SMALL V. LARGE FARMS.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2660, 29 September 1881, Page 2

SMALL V. LARGE FARMS.

Whole countries in the United States are wretchedly poor because every farmer is trying to handle a “ quarter section ” —l6O acres —with only enough capital and working force to properly till a quarter as much soil. A farmer with two poor horses, two poor ploughs, a boy or two or a hired man, can get no more money out of 160 acres of land than out of 40, but year alter year he will try to do it, and only succeed in getting poorer. The big farms of California have been the subject of much envious talk, but the class of Californian farmers, aside from capitalists, who make the most money is composed of the men who have clustered in colonies where scarcely a single estate exceeds 40 acres. Any poor farmer with a large farm would be better off if he were even to give away half his land, for then he would be compelled to restrict himself to space that could not yield him less if worked at all, and would not put his pocket and muscle to the ruinous strain that now they are enduring.—“ New York Herald.”