower wages and the employer could therefore employ more men profitably. The men would necessarily have to adopt a lower

tandard (sic) of living. This is just what has happened in many countries where wages are low. The cultivation is intensive, and the yield per acre high, but the returns per man are pitifully meager.

      This tendency for agricultural land to return less profit as more capital or labor is applied is commonly known as the law of diminishing returns. Marshall, an English economist, states it as follows: "An increase in the capital and labor applied to the cultivation of land causes in general a less than proportionate increase in the amount of produce raised unless it happens to coincide with an improvement in the arts of agriculture."

      If there were no increase in population, we would not need to fear the law of diminishing returns. We have boasted of our increasing population so long and so loudly that every school boy believes that upon the continued increase depends to some extent our national greatness. England, Germany, Italy and practically all other European countries, except France, have also increased their population in the last half century. The area of the land surface of the earth remains practically the same as when the waters receded and left Noah's Ark stranded on Mt. Ararat. The major part of the arable land is now in cultivation. Free land in temperate zones is of the past. The question of maintaining present living standards for future generations, if the increase in population continues, forces us to consider the land question.

      This shortage of productive land is not a new issue to many peoples, altho America is facing it for the first time. The productiveness of American soil, and the great developments of steam transportation, both by land and water, have made the so called land question less critical in England and some other countries of western Europe than it was a century ago. An Englishman, Thomas Robert Malthus, was probably the first economist to make any detailed study of the causes of land shortage and to formulate a theory by which the race could escape degradation.

      Malthus' reasoning consists of three parts. The first relates to the supply of labor. By a careful study of facts he proves that every people, of whose history we have a trustworthy record, has been so prolific that the growth of its members would have been rapid and continuous if it had not been checked either by a scarcity of the necessaries of life, or some other cause; that is, by disease, by war, by infanticide or lastly by voluntary restraint.

      His second position relates to the demand for labor. Like the first it is supported by facts but by a different set of facts. He shows that up to the time of which he wrote no country had been able to obtain an abundant supply of the necessaries of life after its territory had become very thickly peopled.

      Thirdly, he draws the conclusion that what had been in the past, was likely to be in the future; and that the growth of population would be checked by poverty or some other cause of suffering, unless it were checked by voluntary restraint. He, therefore, urges people to use this restraint, and while leading lives of moral purity, to abstain from very early marriage.¹

      In a new country where land and food are abundant the population increases rapidly. Malthus, arguing from American experience, said, "It may safely be pronounced, therefore, that population, when unchecked, goes on doubling itself every twenty-five years, or increases in geometrical ratio."² In showing that food production increases more slowly he said, "It may be fairly pronounced, therefore, that, considering the present average state of the earth, the means of subsistance (sic) under circumstances most favorable to human industry, could not be made to increase faster than in arithmetical ratio."² His doctrine may be briefly stated, "It is the constant tendency in all animated life to increase beyond the nourishment prepared or it."

      The second problem mentioned, that of maintaining soil fertility, is as old as civilization. The Greeks and Romans, and possibly their predecessors, were interested in keeping their land productive, and we read today with interest their accounts of the methods practiced. Any system of agriculture which leaves the soil poorer should be condemned, even if men secure great profits from its practice. The land should be protected because upon its continued productiveness the future of the race depends.

      The chemists and agronomists have learned how to restore exhausted mineral elements by the use of fertilizers, and to use farm manures and crop residues not only for their available plant food, but far their effect upon the physical condition of the soil. The knowledge upon these subjects today is far ahead of the profitable farm practice. We are more intimately concerned with studying systems of land ownership and land tenure in order that we may determine which system will best maintain soil fertility. It is easier to maintain than to restore the productivity of the soil.

      Earlier generations were able to abandon exhausted fields and emigrate to virgin regions. New England agriculture has declined for a half century; thruout the South millions of acres of land that would once produce upwards of a bale of cotton to the acre, without the application of fertilizer, are now gullied and grown up with old field pine. We have long known the conditions, but necessity has not yet compelled us to apply a remedy.

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      ¹Marshall, Alfred: Principles of Economics.
      ²Malthus, Essay on the Principles of Population, Bk, 1, Ch. 1, Second Edition.

      The third problem mentioned, the prevention of land monopoly, while of less immediate importance today than either of the problems already discussed, might easily become serious. The old adage that, "An ounce of presentation is worth a pound of cure," may be applied here. We should give the question immediate attention in order to prevent any further concentration in land ownership.

      Prof. T. J. Brooks in his text upon markets and rural economics gives the following interesting data:

      "Fifty-four foreign corporations and individuals own an area in the United States exceeding the combined areas of the states of New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Delaware.

