JUNE, 1923
THE WESTERN AMERICAN
9
TRANSFER OF AMERICAN FARM TITLES
QNE AND a quarter million farms in the United
States have, according to statistics gathered by
the Department of Agriculture, changed hands during
1922. As statistics of this kind have never been
gathered before it is impossible to judge whether this
figure represents an increase or a decrease compared
with previous years, but it is thought that 1922 rep
resents the high peak in transfer of titles in farms
and farmland in this country.
In nine of the down south states every fourth farm
changed owner. In six of the New England states
every tenth farm fell into new possession. Approxi
mately four hundred thousand farms changed owner
ship during the year which represents change of title
of every sixteenth farm in the entire country.
More than one and a third million farms in America
are operated under some sort of a lease or rent ar
rangement. Six hundred and twenty-five thousand of
1 these farms changed lessees.
These changes in farm leases vary greatly in dif
ferent states. The State of Maine is lowest with three
per cent, while the State of Oklahoma, with thirty
eight per cent, presents the largest figure in farm
lease changes for the last year, of all the states in
the Union. Whether the acute political situation in
volving racial and religious issues, which developed
in Oklahoma last year, has had anything to do with
the fact that so many people able to “clear out” of
I Oklahoma gave up their leases, is a matter not shown
I in the department’s statistics. Those who are familiar
I with the situation at close range, claim that the real
I cause for many Oklahomans “pulling stakes” can not
I be laid to ordinary circumstances but to the unpleas-
I ant conditions recently created in that state through
I the development of racial and religious enmity among
■ the people.
i
The growing tendency among owners of farms to
I lease their land to tenants instead of living on the
I land themselves and operating their farms for their
II own benefit and pleasure, is another startling infor-
II mation revealed through these statistics. The num-
11 ber of rented farms in America increased twenty-
|| seven thousand in round figures during the year 1922.
II Consequently twenty-seven thousand families, own-
11 ers of farms, gave up farming, left the land and for
li the most part moved into the cities, leaving their
■ farms in the hands of tenants.
I Tenants on farmland are evidently to a great ex
fl tent not of the sticking quality as another item of
■ figures reveal. No less than two hundred and thirty
■ thousand of this class of farmers gave up farming
■ during the year and sought other occupation for
■ various reasons.
I . While we are spending our time, and money making
■ the cities attractive we should begin to give some
fl thought to making the country proportionately at-
■ tractive so that farmlife and work on the farm could
■ be made more pleasant, in true appreciation of the
■ fact
a well developed countryside is not alone the
■ most effective background, but the very backbone to a
city. Minus this background the picture of a beauti
ful city becomes too transparent and indefinite to
make a strong impression and a populous city with a
depopulated or sparsely settled country around it is
not going to attract many of the thrifty, industrious,
conservative kind of people.
The people of the cities should learn to value prop
erly the people of the countryside and farm and place
them on an equal footing, regard them in exactly the
same light as they want the country folks to regard
the people of the cities. The white collar contingent
must learn to regard the overall brigade less disdain
fully and more admiringly and value the fact that
figuratively speaking there are one hundred actual
producers among the latter, as against ninety-
nine non-prt ducing consumers among the former. It
should be borne in mind that while the non-producing
consumer constitutes an asset to the producer, the
producer is as essential to the consuming elements of
the cities as the very air they breathe.
Too many farmers have quit the country and the
farms, taken up their residence in the cities and
joined the merry non-producing throng in order to
gain the “higher” social rating that even an ex
farmer with some means can obtain for himself and
his family as a city dweller.
Let it not be said of Americans that they are “too
educated” and too good, themselves, to cultivate the
wonderful soil of America, blest with tremendous
fertility, We should always be able to refute the
argument that immigration is necessary to Obtain
the labor essential to cultivate our land. Many agri
cultural and horticultural people now contend this
to be true with the same positiveness with which our
industrial captains charge that the restrictive immi
gration laws are keeping out the labor necessary to
keep American industries going. Let us prove that
it is an illusion that the Americans will not work at
common labor on our farms and in our industries and
that the work that must be done in these pursuits
therefore depends upon immigrant labor.
The Americanization needs were here yesterday,
they are here today and will be here tomorrow in a lesser or
greater degree in proportion to the interest the American
people are taking in the Americanization movement. This
magazine is possibly today the only publication in America
primarily devoted to this cause. If the needs of Americaniza
tion were not so obvious, the enemies of the movement would
not be so numerous, taking especial pains in discrediting those
who engage in Americanization work. The two extreme oppo
sitions to the Americanization movement are the group “doc
tored” foreign bom and the group “doctored” native born who
are engaged in a “warfare” against one another, but make a
common cause in their warfare against Americanization. Are
you for or gainst the Americanization movement? If you are
against it, you are not an American whether you claim citi
zenship by birth or adoption. If you are for it, to what extent
do you contribute to make the people of America a rational,
tolerant and united whole?
It is a great day in the life of any woman when she con
vinces her husband that the size of his income is estimated by
the way his wife dresses.
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