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 presented to the 
 UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 SAN DIEGO 
 
 by 
 
 Tom Ham
 
 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT
 
 Man's Birthright 
 
 New York 
 Desmond FitzGerald, Inc.
 
 Copyright, 1911 
 
 By DIBMOND FITZGERALD, INC. 
 Alt Sights Reurved
 
 TO 
 
 MY WIFE
 
 PREFACE 
 
 " AMERICA," said Walt Whitman, " has set forth 
 upon the most tremendous task ever conceived by 
 man; a task indeed beyond the scope of any man's 
 thought. Urged on by the inner destiny- forces of 
 the race, she is attempting to realize the race-ideal 
 of a true Democracy. 
 
 " To accomplish her errand she must be nerved 
 and vitalized by the highest and deepest of ideals; 
 for hers is a world-battle with all the relentless foes 
 of progress." 
 
 What must these " highest and deepest ideals " 
 be in order that her mighty task may be accomplished, 
 and posterity fall heir to that which man has striven 
 to attain through the ages? 
 
 Has the East anything to offer the West? Have 
 European nations discovered any definite ideals 
 worthy of emulation ? 
 
 No more than have the People of the United 
 States who stand stupidly by, witnessing the stu- 
 pendous farce that is being enacted and of which 
 
 vii
 
 viii PREFACE 
 
 they form a part; an exact copy of the failure of 
 Democracy depicted by Plato in his " Republic." 
 
 Have the People of Switzerland, who possess the 
 best of our so-called civilized governments, realized 
 those ideals; or may they be found in an industrial 
 Democracy as conceived by Karl Marx; or are the 
 ideals attainable only through methods of " single- 
 tax," as conceived by Henry George? 
 
 Iri an endeavor to answer these and other ques- 
 tions of an economic and political nature, we shall 
 take the United States of America as a partial illus- 
 tration for the reason that its population is com- 
 posed practically of all nations inhabiting the Earth. 
 
 It is the only nation that is recruited from all 
 nations; in which all nations are interested; and 
 upon which the eyes of all nations are turned, 
 watching the trend of its present social develop- 
 ment. 
 
 Its people are accustomed to constant social change 
 and experiment, and, being the least hampered by 
 the social prejudices and conventions of a traditional 
 past, they are, perhaps, the best fitted of all nations 
 to act as the advance guard of future human devel- 
 opment. 
 
 We repeat, that we take the United States as a 
 partial example only, but that which is here said
 
 PREFACE ix 
 
 concerning it applies equally well to all peoples 
 inhabiting the Earth to the most primitive as well 
 as the most civilized, according to the degree of their 
 spiritual development and the climatic conditions to 
 which they are subjected.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 1 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. 
 
 PRESENT CONDITIONS 
 
 i 
 
 II. 
 
 TAXATION 
 
 IO 
 
 III. 
 
 SOCIALISM. ITS FALLACY 
 
 20 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE LAND. ITS DISTRIBUTION .... 
 
 51 
 
 V. 
 
 THE LAND. ITS PRODUCTIVITY .... 
 
 58 
 
 VI. 
 
 THE ARABLE AREA OF THE EARTH 
 
 88 
 
 VII. 
 
 TOWNS AND CITIES 
 
 95 
 
 VIII. 
 
 FAMILY HOLDINGS AND INHERITANCE 
 
 105 
 
 IX. 
 
 WOOD 
 
 "3 
 
 X. 
 
 
 118 
 
 XI. 
 
 WATER 
 
 132 
 
 XII. 
 
 MINERALS 
 
 137 
 
 XIII. 
 
 CONTROL OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE EARTH'S 
 
 
 
 NATURAL RESOURCES 
 
 144 
 
 XIV. 
 
 
 14.8 
 
 XV. 
 
 WILD ANIMALS 
 
 *f w 
 
 152 
 
 XVI. 
 
 
 171 
 
 XVII. 
 
 LAWS AND THEIR ENFORCEMENT .... 
 
 * / * 
 
 I 7 6 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 
 18? 
 
 XIX. 
 
 CORPORATIONS 
 
 * J 
 
 188 
 
 XX. 
 
 
 1 80 
 
 XXI. 
 
 THE ARMY AND NAVY 
 
 * v 7 
 
 IQI 
 
 XXII. 
 
 THE RECONSTRUCTION 
 
 193 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 THE TRUTH SHALL MAKE You FREE 
 
 2O2 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 " " ...... ... 
 
 216 
 
 XXV. 
 
 11 .. i. 
 
 237 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 <. it n 
 
 256 
 
 
 EPILOGUE 
 
 266 
 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 267
 
 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 PRESENT CONDITIONS 
 
 / ~1~ V HE war of the classes has begun. 
 
 Owing to the unequal distribution and monop- 
 olization by the individual of the Earth's nat- 
 ural resources, society to-day stands divided against 
 itself. 
 
 Every man's hand is against his fellow. 
 
 The representatives of Organized Capital, syndi- 
 cates, and trusts, whose sole aim is that of profit- 
 making regardless of consequences, not only endeavor 
 to crush all small competitors within their spheres 
 of industry, but by reason of their power acquired 
 through the accumulation of enormous wealth, are 
 to-day able to plunge whole nations into war merely 
 to serve their private ends; while Organized Labor 
 seeks no less determinedly to stifle all independent 
 effort on the part of the workingman who refuses to 
 recognize its Unions or Organizations.
 
 2 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 Unless you make common cause with us, both Or- 
 ganized Capital and Labor declare, you shall neither 
 work nor engage in independent commercial pursuits. 
 
 Both being monopolies, both are in the wrong. 
 
 No man possesses the right either to dictate or 
 determine what the individual shall do, or how he 
 shall conduct his life or private affairs so long as 
 his actions and motives are honorable. 
 
 Nevertheless, Labor like Capital is now employ- 
 ing the same weapons against the individual brute 
 force and organized violence masking as law. 
 
 The struggle is a most unnatural one. 
 
