ld not one bushel of corn. All his
crops "went off on four legs." "He drove his corn to market," as they
say in the Middle West. He bought cattle from the ranches, for none were
bred on his own land. He fattened them for the market, translating corn
into beef and he was well aware of the values of pork in the economy of
such a farm. Nothing went to waste. According to the formula in
Nebraska, "For every cow keep a sow, that's the how." Mr. Rankin made
large profits from his cattle and hogs.

It is true that he cared nothing for the community or its institutions.
On his wide acres family life was replaced by boarding-houses. Schools
and churches were closed, and many farmhouses built by the homesteaders
rotted down to their foundations. But David Rankin was a husbandman, if
not a humanist. His tillage of the soil was successful in that it
maintained the fertility of the soil, that it produced large quantities
of food for the consumer, and that it was profitable.

The following is a description of community life under the influence of
such great landlords, by a Western observer:--

"The city of Casselton, North Dakota, was originally started about the
year 1879. Thirty years ago the first settlers came to this great
prairie region from the New England and Central States. It was shortly
before this or about this time that the Northern Pacific Railroad was
built across this western prairie. The government gave to the road every
other section of land on each side of the railroad for thirty miles as a
bonus. That land was sold in the early days by the railroad to
purchasers for fifty cents an acre. It was some of the finest farming
land in the wide world. Out of those sales grew some of the immense
farms that have been so famous over the country and while they are great
business concerns managed with fine business ability, yet they are not
much of a help in the settling of the country. Here within one mile of
Casselton is the famous Dalrymple farm of twenty-eight thousand acres.
This farm employs during the busy season what men it needs from the
drifting classes and puts no families on its broad acres. These men are
here a short season in the summer, then are gone. They are rushed with
work for that season, Sundays as well as other days from early morning
to late at night, making it almost impossible to touch their religious
life or even to count them a part of the community life.

"Another farm is the Chaffee farm of thir