to raise the labor market, so that it is difficult to get fair consideration of any business proposition that promises better conditions for the producer or independence for the laborer.  This is undoubtedly short sighted, as the higher intelligence of the people who have land increases production and gives enlarged opportunities for the profitable employment of money.  However, if capitalists persist in this narrow view, the money of the people when they learn and think, can be applied to this purpose instead of being deposited in savings banks, where much of it is used in increasing the wealth of those who already have abundance.

The idea of “helping others to help themselves” finds a responsive chord in the hearts of many wealthy people.  But the question is, how can all be helped?  No business method by which this can be accomplished has, as yet, been practically demonstrated.

In no field does corporate operation promise more for the betterment of human conditions, for a higher standard of morals and of education, or great certainty of profit for capital, than by systematically aiding men to obtain farms.

Progress proceeds on the line of returns for expenditure.  When a man’s economic condition permits, his first thought is to give his children an education and a better chance in life than he had.  Those who extol the simple life as the ideal condition of happiness do not mean that want and deprivation of necessities is the ideal condition.  If they did, they would put their children in that condition to make them happy.  Both extremes of wealth and of poverty are burdens and retard mental and moral progress.  The ideal condition is to be found on a farm where the land is paid for and ample means are at hand to supply the necessities for physical demands, with leisure to learn and enjoy those pleasures of the mind which come with knowledge of Nature’s laws, and wisdom to live in harmony with them, and in a measure comprehend the purposes of creation.

Mr. G. W. Smith, founder of the Hundred Year Club, suggests that there is an opening in intensive farming for the benevolent but canny wealthy who are interested in the soil and want to combine philanthropy and percentage.

His plan is to get capital to secure land and all the necessary means, give to each approved applicant perpetual leases of land for a small farm and a lot in a village site convenient thereto, with a house merely sufficient for shelter, requiring as a first payment sufficient to secure capital against loss in case the farmer forfeits his contract, say $100.  Let the company provide scientific supervision and conduct the operation mainly as though the farmers were employees, all the necessaries to be charged to each with only sufficient profit to pay the expense and a fair interest on the capital employed.  Through a purchasing and sales department all products should be sold in the best market and each farmer credited with the net result of his productions until the agreed