T

HE farm journals have records of hundreds and hundreds of farmers who move, usually short distances. Much, if not most of the farmer's profits during the last decade or two have been made in the increase in the value of his land, and to "cash this in" he has to move to cheaper land. But this moving is not "back-to-theland." The back-to-the-land movement is a movement of people out of the cities. Ask the farmer about it and he will shake his head. But even the most pessimistic farmer realizes that it is a better time to go on the land now than it has been at any previous time. And in return for small income and hard labor the man who goes back to the land recovers his independence and secures a chance to work irrespective of hard times and strikes.

Those young men who go out of the cities to the land as their first job are no worse handicapped in farming than they would have been in any other vocation. They know little of any occupation.

Those who have done other things and who later in life go back to the farm are at a disadvantage, but many of them make good more of them in the fruit business, on irrigated lands, or by truck gardening, perhaps, than on the farms that grow staple crops. And there is a vast volume of testimony from American men who have gone back from the cities to the country, of independence and prosperity found on the land. Besides these, the Swedes still go to the Northwest and till the soil and grow prosperous. In a little town in New York it is a habit of the bankers to lend a newly arrived Hollander money enough to buy land; because for years every Hollander that has come has made money; and in various places Italian colonies have been successfully founded.

There is a very real economic reason for the return to the land. Farm products

fetch more than ever before. In 1899 an average acre of corn would buy 164 yards of calico and in 1910 it would purchase 196 yards; it would buy 25 rods of wire fence in 1899 and 38 in 1910: it would buy 13 pair of overalls in 1899 and 16 pair in 1910. An acre of wheat and an acre of cotton have a similarly increased purchasing power.

The increasing cost of living bears harder on town folk than on country folk. The salaried class feel it more keenly than the farmers. The farmer is getting better off the city man is merely holding his own, if he is doing that.

In the great exodus from the farm to the city were many who failed in the city and had to go back where they came from. In the exodus from the city to the farm there will be many who will fail and drift back to the city. But there is a sounder basis for the back-to-the-land movement for city men with money, for city men without cash who are willing to work on others' farms, and for immigrants who are willing to work than there ever was before.

So long as there was free land, farming was abnormally stimulated. It was overdone. We fed Europe. Farm products brought low prices. The farmer was not prosperous. When the free land gave out, the pressure of population began to bring higher prices for farm products. Our agricultural products fell off. The price of land went up. The farmer not only made this increase in land value but he is getting a constantly rising scale of prices for his products. That is to say, the tendency of these prices is distinctly upward. As they rise, the rising cost of living hits the city folk harder.

Therefore, as the era of free land formerly over-stimulated agriculture, the pressure of population now swings the pendulum the other way. The most prosperous era of American farming is before us.

N ORDINANCE passed in April, 1911, created the Factory Site Commission of Baltimore, to consist

A

of one representa

tive of each of the following leading organizations and corporations: Chamber of Commerce, Merchants and Manufacturers' Association, Travelers and Merchants' Association, Old Town Merchants and Manufacturers' Association, Federation of Labor, Builders' Exchange, Real Estate Exchange, Pennsylvania Railroad, Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, Western Maryland Railroad.

This Commission began work in June, 1911, and already it has achieved some valuable results. For example: in 1845, the City of Baltimore acquired for $2,500, for marine hospital purposes, a tract of about 139 acres of land located just outside the city limits on deep water. The original plans were long since abandoned and by the dumping of old brick after the great Baltimore conflagration of 1904, as well as by the subsequent dumping of refuse by the Street Cleaning Department of the city, the area of the tract has been increased to 177 acres. Altogether, since the city acquired the property, about $86,000 has been spent to bulkhead the entire water front and make possible the increased area as well as to provide for deep water at the land edge without expensive dredging. The City Comptroller had the Topographical Survey Commission lay off the property in lots and streets and the secretary of the Factory Site Commission then succeeded in selling seven acres of the tract at $500 an acre to a concern that manufactures concrete scows. Since that time, seventy-three acres more have been leased on 99-year leases to manufacturing concerns, making a total of eighty acres disposed of within eight months. The

consideration for the total sales was $41,511, or its equivalent in rents at 6 per cent., and, at this rate, by the time all the lots have been disposed of, the city will have come out even on the property, notwithstanding the $86,000 it has spent to bulkhead the waterfront.

The leases for lots of this tract of land are for ninety-nine years, renewable forever, and redeemable at any time for a sum of money equal to the capitalization of the rent reserved, at 6 per cent.

An even more interesting work of the Factory Site Commission is its effort to make sure that all unoccupied city property shall produce revenue - land and buildings that the city will no longer require for municipal purposes will be offered for sale, and, if not sold, for lease.

The Commission found that an old truck house, abandoned by the Fire Department several years ago, had been acquired by the City in 1880 for $9,500 and to-day is appraised at $7,250, and yet it has remained idle for several years. Yet people had passed the property every day who might have purchased or leased it if they had thought the city would dispose of it. The City Comptroller recently had "For Rent" and "For Sale" signs put up on this particular piece of property and in less than thirty days twelve offers were made for its lease or sale.

Again, one of the municipal markets, built at an expenditure of more than $600,000 four years ago, has not been a paying investment. One section of this market was not rented. The Comptroller had signs put upon the property, announcing that it was for rent or sale and that improvements would be made to suit tenant. People were soon scrambling for the property and in less than thirty days it was profitably leased.

VOLUME XXIV

NUMBER 3

T

HERE are several ragged and ugly political things that ought to be forever condemned at this year's election.

One of them is the disgraceful use of money even in primary campaigns. The publicity that a national law and some state laws now require has so far been only partly successful. A bought primary is a double crime.

Another is the old scandal of Republican patronage in the Southern States. Until the party rid itself of the disgrace of Southern delegates to its national conventions (bought by money, or by patronage, or by promises), the party and Southern political character will continue to degrade our national life. The subject smells to heaven.

Another is the degradation of the Presidential office such as we have witnessed at the hands of a President and of a former President. There ought to be a way whereby the conscience and the self-respect of the nation may be unmistakably heard this year in condemnation of these things. All these are bad methods - degrading methods. There are also two large subjects of national policy-two big prin

ciples that the election ought to throw some decisive light on. No large question of principle had a fair hearing during the period of personal noise that preceded the conventions.

The most pressing big subject, of course, is the tariff. At the last Congressional election the people voted unmistakably for a downward revision. They have not yet got it. Another such vote is necessary. If this subject be obscured at the election by personal and mere party wrangles, we shall make little real progress by this year's contest. In fact, personal wrangling has so far played a hinderingly conspicuous part in the campaign to the loss of sober thinking and sane action.

The other great principle that the voice of the nation ought to be heard on is the governmental relation to business, especially to banking and the currency; but there seems small chance that this will happen. If the people at the coming general election, at which incidentally we choose a President, should give a decisive command about the tariff and about the Government's relation to business, we should be paid for all the trouble and interruption of the summer.