The Future of Agriculture

A REMARKABLE suggestion has lately appeared in certain well-informed quarters of the American press, namely, that there are far too many farmers, that there is even now considerable over-production of farm produce, with still greater potential risk of such over-production, and that the only real remedy, drastic as it may appear, is the return of millions of farmers and their families to city life and work—if it can be found. It is estimated that there are about 6,500,000 farmers now engaged on American soil, but only a mere fraction of these are really efficient, up-to-date, prosperous, and contented; and the vast majority, more than five millions of them, have a desperate struggle to make a living. A vigorous agricultural deflation programme is seriously recommended.