SMALL FARMING AND CO OPERATION.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2573, 6 July 1882, Page 4

SMALL FARMING AND CO OPERATION.

["Live Stock Journal."] The tendenoy of the present phase in agriculture is towards the working of lcrger tracts of land under one business mar.agemeni. This must prove profitable when directed by great business talent. A s:ngle capable mind direoting the working energy of a thousand men, will accomplish muuh more than those thousand men working eaoh on hio own planning. Tho business talent is not distributed in equal portion to all, aud when many willing hands are moved under one expert, they will become a unit of tremendous fOTCi). Bonfinsi farming commands all the le.bor■aavimg machinery for eaoh speoifio operation, ana can nse it with tho greitest eoonamy, Binoe the profit in the uss o! maohicery depends upon tho amDan; of work to be performed. A mowing maohine will do as muoh, and belts? work than eight men ; but if there bo only one or two days' work to be deno with it in a year, then the interest on its ocst would hirei tho labor done, and it booomes unprofitable. The small farms are, therefore, at a disadvantage in the use of machinery, and, for this reason, are sold to the larger proprietors, whilfc the small, independent farmers are becoming relatively fewer year by year. This result is not favorable to education or the advancement in oiviliaation of this class. Largo farms lessen tho population on a giren area of land, and, therefore, render it more difEcult to maintain schools. But this is only a part of the injury inflicted upoa the tion. Irjstead of being made up of iade-* pendent proprietors, with a small class of temporary laborers, the population consists of a few proprietors and a much larger clses of permanently dependent laborers. Tho aggregation of small farms into large ones is to bo deplored, and the effeotiva, means to prevent this result is an intelligent -00-operation among small formers in the purchase of saoh labor-saving implements and machines as are necessary to porform every agricultural operation most economically, li! a farmer of 400 or 500 acres can afford to purchase machines that uheapen farm labor, then 8 farmers of 50 aoras, or 5 farmers of 60, and 2 of 75 acres, or an aggregate of 400 aoree, made up of any sized farms, can quite as well afford to nse in oommon these machines. Those farms should be contiguous, and nearly in a square body, so as to lessen the distance of travel. When this ia the case, the msohines cost no more per hundred aores; and as each small farmer takes a share in proportion to his aoreage to be worked, ho is placed upon an equality with the most favored large farmers, and csa compete with them in the production of the samo crops. These small farms usually furnish ample labor to occupy the owner and his family, and with the aid of the co-operation here mentioned he might, having a little active zeal in his occupation, reaoh a muoh higher proportional production than the large farmer. Let us suppose that the expensive agricultural machines required to work 400 acres will -cost 1000 dols ; this would make the share of at 60-acre farm 125 dols—a sum that any well worked farm of that sizo oould well afford. It may be objected that six or eight farmors could not profitably use the same set of msohines ; but this would aeem to be groundless, ao one set of implements would work all these farms in one.

If all these small farms were well worked, these farm machines would perhaps do rather more servioe, and this would only add to their profit. It would not often ocaur that mora than one of these farmers would want to use the grain drill en the sane day, and ten to fifteen days w< uld usually ba sufficient to sow the grain on them all. Tho meadows could all be out with cno mowing machine, or, if not, two of these oould be purchased. A reaper will easily out IEO ?cres of griiin, and . therb would seldom be more. The horse power, feed cutter, and thresher would mate light work of it all. In short, there could be r_o praotical difficulty in working out this co-ope-rative problem with any wall-directed offart. It would unquestionably improve t*ae social relations of a neighborhood, whioh is sometimes muoh 'needed. Farmers n?ed mure business contact with each other, and this might lesd them to wider co-operation—to unions to secure more uniform prices for their products. If small farms aro to hold their position, it must be done by some suoh oo - operation as we have described. Aggregation into large farms i s a step in the wrong direction—it is a political and eooial blunder. Division, not addition, should be the rulo for landed property in this oountry.