 The basic commercial principle existing between 
 man and man, or the natural law of voluntary com- 
 petition which leads to progress is being entirely 
 changed, and in its stead, the economic combination 
 of force is supplanting economic competition. 
 
 But this is only a beginning. 
 
 A combination leads to the combination of com- 
 binations, which, if not checked, must inevitably lead 
 to its natural outgrowth, the combination into one 
 organization of the entire industries of the land, 
 rendering it impossible for the laborer or employe 
 to find more than one employer, and the consumer 
 more than one seller from whom to purchase wares 
 and the necessities of life. And this in reality means
 
 PRESENT CONDITIONS 3 
 
 that there will no longer be a distinction between 
 the laborer and the consumer, but all will become the 
 slaves of the few who control the sources from whence 
 the necessities of life are obtained. 
 
 The same hands that control the railroads, will 
 control the land, forests, and minerals the same 
 hands that control the banks, will control the Na- 
 tional Treasury, or, in other words, controlling the 
 sources from whence the People's necessities of life 
 are obtained, they will control the Government as 
 well. 
 
 The power already acquired by Organized Capital 
 is such that it to-day controls the financial markets 
 of the world, subjecting the Public to its constant 
 caprice of raising and lowering prices and commercial 
 rates of interest, and compelling it to accept adul- 
 terations of food, imitations and machine-made arti- 
 cles at a higher price than that at which goods of a 
 superior quality might be had were there other com- 
 petitors in the field. 
 
 The cost of living has increased so steadily through- 
 out the world that the problem of acquiring a liveli- 
 hood is fast becoming a serious one for the majority 
 of people. 
 
 Within the immediate confines of the financial 
 centers of the world rents have risen out of all pro-
 
 4 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 portion to legitimate earnings, but in the average 
 communities and rural districts throughout the 
 country they are either stationary or are depreciating. 
 
 Wages, it is true, increase in special occupations 
 and in special localities, but not in general, and not 
 in the same proportion as the increase in expenses. 
 
 The average wage-earner receiving from forty to 
 sixty dollars a month in America, or half or three- 
 fourths that amount in Europe, finds it practically 
 impossible to save ever so little, and is forced to live 
 on the plainest of fare; while every second member 
 of the working classes who attains the age of sixty- 
 five dies a pauper. 
 
 In short, things in general which go to make life 
 comparatively comfortable and enjoyable for people 
 of moderate means have increased so enormously in 
 price that many of them which were once regarded 
 as everyday necessities have become luxuries. 
 
 ' The rich become richer and continue to accumu- 
 late wealth out of all proportion to the individual 
 of the community; the poor become poorer, and 
 each day their lot more hopeless." 
 
 Everything is sacrificed to profit-making. Private 
 fortunes run up to hundreds of millions, while crime
 
 PRESENT CONDITIONS 5 
 
 and degeneracy and want and misery increase on 
 every hand. 
 
 When crime, degeneracy, and pauperism are 
 steadily on the increase, and we are annually com- 
 pelled to build new asylums and prisons, there can 
 be little doubt but that society as a whole throughout 
 the world is no longer progressing but retrograding. 
 
 " Broadly viewed, the main characteristic of our 
 industrial system, the characteristic which distin- 
 guishes it from those of all other ages, is its mechan- 
 ism. The past has had its great empires, its highly 
 developed philosophies, literatures, and political sys- 
 tems; but no other age ever had so much mechanism. 
 The whole world, to some extent, and the United 
 States in particular, has been developed into one vast 
 machine for the production and distribution of 
 goods." 
 
 The nations have thrown moderation to the winds 
 in the scramble for wealth. Idleness, extravagance, 
 dishonesty, and lack of moral responsibility are met 
 with on every hand, while the brutality, sang-froid, 
 and indifference with which those in power lord it 
 over the community might well cause the Gods to 
 pause and marvel at the patience and stupidity of
 
 6 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 the populace, did they concern themselves with the 
 petty affairs of men. Men without the slightest 
 talent or claim to greatness are received with the 
 acclamations due a Cassar, the people quite for- 
 getting that truly great men are the mediums through 
 which the truth is voiced in all times, and therefore 
 need neither ovations, statues, nor tablets to commem- 
 orate their deeds and names. 
 
 In England, forty-three per cent of the popula- 
 tion, however hard they may work, however thrifty 
 they may be, are not able to command an income 
 sufficient to provide for a standard of workhouse sub- 
 sistence. Further, there are always over a million of 
 unemployed and over a million paupers. 
 
 The cost of living in the United States has risen 
 about fifty per cent between the years 1896-1906. 
 Twenty to thirty per cent of the entire working popu- 
 lation are out of work a part of every year, and 
 more than two million of the workers are unem- 
 ployed from four to six months in the year; while 
 forty-five per cent receive a bare living wage. One 
 per cent of the families of the United States hold 
 more than ninety-nine per cent of the national wealth. 
 
 Ten million of our people are always underfed 
 and wretchedly housed, and of these four million 
 are forced to depend upon State or City relief funds
 
 PRESENT CONDITIONS 7 
 
 for sustenance. Nearly half the families in the 
 country are propertyless. Over a million, seven hun- 
 dred thousand little children are forced to become 
 wage-earners. The fact that the daily wage of a 
 little child, thirty cents, often goes to procure supper 
 for the whole family, and " may mean the difference 
 between coal and no coal in winter, and ice and no 
 ice in summer," amply illustrates the degradation to 
 which certain classes of our people are reduced. 
 
 Such are the conditions which are increasing more 
 or less rapidly over the entire civilized world. 
 
 The shifting sand upon which the whole structure 
 of modern society is based is a striking illustration 
 of the inevitable outcome of the false doctrine 
 promulgated by Adam Smith in his " Wealth of 
 Nations," namely: that the individual in pursuing 
 his own interest is promoting the interests of all; an 
 assumption plainly contrary to fact. 
 
