A Stake in the Land Part 7

PRESENT VALUE OF PROPERTY

LAND ------------------------------------------------------------ _Acres Cla.s.sification Acres Acre Total_ _Fenced Value_ ------------------------------------------------------------ .........Cultivated.........................................

.........Cultivated (stumps in).............................

.........Meadow (wild hay)..................................

.........Unimproved.........................................

------------- Total value of land..............$.............

BUILDINGS ------------------------------------------------------------ _Size Material Insured For Total_ ------------------------------------------------------------ House.......................................................

Barn........................................................

Silo........................................................

------------- Total value of buildings..........$............

LIVE STOCK ------------------------------------------------------------ _No. Value, Total_ _Each_ ------------------------------------------------------------ .........Dairy cows.........................................

.........Dairy heifers......................................

.........Dairy calves.......................................

.........Beef cattle........................................

.........Horses.............................................

.........Colts..............................................

.........Hogs...............................................

.........Sheep..............................................

---------- Total value of live stock.....$..........

MACHINERY ..................................................

---------- Total value of machinery.......$..........

_a.s.sets_ _Liabilities_ Value of land.......$...... Due on land........$......

Value of buildings............ Due on live stock.........

Value of live stock........... Due on machinery..........

Value of machinery............ Other debts...............

Value of other property....... ------- -------- Total..........$......

Total.......$.......

Present net worth......$.......

These progress records are valuable to the company for a number of purposes. They help in considering extension of credit, in giving advice to the settlers, and in finding out what general business methods are the best for the company to follow in the way of a.s.sisting the settler to make a success.

As the settler's future well-being depends to a certain degree upon his progress in Americanization, it would be advisable for the company to include in the record cards items concerning the date of the settler's arrival in America, his naturalization status, and the degree of his knowledge of English at the time of his settlement on land. These few additional items would hardly complicate or burden the recording work of the company's local office.

THE ADVISER

The company's officials stated that the immigrant family when first arriving in the colony is shy and helpless. The introduction of the family to the new conditions and surroundings has to be made gradually.

A representative of the company meets the family at the station and directs it to a hotel, where it stays a few days before it is taken to the farm. During these several days the company's adviser calls often upon the family, talks with its members, takes them through the colony and introduces them to their future neighbors, and explains the local conditions. When the family is transferred to the farm the company's adviser still has to call almost daily, for there are numerous matters upon which the settler needs advice and encouragement.

The majority of the new settlers are quite ignorant of the methods of land clearing. This the adviser has to teach them. How to feed cows, what and when to plant, how to cultivate, and how to handle the products--in all such questions the new settlers need constant direction. They themselves give two reasons for their need of advice in farming operations. First, the European methods of farm work are different from the American methods, especially because in Europe they were not engaged in opening up new land. Secondly, having been engaged in industrial work in America, often for long years, they have forgotten the European farm experience to a certain degree.

While the writer was in the office of the adviser the settlers were constantly calling upon the latter for advice in all sorts of matters.

One woman came, crying, and said, through her boy as interpreter, that her cow was sick and perhaps dying. Another woman sought advice as to her sick baby. A man came to ask that a certain road be extended to his place. Still another man wanted to do some stumping on his land in co-operation with his neighbors, provided the company lent a machine and the adviser came to direct the work. Another man asked advice in regard to the extension of credit to him. So the stream of inquiries went on continually. The adviser needed to be, as he was, an extremely capable man to deal with the extraordinary list of demands. He was an expert agriculturist, energetic, and in love with the game of helping the immigrant settlers.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THIS TWO-YEAR-OLD WISCONSIN FARM IS JUST READY TO CARE FOR ITS NEWLY ACQUIRED SHROPSHIRE EWES]

In regard to the need of a trained adviser for the new settlers the president of the company explained as follows:

The greatest need for instruction is in land clearing, for the modern land-clearing methods--methods of just how to "brush," and at what time of year to conduct the operations--are entirely new to almost every settler arriving in the colony. No wonder we ourselves are studying, experimenting, and improving on land-clearing methods each month.

In general, our immigrant colonists are efficient workers. The fact is that some of the buildings in our new town site are being built by our settlers. A large number of them were contractors. Many of the foreigners worked in the shipyards on the coast. Some of them worked on big farms. We find them very intelligent and capable, and some of them very good business men. We have built over twenty miles of road this year, every bit of it being done under contract, and the contracts were all taken by our new settlers. During the past year about two hundred houses were built, and these were all contracted to the new settlers.