      "The holdings of sixty-three owners, individuals and corporations in the United States, exceed the combined areas of the German Empire, Denmark, Belgium, Holland and Switzerland.

      "The same capitalists that own the great cotton mills of Europe and America are buying the finest cotton land of the South, and having them worked by negroes and cheap, degraded foreign labor. And these captains of industry are the ones that are making such a stir about the need of immigration in the South. Those who want cheap labor to work in competition with the self-respecting American white labor are the ones behind the various big conventions that are being held at various points throughout the country to encourage immigration. They already own six million acres.

      "There has been created, therefore, not only the framework of an enormous timber monopoly, but also an equally sinsister (sic) land concentration in extensive sections. This involves also a great wealth in minerals. The Southern Pacific has 1,381,000 acres in northern California, and western Oregon, and, with the Union Pacific, which controls it. millions of acres elsewhere. (The Government, however, is now suing to annul title to the Southern Pacific lands in Oregon for non-compliance with the terms of the original grants. The Northern Pacific owns 3,011.000 acres of timber land and millions more of untimbered land. The Weyerhauser Timber Company owns 1,045,000 acres. In Florida, five holders have 4,600,000 acres, and the 187 largest timber-holders have over 15,800,000 acres, nearly one-half the land area of the State. In the whole investigation area the 1,802 largest holders of timber have, together, 88,979,000 acres (not including Northern Pacific and Southern Pacific lands in untimbered regions); which would make an average holding of 49,000 acres, or 77 square miles.

      "Finally, to timber concentration and to land concentration is added in our most important timber sections, a closely connected railroad domination. The formidable possibilities of this combination in the

Pacific-Northwest and elsewhere are of the gravest public importance."

     The greatest concentration of land ownership is in timber land. It was purchased cheap, and the crop continues to grow with very little attention. The rapid decrease of our forest area, coupled with the increased demand for lumber has caused all timber lands to increase rapidly in value. The land was purchased not for the value of the lands itself, but for the value of the growing crop. The speculators who seized the opportunity will reap millions.

      It is a well known fact that in the past there has been much more speculation in cheap than in high priced farm lands. When land sells at $5 per acre, a comparatively small sum will buy a large number of acres. An increase of $5 per acre returns 100 per cent upon the investment. Crop returns are not considered.

      When land is valued at $200 per acre the initial investment is forty times as large for a given area as when but $5 per acre, and an increase in value of $5 per acre returns a profit of only 2 1/2 per cent. Such land is often held as a conservative investment for the annual returns of the land, but is seldom held primarily for speculation.

      The rapid increase in tenantry in the corn belt is sometimes put forward as an argument in favor of the theory that we are approaching a period when a few men will monopolize the land. The latest available facts upon land ownership are given in the 1900 census. At that time 80 per cent of the landlords in America owned but a single farm. This includes the South with its untutored negro farmers and "cropper contract" system. In the north central states, which include the corn-belt and some adjoining territory, 88.4 per cent of the landlords owned but a single farm, while only 3.4 per cent owned more than two farms. Of all tenant farms in these states, 73.6 per cent were owned by men who had but one farm, while but 12.7 per cent were owned by men who had more than two farms.

      Some persons are probably ready to suggest that some of these were doubtless very large farms. Some of them were large, but not many. Of the landlords in the United States, 55.3 per cent owned less than 100 acres of land, 81.7 per cent owned less than 200 acres and only 3.5 per cent owned 500 acres or more.

      Have a few men gained possession of the most valuble (sic) land and monopolized it to the detriment of the other men? In the United States as a whole in 1900, 81.1 per cent of the value of all tenant

farms, and in the north central states, 86.4 per cent of the value of tenant farm land, was owned by men who owned not more than two farms.

      I have given these figures not because this phase of the land question needs no consideration, but to show that it is not of pressing importance and that so far as agricultural lands are concerned, we are a long ways from land monopoly.

      The centralization of land ownership in England is sometimes cited as an illustration of the conditions which we may expect in America. The comparison is not particularly apt. In England a large part of the land is entailed, and cannot be sold; in America it is held in fee simple. Many of the English land owners would sell if they could, while American land owners are often censured for parting with their holdings too readily. The English "ne'er do well" who inherits entailed land cannot touch his principal. He must either be content with spending his income or else marry an American heiress. His American cousin has so often sold his land and dissipated his fortune that we say, "only a single generation separates shirt sleeves from shirt sleeves.''

      In America the percentage of men engaged in farming who are landowners has remained practically constant. The proportion of tenants has increased but this increase is almost identical with the decrease in other workers. Modern machinery has enabled the hired man to become a tenant.