 " The trust," says Mr. Keir Hardie, " constitutes 
 the modern menace to progress. It places the pro- 
 ducer and the consumer alike at the mercy of the 
 over-rich. The trust is more rapacious than the rob- 
 ber barons were of old. It is the bandit of com- 
 merce, the vampire of trade. . . . The trust is 
 dangerous to national life and destructive of the
 
 8 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 freedom of the individual. Its operations can only 
 be successful through the intimidation of the work- 
 ingman, corruption of the press, and control of 
 politics." 
 
 The ascendancy of Organized Capital is fast be- 
 coming that of the Beast of Revelation upon whose 
 back is mounted the great Whore Babylon, before 
 whom all men shall bow, rich and poor, and bond 
 and free alike, and by means of whose power no man 
 shall buy or sell save he who bears the mark of the 
 Beast; a fitting climax to the much vaunted progress 
 attained by present civilization. 
 
 But what does all this go to prove? It proves 
 beyond a doubt that the trusts are merely an exagger- 
 ated form of what unbridled individual power may 
 assume, and although reared and fostered on the 
 legitimate commercial principles of our time, and 
 therefore standing quite within the law, they never- 
 theless emphasize the fact that the entire commercial 
 system of the world to-day is a false one. 
 
 Political equality cannot remedy social inequality. 
 So long as the mass of the people lack an equal chance 
 in life with the dominant minority or ruling class, 
 the growth and operation of our financial trusts and 
 syndicates will not only continue, but the organized
 
 PRESENT CONDITIONS 9 
 
 tyranny resulting from the unequal distribution of 
 wealth and power will destroy every civilization in 
 the future the same as it has in the past. 
 
 The direct cause of existing evils is not far to 
 seek. The laws of force and organized violence 
 being still as strenuously upheld and recognized by 
 society as righteous and justifiable as in the days when 
 the might of the sword prevailed, it becomes a simple 
 and easy matter for individuals who have accumu- 
 lated wealth to enslave the people by buying land, 
 wood, and minerals, the initial sources of all wealth, 
 and holding them as their own under the shelter of 
 unjust laws, to dispose of them as best meets the re- 
 quirements of their private ends. 
 
 It is a mistake to imagine that the rich are par- 
 ticularly to blame for present conditions. 
 
 We are all to blame. The blood is on the hands 
 of all of us; rich and poor alike. The rich and 
 governing class, owing to their indifference to the 
 suffering of the masses the poor because they toler- 
 ate such conditions. 
 
 When injustice endures for generations it is no 
 longer the fault of the Government or a class of 
 men, but of the entire Nation, which like the in- 
 dividual possesses a conscience, and if it submits 
 to injustice, is guilty of cowardice.
 
 II 
 
 TAXATION 
 
 /""''AN taxation remedy social inequalities? The 
 ^^ advocates of Henry George's taxation theory 
 claim that a single-tax placed upon land will remedy 
 existing economic ills the world over, and bring the 
 control of the Earth and its natural resources back 
 into the hands of the People. 
 
 It is strange that a man possessing the keen, analyt- 
 ical mind of Henry George should not have perceived 
 the futility of his scheme or, indeed, of any scheme 
 for curing human ills by means of taxation. No 
 system of taxation can possibly be devised that will 
 in itself remedy existing economic inequalities or 
 overcome the evils resulting from the monopolization 
 of land and its raw products. 
 
 The adoption of his single-tax theory would have 
 little other effect than that of shifting the burden of 
 taxation from one quarter to another; creating a 
 State monopoly upon the Earth's natural resources in 
 place of the individual's monopoly of to-day. 
 
 10
 
 TAXATION ii 
 
 The State has no more right to monopolize land 
 and its natural resources than has the individual. 
 
 Under Henry George's taxation system the in- 
 dividual or corporation that to-day holds hundreds 
 or thousands of acres of land with its forests and 
 minerals could continue in possession of them so long 
 as the single-tax or rent demanded by the Govern- 
 ment was paid. And naturally the tax exacted by 
 the State from those who rented the forests and 
 mines would be added to the price of the wood and 
 minerals; so that the consumer would virtually pay 
 not only the price of the wood and minerals, but the 
 tax demanded by the State as well. 
 
 The public would derive no benefit whatever from 
 such a change. 
 
 The representatives of capital would still remain 
 in control of the earth's natural resources; would 
 still be able to prevent others from using or culti- 
 vating their rightful portion of the land; would still, 
 so long as the single-tax was paid, be able to keep 
 other men from their birthright. 
 
 The practice of collecting tithes or taxes is as old 
 as the history of civilization. And yet, in spite of 
 the supposed benefits resulting therefrom, both his- 
 tory and present conditions show that it has added 
 nothing to the advancement of the human race.
 
 12 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 On the contrary, excessive taxation has been from 
 time immemorial the chief cause of the overthrow 
 of governments, for the reason that, once the in- 
 stitution is adopted, the rate of taxation never de- 
 creases but steadily increases. 
 
 Taxation in a moderate form, however, is in 
 reality not an evil, but highly beneficial to the State 
 or community desiring it, provided the revenues col- 
 lected are raised with the consent of the majority of 
 its members, and expended on useful, not harmful 
 purposes. If on the latter, better for that com- 
 munity to go without taxes altogether. 
 
 Without taxation there could be neither govern- 
 mental nor communal institutions beyond the primi- 
 tive order of the tribe or clan, whose members, while 
 recognizing the leadership of chiefs, contribute 
 nothing to their support; compelling them to acquire 
 their own livelihood the same as the humblest mem- 
 ber of the community. 
 
 Indeed, without taxation society must inevitably 
 revert to a state of simple husbandry of industry 
 and barter. 
 
 Nevertheless, while granting that taxation in some 
 form or other is a governmental necessity if mod- 
 erately imposed, the fact remains that it is in effect 
 a fine placed by the State upon human energy.
 