It is true they have many things to learn, just as we have. We are not really teaching them, but we are working with them, studying with them, learning much from them, just as they learn from us. We are opening up our demonstration farms, studying the problems just as they are. Our adviser's main work is to a.s.sist them in choosing the kind of seed best adapted to that country, to act as a kind of leader for the community, for they are all strangers, and until they have become accustomed to the country, and until leaders have sprung up among them, it is necessary that an outside leader, such as our agricultural adviser, should be employed, but not because of the ignorance or inefficiency of the foreigners.

Observing the actual operations of such advisers in a number of cases, the writer has been convinced that in every new rural immigrant colony an intelligent, sympathetic, and efficient adviser is needed, and that the private colonization companies are to be commended for employing such advisers.

CHILDREN OVERWORKED

In one of the colonies the writer observed that the settlers' children worked a great deal. On one farm three children--two boys and one girl--of ages varying from nine to thirteen or fourteen, were clearing land of stones and the debris of brush and stumps. On another farm, the settler's wife, with her two tiny and delicate girls, was cultivating potatoes, each one using a rake. On a third farm, two boys, one of ten and the other of twelve, were cutting hay with scythes. The boys were thin and pale. In talk they appeared serious and somewhat cheerless, although in a measure enthusiastic about their new farm.

The company's local officials and also the settlers themselves admitted that their children work considerably, even to the extent that they are often kept home from school. The settlers said that they understood the harm being done their children both by working too hard and by being withdrawn from school. But they are very eager to put their new farms on a paying basis in the shortest possible time. The company's officials said that they had so far not interfered with the use of child labor, but that in the future they would try to exercise some supervision over the work of children in the colony.

The president of the company stated in regard to the labor of the settlers' children that "in some cases in the cities, on the farms, and everywhere, there is an indiscreet use of child labor, as also there is a practice in many communities of letting the children run wild. I believe I would rather trust future America to those brought up in pioneer regions than I would trust future America to those brought up under conditions where no hardship, no pioneering, no work whatever is expected of them."

While this is quite true, nevertheless the writer's impression was that a number of the settlers overwork their children and keep them out of school at times.

SECURING CREDIT

As the company's overhead expenses for the maintenance of a number of offices, for the employment of a large number of agents and for commissions and extensive advertising, are heavy, the company is able to do successful business only on a very large scale. The head of this particular company believed that, in view of this fact, the tract of good farming land on which a company operates must be not less than 50,000 acres. He also stated that in view of the fact that the company's outlay of money, and especially its extension of credit to settlers, is very large, the reliable land development and colonization companies ought to be a.s.sisted in the way of credit by the public through the government.

During the war the company had great difficulty in borrowing money on the settlers' mortgages. They had to pay a high rate of interest. Since the end of the war, however, the company has been able through the banks of the financial centers of the North Middle West to float a large number of collateral bonds on mortgages. These bonds at the present time sell to the general public at 6 per cent. The company, its president stated, must pay the cost of trusteeship commission on sale of bonds, etc., which brings the rate which the company pays to a fair amount above the 6 per cent which the ultimate investor receives. At the present time there is no difficulty in financing the organization, although it would be very desirable to have state and Federal a.s.sistance.

Bills providing for such a.s.sistance have been introduced in the state legislatures of all of the northwest states. Congressman Knutson at Washington has introduced a land credit bill to provide capital for the development by land colonization of the agricultural resources of the nation, providing for certain privileges to soldier settlers, and creating a National Colonization Board.[7]

CONSERVATION OF WOODED LAND

While the company has made provision for the conservation of riparian rights, for roads, and even for town sites, it has done little for the conservation of wooded land. It has preserved the woodland on river banks and 160 acres of timber in one colony, and it has planted about 15,000 small pine trees. Moreover, the company encourages the conservation of woodland by the settlers, advising them to keep in timber from five to ten acres for each farm.

How far the settlers will follow this good advice remains to be seen, while the conservation of wooded land by the company is inadequate. This the company's local officials admitted, but they reasoned that it would hardly be advisable for a single company, or even a number of companies, to attempt to conserve wooded land or other natural resources the return from which would be in the far distant future. It would be advisable for the state, or even for the Federal government, to make provisions and necessary regulations for the conservation of wooded land and other natural resources upon which the well-being of the public at large depends.

THE SIZE OF A COLONY

A number of Polish settlers in one of the colonies visited expressed the desire to have a Polish church and school. They believed that if the national Catholic Church organization would help them, they themselves would be able to maintain their church and school.

This fact led the writer to a discussion with the company's officials as to the advisable size of a compact colony of the same nationality. They stated that if an immigrant family is established among settlers of another nationality, the family becomes lonely and desperate and after a year or two of such loneliness is apt to leave the farm, no matter how successful it has been in buying and cultivating the land. Therefore the company's policy is to settle the people of the same nationality together.