adership of the country
population. Within the last two decades, since 1890, the farmer has been
gradually discouraged and has realized that his economy is not suited to
survive. The most representative farming communities today are those of
Scotch or Scotch-Irish people, whose instinctive tenacity, their
"clannishness," has perpetuated longer than in other instances the rural
economy and the country community.

In using the term land-farmer I am aware of its close resemblance to the
term exploiter. The word itself points to exploitation of land. The land
farmer has used the raw materials of the country. He has tilled the soil
until its fertility was exhausted and then moved on to the newer regions
of the West, again to farm and to exploit the virgin riches of a
plenteous land. The planter in the South, possessing frequently more
than a thousand acres, was accustomed to till a portion of one hundred,
two hundred or four hundred acres, until its fertility had been
exhausted. Then he moved his slaves to another section, cleared the land
and cultivated it until its power to produce had also been exhausted.
The difference between land-farming and exploitation is the absence of
speculation in land in the former period.

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 6: Rev. Charles Stelzle.]

III

THE EXPLOITER

The third type in American agriculture is the exploiter. Between the
farmer and the husbandman there is an economic revolution. In fact the
exploiter himself is a transition type between the farmer and the
husbandman. "The fundamental problem in American economics always has
been that of the distribution of land," says Prof. Ross. The exploiter
is, I presume, a temporary economic type, created in the period of
re-distribution of land. The characteristic of the exploiter is his
commercial valuation of all things. He is the man who sees only the
value of money.

It was natural that with the maturing of an American population, the
exploitation of the natural resources should come. We have exploited the
forest, removing the timber from the hills and making out of its vast
resources a few fortunes. We wasted in the process nine-tenths for every
one-tenth of wealth accumulated by the exploiter. We have exploited the
coal and iron and other minerals. The exploitation of the oil deposits
and natural gas reservoirs has been a national experience and a national
scandal. The tendency to exploit every opportunity for private wealth
has