 TAXATION 13 
 
 If I save or economize in order that I may in- 
 crease my gains, down comes the tax-collector upon 
 me as a penalty for my thrift. If I construct a 
 railroad or a canal, or cultivate the soil, or drain a 
 swamp, or erect a factory or a building, benefiting 
 the community in which I dwell and the country 
 at large, down comes the tax-gatherer again. I am 
 robbed of the fruits of my labor, and treated not as 
 a benefactor to the State, but as a malefactor or a 
 public nuisance ; being compelled to pay a fine. 
 
 This is no mere figure of speech, but the exact 
 definition of taxation intelligible to all. 
 
 Taxation should not assume the nature of a pen- 
 alty placed upon human energy. If men wish to 
 enjoy the fruits of their labor they must guard 
 against excessive taxation, the result of ignorance 
 and indifference on the part of the general public 
 and of the extravagance and corruption of those in 
 power. 
 
 Overtax the masses and you make paupers of 
 them, a burden and a menace to the State. Overtax 
 the rich and you will have no rich. 
 
 There should be a reasonable maximum rate of 
 taxation fixed by law which should never be over- 
 stepped; while it should ever be the aim of the 
 community to reduce taxation to a minimum. The
 
 i 4 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 tax, moreover, should apply equally to all citizens 
 of the State with no discrimination in favor either of 
 the rich or the poor. 
 
 The Income-tax is the only rational method by 
 which such an equalization of taxation can be at- 
 tained. It admits of no partiality toward the in- 
 dividual. It is the most just and rational system 
 of taxation for the reason that men would pay a 
 fair rate of percentage on what they earn. 
 
 Men are to-day compelled to pay taxes, accord- 
 ing to the systems in vogue, not only on their in- 
 comes, but on everything else they possess as well. 
 
 If I buy a piece of land or city property, paying 
 the price demanded, I still continue paying for it so 
 long as I own it. If I build a home and pay the 
 cost of its construction, I am annually taxed for it. 
 If I buy a horse or a watch, a piano, or books, or 
 anything else, I never succeed in paying for them, 
 but must still continue to settle for them until finally 
 I have paid their original value over again. 
 
 Owing to the fluctuation of financial values, few 
 men's income is annually the same. It is so much 
 one year, so much the next. 
 
 Thus it is a well-known fact that the value of 
 improved property may be as fluctuating and un- 
 certain as that of unimproved property or of stocks
 
 TAXATION 15 
 
 and bonds. Buildings that stand vacant during 
 periods of financial depression are of no more value, 
 for the time being, than unimproved property; and 
 men should not be forced to pay taxes on that which 
 does not produce an income. 
 
 Under an Income-tax such injustices would cease. 
 A man would pay taxes only on that which he annu- 
 ally earns. 
 
 Again with an Income-tax the rich would not be 
 favored at the expense of the poor or the poor at 
 the expense of the rich. The poor, and those earn- 
 ing from forty to sixty dollars a month are citizens 
 the same as those whose incomes amount to thousands 
 annually. The responsibility and dignity of citizen- 
 ship is the same for both, and the current expenses 
 of maintaining the State should fall, in like pro- 
 portion, on all, regardless of class distinctions. 
 
 " An Income-tax . . . has several specific ad- 
 vantages over other forms of taxes. It has no tend- 
 ency to disturb prices. Were there no taxation except 
 on Incomes, and were all Incomes rightly ascertained, 
 the prices of everything would be just as if there 
 were no taxes at all. Taxation would then be like 
 the atmosphere, pressing equally on all points and 
 consciously on none." It is ". . . the most uni-
 
 16 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 form, unfailing, expansive, and responsive to con- 
 trol, of all fiscal expedients." * 
 
 " It may be said that while general personal prop- 
 erty taxes become worse and worse the longer they 
 exist, wherever a rational kind of Income-tax has been 
 laid, as in Switzerland, Prussia, and England, the 
 longer it lasts the better it works, and the more gen- 
 eral the popular approval. It is the only way in 
 which a large and influential and even rich class can 
 be made to bear its fair share of taxes." f 
 
 This is the only true and just Single-tax. There 
 should be no other. 
 
 The opponents of an Income-tax assert that men 
 will not declare their true incomes. Make the pen- 
 alty for falsely declaring one's income too severe to 
 warrant such a risk. " Men are not so isolated 
 from each other as that a man's neighbors do not 
 know pretty well the general amount of his in- 
 come." Heavy fines or imprisonment for falsely 
 declaring one's income would soon bring about prac- 
 tically correct statements. Or, if such delinquencies 
 remain undiscovered until after the delinquent's 
 
 '"Principles of Political Economy": Arthur L. Perry. 
 t"An Introduction to Political Economy": Richard T. Ely.
 
 TAXATION 17 
 
 death, the State can confiscate such portion of his 
 estate as will reimburse it for the loss sustained by 
 it during his lifetime. 
 
 But let it not be forgotten that the Income-tax 
 may become just as burdensome as any other form 
 of taxation if its rate be excessive, preventing the 
 accumulation of wealth. The individual has as 
 much right to collect dollars, if he does so by legiti- 
 mate methods, as he has to collect postage stamps. 
 And any rate of taxation that interferes with this 
 right should be abolished. 
 
 Naturally a people adopting an Income-tax cannot 
 consistently maintain a tariff-system which, though 
 an indirect method of taxation, nevertheless amounts 
 to a double tax on all articles included in the tariff. 
 
 A tariff-system is simply a device of the rich, finan- 
 cial corporations, and those in power for compelling 
 the people to pay them enormous profits on their 
 articles of commerce. The home industries being 
 protected from foreign competition, the people are 
 not only forced to pay the tariff-tax, but twice the 
 amount for food-stuffs and articles of an inferior 
 quality. 
 
 The tariff-system is economically unsound because 
 it subsidizes Capital at the expense of Labor; forc- 
 ing the wage-earner to pay twice the amount he should
 
 i8 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 for the necessities of life, and thereby reducing his 
 savings as well as his plane of living to those of 
 his fellow-laborer abroad. 
 
