nce
is cultivated by owners of farms averaging 7-1/2 acres. Four-fifths of
Bavaria, Belgium and Switzerland are in farms of less than twelve acres.
Even Prussia has 900,000 farms of less than four acres. These farms vary
in quality from poorest to richest, and peasant farmers are not able to
boast of their wealth. Yet some of the most fertile regions are made so
and kept so by the labor employed upon the small farm. Some of them also
involve large capital. The Isle of Jersey, where land is worth $1,000 an
acre, is so divided that an average farm is eight acres. Of course, but
little labor-saving machinery reaches these places. Tillage with the spade
costs five times as much as tillage by plough; yet the small farmer finds
such advantage from its use as to call it gold mining. It is probable that
the strong competition of immense farms in grain raising, possibly also in
sugar raising from either cane or beets, and in seed raising, will awaken
among the smaller farmers attention to finer grades of farming and more
care for the fertility of their fewer acres.

On the whole, the tendency with increasing population is toward smaller
farms with more intensive farming. Whether our country, with its stronger
commercial energy, will follow this tendency as exhibited in northern
Europe seems doubtful. It is not likely that we shall ever admit the legal
restrictions under which division and subdivision have made their way in
that region. The question will doubtless be settled by economic conditions
independent of legislation. At present we are far from either extreme, as
can be seen by reference to Chart No. I, p. 9.

_Department stores._--Increasing application of the principles of
aggregation is seen in the so-called department stores, which not only
deal in everything but with everybody, extending their trade by mail over
large territory. The very evident economy of such aggregation of capital
for purposes of exchange appeals so directly to the customers as to make
the sufferers in competition cry out in vain for restrictions. Such stores
seem sure to maintain their advantage in exchange, except with reference
to mere local distribution of every-day necessities and expert handling of
specialties. The community does well to give attention not so much to
restrictions upon this trade as to reduction of opportunity for abuse of
power over the mass of employes under control. The great establishment
will certainly bring more satisfac