      Table 2-Percentage of Males Engaged in Agriculture as Owners, Tenants, and Other Workers

      Perhaps the most important phase of land tenantry in so far as it forms a part of the land problem is the farm lease. The present leasing system has been aptly described as "a conspiracy between landlord and tenant whereby each should secure the greatest possible returns at the expense of the land." Laws are necessary to protect rented land if its fertility is to be maintained.

      While it is desirable that farmers be land owners, such a condition is practically impossible except in areas of cheap land, or where farms are small, and because of customs and traditions pass regularly from father to son. Wherever the farms are comparatively large and the land high in price as in the corn belt a large proportion of the younger farmers will be tenants. Farm land is so stable a security that it returns but a low rate of interest, and, therefore, the young farmer can secure this capital cheaper by renting land than in any other way. The tenants

who are the best managers usually become home owners. In 1900, 68 per cent of the tenants were under and 58 per cent of the landowners were over 45 years of age. Only 37 per cent of the farmers who owned their land were under 35 years, but 43 per cent of the tenants and 89 per cent of the farm hands were not yet 35. In almost every corn-belt community we find many tenants who rent of relatives. This custom is becoming increasingly common. The boy who stays by the home farm and prospers, is very apt, eventually, to buy out the share of his brothers and sisters.

      Land tenantry under present conditions usually returns but a low rate of interest to the landowners, is apt to be hard upon the land, and is often unsatisfactory to the tenant because of insufficient buildings, and shortage of hay and pasture. Some regulation must come, and for the land's sake it should come soon.

      The evils attendant upon our unregulated tenant system are to be regretted and should be remedied, but they form no basis for the statement sometimes made, that agricultural lands are in power of monopoly. If a few men had a monopoly upon agricultural land, as there is a monopoly upon coal lands and timber lands, they could control the selling price of farm products. Instead we find that farmers compete in the sale of their products, but that ordinarily there is little competition in the purchasing of these same products. Our pressing danger from monopoly is not from ownership of corn-belt farm lands but from the control of the products of farm lands.

      Agricultural land has always been a favorite investment of the middle class. It provides a job, a home, and a comfortable living, without the dangers which too often attend the ownership of stocks, bonds, and other securities. Wealth has preferred to secure quicker returns. It has left to the farmer the labor of producing the raw material and has secured its return in supplying the needs of the consumer. The centralization of great wealth, not in the hands of farmers, but in the hands of business is undisputable evidence of this fact.

      Our three land problems while distinct can be classed as three phases of the same problem. If there were no limit to land and its productivity there would be no land problem. The problem then resolves itself into a question of population and land utilization.

LAND QUESTION LINKED WITH MANY PROBLEMS

      When we analyze the land question we find ourselves confronted with such problems as the restriction of immigration, the dissemination of knowledge concerning birth control, the enlargement of our national

forests, a closer control of coal land that this important national resource may be mined without waste, limiting of the amount of agricultural land which one man may own, prohibiting aliens to own land, forbidding the holding of land by trust companies for a long period of years and protecting the fertility of land held under lease. I trust that our discussion this morning will throw light upon these questions.

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      One of the most important evidences that a land problem exists is the great area of land held in enormous tracts. So far as farm land is concerned we have been misled as to the extent of the concentration of ownership by considering the percentage of all farms that are large, instead of considering the percentage of the total land area in large farms. The census of 1910 shows that of the 878,798,325 acres of land in farms in that year, 9.5 per cent was in farms of from 500 acres to 999 acres, and 19 per cent was in farms of 1,000 acres or more. This means that 28.5 per cent of the total land area in farms was included in farms of over 500 acres.

      This does not show the full extent of concentrated ownership, for many large estates are divided into numerous farms. In our own state the heirs of one man own over 23,000 acres of farm land in one county, and more than that much in another county. In Kansas one British land company owns over 300,000 acres of land. Lady Gordon and others own 2,000,000 acres in Mississippi. One-half of the state of Florida is owned by 182 men, and one man of that number owns 1,000,000 acres. The Taft ranch in Texas comprises 80,000 acres.

      A recent magazine article told how a poor German immigrant who landed in this country in 1850 became the owner of 14,539,000 acres of land in Oregon and California. His enclosures included an area three times as large as the state of New Jersey. The same story told of how 100 men in the Sacramento valley of California came to own 17,000,000 acres of land. It told of single estates twice the size of Belgium, larger than Switzerland, and larger even than the combined areas of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Delaware. These are only a few instances of enormous land holdings, but they suffice to make my point.

      It is true that some of these enormous land holdings have been broken down in recent years, being split up into tracts and sold to settlers. But while that is going on, smaller holdings are growing

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