 This is a downright injustice to the Public. Just 
 because somebody wishes to engage in some com- 
 mercial enterprise is no reason why the rest of the 
 community should be taxed under the guise of tariffs 
 in order that he should reap profits at the expense 
 of the Public. An industry that cannot bear the 
 competition of the world deserves no encouragement. 
 
 As a matter of fact, no country is self-sustaining 
 that collects its revenues from imported goods or 
 contracts foreign loans. The instant a country is 
 obliged to institute a tariff-system on imported goods 
 as a source of national revenue, or is forced to become 
 indebted to another country for the amount of one 
 penny, that country is bankrupt and non-sustaining. 
 
 But leaving aside as immaterial to the present in- 
 quiry the methods we employ in levying taxes, the 
 whole question of taxation resolves itself into this : 
 Man may institute tariff-systems and levy taxes on 
 the creations of his mind and hands to the extent 
 which he considers himself benefited by the institu- 
 tions such revenues sustain; but taxes cannot lawfully 
 be levied on the things which lie wholly outside his 
 sphere of jurisdiction, on the things which, according
 
 TAXATION 19 
 
 to the universal laws of being, are pre-existent, self- 
 sustaining, and independent of man's laws and gov- 
 ernments. 
 
 The instant taxes are levied on man or animals, 
 on the land and its natural resources, they become a 
 tribute levied on man's right to existence on Earth, 
 a supposition that is contrary to the law of life. 
 
 If a man cannot pay his taxes to-day, the land is 
 taken from him and, being cut off from the initial 
 sources of wealth, he becomes a homeless wanderer 
 on the face of the Earth an outcast in the Universe. 
 
 Man's right to birth, life, and death on Earth is, 
 like that of every other sentient being, a divine and 
 eternal one, and should forever remain an undisputed 
 one. 
 
 This is why taxes cannot lawfully be levied on 
 man or animals, on land, or forests, or water, or 
 minerals, for, like man, they are part and parcel of 
 the divine scheme of creation, necessary to his ex- 
 istence and spiritual development within the terres- 
 trial sphere which he inhabits.
 
 Ill 
 
 SOCIALISM. ITS FALLACY 
 
 /~\F all the reforms offered as a solution to the 
 social question, the " Socialistic Ideal " is the 
 most radical. 
 
 In fact, it is the only one worthy of serious con- 
 sideration, but if put into practice, it would result in 
 one of the most despotic forms of government 
 imaginable, for the reason that, under such a con- 
 dition of communal division of labor, no one would 
 be free. 
 
 The labor, prompted by purely unselfish and 
 philanthropic motives, and performed entirely for 
 the good of the community, would, nevertheless, be 
 compulsory for all. 
 
 And even though it were possible for all to agree 
 concerning the division of labor, pleasant and un- 
 pleasant, and as to its usefulness, the individual 
 would still be a slave to the communal laws. 
 
 It is not essential now to consider the Socialist's 
 
 assumption that physical labor should be placed on 
 
 20
 
 SOCIALISM ITS FALLACY 21 
 
 a par with intellectual labor; that the man who 
 shovels dirt in a railroad construction gang should 
 command the same reward as the engineer who is 
 responsible for building the road. 
 
 A half-witted person can toss dirt with a shovel, 
 but could he construct a railroad? 
 
 The entire socialistic propaganda is reared on fal- 
 lacies, the chief of which lies in the fact that it is 
 founded upon compulsory labor, and like all forms 
 of government that are maintained by the powers 
 of coercion must inevitably be destroyed by the 
 same forces within them by which they are up- 
 held. 
 
 The same powers of coercion which maintained 
 the ancient Spartan commonwealth intact were the 
 very ones that wrecked it. 
 
 The present economic slavery of mankind is bad 
 enough and is rapidly becoming intolerable to all 
 thinking persons; but with the establishment of the 
 socialistic regime man would become less of a free 
 agent than he is to-day. And not without reason did 
 the late Charles Dudley Warner declare that, if he 
 had to decide between Bellamy's socialistic form of 
 government and Hell, he would choose the latter; 
 though in all justice to Socialism it should be added 
 that, when Warner made that statement he seemed
 
 22 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 to be quite unconscious of the fact that he was already 
 in Hell. 
 
 All honor to Karl Marx! Let no man under- 
 estimate the value of his conception of the ideal 
 commonwealth, the magnitude of its influence upon 
 our times, or the mighty hold it has taken upon the 
 ranks of labor throughout the nations of the Earth. 
 
 The struggle which is now being waged between 
 Capital and Labor, the proletariate and those in 
 power, is one to the death. And let no man deceive 
 himself by imagining that this mighty struggle of 
 the classes will cease until individual control of the 
 Earth's natural resources has been annihilated 
 swept from the Earth forever. 
 
 Socialism maintains that monopoly throughout the 
 world is inevitable that the trusts or financial syndi- 
 cates must either soon own the governments and 
 nations of the world, or the nations own the trusts. 
 That the whole question at issue is, whether the 
 monopoly of the means necessary to sustain life and 
 create happiness for man should be controlled by 
 private individuals who think solely of their own 
 welfare, or owned and controlled by the nation. 
 
 The latter, its advocates claim, would be conducive 
 to not only the greatest happiness, but to the greatest 
 amount of personal liberty as well.
 
 SOCIALISM ITS FALLACY 23 
 
 But would the individual's freedom be preserved? 
 Socialism offers man every material luxury, but takes 
 away his liberty. 
 
 In order that the State might be maintained, every 
 able-bodied person would be obliged to work so many 
 hours a day and so many days in the year. 
 
 No one would be free to act or think, to come or 
 go independently of his neighbor, to rest from his 
 prescribed labor or leave the community in which 
 he dwelt, without the permission of the State. 
 
 A certain number of free days each year would, 
 no doubt, be doled out to the individual by the State 
 under penalty of the loss of citizenship, starvation, 
 or some other punishment, if he failed to return to 
 his work the hour his leave of absence expired; 
 just as to-day an employe is punished by the loss of 
 his position. 
 
