Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 November 1874 — Large or Small Farms. [ARTICLE]

Large or Small Farms.

The strongest argument, in our opinion. in favor of large farms is. that they can be worked more economically by the employment of labor-saving machinery than small ones. Farm labor lias become so high-priced, and at the same time so inefficient, that farming can only be made profitable by substituting as far as possible iron and wood, in the form of machinery, propelled bv blind, insensate or brute force, for muscles moved by human intelligence. A farmer cannot afford to use machinery unless it will save labor enough to pay interest on cost, repairs and wear, !or depreciation in value from use. If S lie has but a few acres of grain to drill in, ! a few acres of corn and potatoes to plant and cultivate, a few acres of grass to mow, rake up and draw into the barn; a few acres of grain to reap, etc., etc., he cannot afford to keep grain drills, corn and potato planters, sulky cultivators, mowers, sulky rakes, and horse forks, reapers and other expensive machinery, for they would not save to him labor enough to compensate for the cost of keeping them. But if a farm is so large that the breadth som n to grain, for instance. M ill keep a i drill employed during the entire season of soM ing, and a reaper employed during the entire season of reaping, the saving in labor in a single season might go far toMrard paying the cost of those machines. Perhaps it would not be exaggerating to say that a farmer on 200 acres, raising ordinary farm crops, will hajdlv require t more help to do has work, in addition to the machinery he would be warranted in keeping, than would a farmer on eighty ; acres, "without the labor-saving ma- ; chinery. The only way small farmers can avail | themselves of the advantages of laborsaving machinery is by co-operating. If three or four small farmers would unite and purchase all necessary machinery to be used in soMing, cultivating and bar- ! vesting crops, they would remove one of the strongest economical 'objections ; against small farms. In our opinion the most important con- ] siderations in favor of small farms are of ; a social ana political nature. Small farms bring fanners into proximity so J that they can enjoy that neighborly in-

tercourse so pleasant and so necessary to the development of many of man’s higher qualities. They make small school districts and large schools, and many other social advantages which cannot be enjoyed in a sparsely-settled rural district. . f * Not the least among the beneficent effects of, small f Jrms is their tendency to make pat riots. A hireling who possesses no real estate, no home of his own, has less attachment to country, less interest in a good, stable government, than one 'who has a home and property that must be unfavorably affected by unjust and oppressive laws, or by riots and disorders in society. > „ To sum up the matter we shall have, in our opinion, the highest ideal of rural society when our country is divided up into small farms, and those farms are owned and worked by an educated, moral and patriotic yeomanry, with sense enough to unite and co-operate for their mutual interests. —American Rural Home. . '/ ,