 It is true that enforced competition has practically 
 the same effect to-day on all those who are without 
 wealth or who are compelled to work for others. 
 Nevertheless, the State recognizes man's inviolable 
 right to free agency; the ideal of personal liberty 
 at least survives, waiting only juster economic con- 
 ditions to become a reality. But this Socialism de- 
 nies him. 
 
 Without enforced labor the whole fabric of mod-
 
 24 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 ern Socialism could not endure for a day, but would 
 collapse like a house of cards the instant work ceased 
 or was made voluntary. 
 
 These are the two rocks on which the ship of 
 State, that of Socialism as well as that of present 
 governments, must inevitably shatter: economic 
 slavery on the one hand, and the curtailing of per- 
 sonal liberty under Socialism on the other. 
 
 Without liberty to act, to go and come at will, 
 there can be neither freedom nor happiness for the 
 individual. 
 
 True Democracy which means the rule of the 
 People a government for the People and by the 
 People, under which the individual's personal liberty 
 is preserved becomes a delusion the instant labor 
 is economically enslaved or individual freedom cur- 
 tailed. Yet this is precisely what will happen under 
 the modern Socialist's form of government just as 
 it is happening everywhere in the world to-day under 
 the misrule of Capital. 
 
 Nothing can compensate for the loss of liberty. 
 The physical, intellectual, and spiritual development 
 of man depends solely upon his freedom to act and 
 choose as his conscience and reason prompt him. 
 
 The question of acquiring a livelihood in the world 
 should be purely an optional one, and man not com-
 
 SOCIALISM ITS FALLACY 25 
 
 pelled to work if he does not wish to; society in- 
 sisting only that the individual should respect and 
 hold sacred the life and property of his neighbor 
 nothing more. 
 
 The instant we go beyond this step in human 
 evolution man ceases to be a free agent. 
 
 To-day the Nations of the Earth are enslaved by 
 Plutocracy, the few in power representing Capital, 
 or those holding more than their rightful share of 
 the Earth's natural resources; while under the social- 
 istic regime the People would deliberately enslave 
 themselves by depriving the individual of his per- 
 sonal liberty. 
 
 Under Socialism, the work being equally dis- 
 tributed, the individual would possibly not be obliged 
 to work more than two or four hours a day, being 
 at liberty to dispose of the remainder of his time 
 as he wished; but that is not liberty personal free- 
 dom. Two hours of enforced labor bind the in- 
 dividual to a locality as effectually as do ten. 
 
 He would be as much the slave of the State 
 as was the Negro of the South before the Civil 
 War, or the Serfs of Russia before their libera- 
 tion. 
 
 It is true his slavery would not be of such an 
 antiquated form, but of a more liberal character,
 
 26 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 like that of the Incas of Peru whose government 
 was overthrown in 1533 by Pizarro. 
 
 Like the Incas we should all work less and have 
 enough to eat and so many hours a day assured us 
 for recreation, but every man, woman, and child 
 would be a sleek, well-kept slave of the State, like 
 the tame, broken-spirited drayhorse which, though 
 well-fed and carefully groomed, is nevertheless 
 whipped daily into the traces. 
 
 Paint the picture drawn by the advocates of mod- 
 ern Socialism as rosy as you please, a prison trans- 
 formed into a bower of roses still remains a prison 
 if its bars be not removed. 
 
 What chance would there be for individuality to 
 develop and assert itself under such an institution 
 whose object will not be to fit the individual for 
 independent action, but to force him to occupy a 
 certain and exact place in the mechanism of society? 
 
 The individual will be obliged to think and act 
 in all things according to local custom. The slight- 
 est deviation from this rule will be viewed with 
 disfavor by the community. 
 
 Unusual behavior, oddities of character, and eccen- 
 tricities of genius will be looked upon with distrust. 
 The individual will be under the constant surveillance 
 of the community.
 
 SOCIALISM ITS FALLACY 27 
 
 Privacy will eventually cease to exist. Nothing 
 will be hidden; everybody's life will be laid bare to 
 communal criticism. 
 
 Such communistic despotism, suppressing person- 
 ality by forbidding enterprise and condemning vol- 
 untary competition as a public offense, means nothing 
 more than a reversion of human society to certain 
 primitive conditions; practically the same despotic 
 form of self-government with modifications which 
 was exercised by the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, 
 and Romans, and which still exists to-day among 
 the Hindoos, Chinese, and other Oriental com- 
 munities. 
 
 And then the Socialist's idea of compelling society 
 to work in order that men may be provided with 
 material luxuries which they do not actually earn. 
 
 Past and present experiences show us that you 
 may provide men with every material luxury and 
 advantage, and three-fourths of them will sit down 
 complacently and grow fat, while the remaining 
 fourth, with no advantage at all, will wear itself 
 lean in the effort to satisfy personal pride and right- 
 eous ambition. 
 
 It is a pretty idea that my sphere of action should 
 be limited by being held to one spot and forced to 
 work a prescribed number of hours a day in order
 
 28 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 that I should feed and dress my neighbor be- 
 cause he is too shiftless and indolent to do it him- 
 self. 
 
 This, the Socialist claims, is the individual's pre- 
 rogative; a thing as nonsensical as it is illogical, es- 
 pecially when the initial sources of all wealth have 
 been placed equally within the reach of all. 
 
 It is perfectly true that certain individuals inherit 
 wealth and luxuries to-day, and do well with their 
 inheritance, but this is an exception, not the common 
 rule of life. 
 
 There have been bread-riots in history, struggles 
 for the mere necessities of life, but it is not the 
 desire for luxuries and wealth that has been the 
 cause of revolutions. Trace back the history of 
 human development to the remotest past and it will 
 be found that the primal cause of all revolutions has 
 ever been, as it always will be, the struggle for 
 liberty. 
 
 In the sweat of his brow shall man eat his bread, 
 says Nature. That is, all men shall have an equal 
 chance to earn their bread; but no man is entitled to 
 that which he does not earn, be it luxuries or his 
 daily bread. 
 
 It is neither governments nor a share in profits 
 that men want, but the legitimate use of that amount
 
 SOCIALISM ITS FALLACY 29 
 
 of land, minerals, wood, and water which is the 
 individual's by natural right, and which no power 
 on Earth is going to prevent him from having. 
 
 This is the handwriting on the wall which con- 
 fronts society to-day. 
 
 Again experience teaches us that it is impossible, 
 through means of philanthropic schemes, to impress 
 the individual with that moral responsibility which 
 man should bear to man. 
 
 In 1907, the Labor Party introduced a Bill * into 
 the British House of Commons for the creation of 
 a statutory " right to work." 
 
 The essential clause of the Bill declares that : 
 
 " Where a workman has registered himself as 
 unemployed, it shall be the duty of the local unem- 
 employment authority to provide work for him in 
 connection with one or other of the schemes herein- 
 after provided, or otherwise, or failing the provision 
 of work, to provide maintenance, should necessity 
 exist, for that person and for those depending on that 
 person for the necessities of life." 
 
 " To most people these proposals will seem some- 
 what startling. That, however, is only because we 
 
 * Defeated, April, 1908.
 
 30 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 have forgotten the follies as well as the wisdom of 
 our ancestors. Similar proposals were actually em- 
 bodied in the statute law of England more than three 
 hundred years ago, while even before that date 
 voluntary attempts were made by the municipalities 
 to organize work for the unemployed. 
 
 "As early as 1557 the old palace of Bridewell 
 was converted into an institution in which various 
 industries were carried on by men who could not 
 obtain employment elsewhere. This London exam- 
 ple was followed by a good many other municipal- 
 ities in the full spirit of modern municipal social- 
 ism. . . . Yet everybody knows that the system 
 was an absolute failure. Instead of diminishing 
 poverty, it added to the numbers and to the degrada- 
 tion of the poor. . . . " * 
 
 Again, " early in the year 1848 a revolution took 
 place in France. The King was expelled, and a re- 
 publican government was established. The new Gov- 
 ernment was inspired by socialistic theories. . . .*' 
 On February 26, the Government proceeded to de- 
 cree the " immediate establishment of national work- 
 shops [ateliers nationaux]." 
 
 M. Emile Thomas was empowered by the Min- 
 istry to provide work for the unemployed. On 
 
 * Quarterly Review, 1908 : " The Right to Work."
 
 SOCIALISM ITS FALLACY 31 
 
 March 9 " the enrollment of the first 3,000 men 
 began . . . the rates of pay were not high. The 
 workers received 2 francs on days of activity and 
 i 1-2 francs on days of inactivity; the squad chiefs 
 received slightly more, and the brigadiers received 3 
 francs a day whether work was going on or not. 
 . . . The next day an additional 1,200 men ar- 
 rived. . . . On March 15 M. Thomas had 14,000 
 men for whom to find employment. 
 
 " But fresh supplies of unemployed continued to 
 arrive, and even at this early stage it was discovered 
 that many of the men were not passionately eager to 
 work. 
 
 ' They preferred to draw i 1-2 francs a day for 
 inactivity, rather than 2 francs for doing more or 
 less hard work. To meet this difficulty the inactivity 
 pay was reduced to i franc, but still the numbers con- 
 tinued to grow. Indeed many men came to draw 
 their i franc as unemployed, and then quietly went off 
 to earn their living in their ordinary employment. 
 Other men inscribed themselves in several different 
 brigades and drew pay from each. ... By the end 
 of April this number had risen to over 100,000, and 
 most of the men had ceased to make even a pretense 
 of working. ... At last the situation became in- 
 tolerable. An insurrection broke out. Before it was
 
 32 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 quelled, 3,000 persons were killed and 3,376 insur- 
 gents were transported to Algeria. That was the 
 end of the * right to work ' under the French Re- 
 public of 1848. 
 
 " Both in the metropolis (London) and in the 
 provincial boroughs relief works have been fre- 
 quently started during the last few winters, with the 
 result that the money of the ratepayer has been 
 wasted, and the number of the unemployed has been 
 increased. Our local Government Board inspector 
 reports [Times, Nov. 22, 1905] that in the prin- 
 cipal towns of the West Riding of Yorkshire the con- 
 ditions under which relief works have been estab- 
 lished afford every likelihood of a stereotyped class 
 of men being evolved who will be content to live on 
 three days' work a week." 
 
 Another inspector writes: "Irregular relief work 
 has such charms that numerous instances have been 
 noted of men throwing up regular wages at i8s. and 
 195. a week to earn from 55. to 75. in a stone-yard." 
 
 In the case of the Manchester and Salford relief 
 works it is reported: " Many men under a labor test 
 left their work and forfeited the day's relief in 
 order to join a procession of the unemployed. ..." 
 
 What incentive to legitimate progress and enter-
 
 SOCIALISM ITS FALLACY 33 
 
 prise could there possibly be with every man's finger 
 in every man's pie, with the common man enthroned 
 and reigning supreme and the whole world hearken- 
 ing to his dictates? 
 
 Socialism will curtail man's energies and debase 
 the quality of all articles of use and consumption 
 the same as do our Trades Unions of to-day by re- 
 ducing our supreme ethical standards to those of 
 mediocrity, for the reason, that those whose souls 
 run on the dead level cannot be aroused to a just 
 appreciation of that which is highest in art, science, 
 and religion, that which makes most toward human 
 development. 
 
 Let it not be inferred that we refer to the common 
 man at the bottom of the social strata, but the com- 
 mon man who permeates all classes of society, and 
 who, if maintained in his position and permitted to 
 dominate, must inevitably reduce society to his level. 
 
 This inequality of capacity possessed by individuals 
 renders an equal development impossible. This is 
 daily demonstrated to us by our school children, the 
 majority of whom cannot be developed artificially or 
 otherwise beyond a certain point the commonplace 
 standards of life. 
 
 Does a fruit tree bear equally well each year? 
 Supply it with artificial stimulants and hedge it about
 
 34 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 with glass, and it will produce annually a beautiful 
 fruit to look at, but an insipid one. 
 
 The same with the inventor and genius. To-day 
 he creates, to-morrow his mind lies fallow. Days, 
 weeks, months, a year may p?<^ during which he does 
 nothing but wander in the Elysian fields of his imagi- 
 nation, preferring want to comfort. 
 
 Put him to work, set a time limit to his creative 
 faculties, or in any way interfere with the God-given 
 privilege of exercising his own sweet will, and you 
 will destroy the ripe, mature fruit of his imagination ; 
 the best that is in him, his gift to the race human- 
 ity's priceless treasure. 
 
 Is it within the hedged lanes of popular approval, 
 or on the broad expanse of the wild, unsullied fields 
 of freedom that we might reasonably look for a 
 Homer, a Plato, an ^Eschylus, a Shakespeare, a 
 Whitman, a Goethe, a Beethoven, or a Darwin ; those 
 rare flowers of the human race that bloom but once? 
 
 Had the State attached the red tape of authority 
 to Dante, Hafiz, Moliere, Ruskin, Browning, Kant, 
 Gauss, Tyndall, Mill, what would have been the 
 inevitable result? Some prettily bound nursery 
 rhymes suitable only for Christmas gifts to be dis- 
 tributed among the jeune files of the community. 
 
 Of whom does humanity take most account? Of
 
 SOCIALISM ITS FALLACY 35 
 
 popular, virtuous citizen Jones who lives according 
 to the ideals of the common man and dies smothered 
 amid lilies and laurels of a local growth, the tokens 
 of popular esteem, or the wicked Socrates who drank 
 the hemlock administered by the common man ? 
 
 Who crucified the Christ, permitted Nero to fire 
 Rome, burned the Alexandrian Library, and lit the 
 fagots that consumed Joan of Arc and Giordano 
 Bruno? Who is responsible for the Inquisition, the 
 enslavement of the Negro, or the persecution of the 
 Jews in Russia to-day? The common man. 
 
 Uphold and encourage him, and Pizarro and 
 Cortez set sail with their rabble hordes of adven- 
 turers, free-booting priests, and blackguards, and de- 
 stroy two civilizations superior to any which White 
 men of their day possessed. 
 
 Place him in power and maintain him in his posi- 
 tion, and he fixes the debasing system of Caste upon 
 India, and reduces the population of China to its 
 present besotted social condition by making the adop- 
 tion and practice of Ancestor-worship compulsory for 
 its people. 
 
 But the common man is becoming enlightened, 
 answers the Socialist. Is he? The representatives 
 of Socialism and Organized Labor unhesitatingly de- 
 stroy the lives and property of those who refuse to
 
 36 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 entertain their views whenever the opportunity per- 
 mits, just as do the advocates of present conditions 
 the monopolization of the Earth's natural resources. 
 
 The same powers of coercion which Mohammed 
 employed to establish and maintain his kingdom, the 
 Koran or the sword, the common man employs 
 to-day. 
 
 The common man of Socialism is quite as much 
 to be dreaded as the common man of the past and 
 the present. 
 
 The great difficulty lies in our inability to dis- 
 tinguish the common man; for usually the superman 
 of to-day is deplorably common in the eyes of the 
 succeeding generation. 
 
 But supposing this not to be true, the effects which 
 Socialism would have upon mankind must inevitably 
 result in something equally disastrous to the human 
 race, namely, the survival of the weaker members 
 of society, not of the fit. 
 
 For when the value and necessity of strength, 
 physical strength, mental strength, and force of char- 
 acter shall have been withdrawn, and the leveling 
 process shall demand and result in no development 
 of individual self-reliance, then truly the progress of 
 the human race shall have ceased. 
 
 Nature never makes a mistake. By harsh en-
 
 SOCIALISMITS FALLACY 37 
 
 vironment and the struggle for existence, Nature's 
 law tends toward the development of the unfit and 
 the weak into the fit and the strong provided there 
 is any capacity for development. 
 
 The whole tendency of Socialism is at variance 
 with this great underlying principle of life, for, con- 
 trary to its claims, Socialism would arrest human 
 development. 
 
 Life under Socialism would not only cease to call 
 forth the best energies, and thus fail to develop the 
 unfit, but by making no peremptory demand upon 
 even the fit, the premium put upon strength and capa- 
 bility would lapse, and growth would cease. For 
 the logical and inevitable result of the introduction 
 of a false principle into human society would be the 
 steady deterioration and retrogression of the strong- 
 est and most fit. 
 
 Even Jack London, who is perhaps the ablest of 
 the younger advocates of modern Socialism, admits 
 this. 
 
 " And in that day, for better or for worse," says 
 London, " the common man becomes the master for 
 better, he believes. It is his intention to make the 
 sum of human happiness far greater. No man shall 
 work for a bare living wage, which is degradation.
 
 38 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 Every man shall have work to do, and shall be paid 
 exceedingly well for doing it. There shall be no 
 slum classes, no beggars. Nor shall there be hun- 
 dreds of thousands of men and women condemned, 
 for economic reasons, to lives of celibacy or sexual 
 infertility. Every man shall be able to marry, to 
 live in healthy, comfortable quarters, and to have 
 all he wants to eat as many times a day as he wishes. 
 There shall no longer be a life-and-death struggle for 
 food and shelter. The old heartless law of develop- 
 ment shall be annulled. All of which is very good 
 and very fine. 
 
 " And when these things have come to pass, what 
 then? Of old, by virtue of their weakness and in- 
 efficiency in the struggle for food and shelter, the 
 race was purged of its weak and inefficient members. 
 
 " But this will no longer obtain. Under the new 
 order the weak and the progeny of the weak will 
 have a chance for survival equal to that of the strong 
 and the progeny of the strong. This being so, the 
 premium upon strength will have been withdrawn, 
 and on the face of it the average strength of each 
 generation, instead of continuing to rise, will begin 
 to decline. 
 
 " When the common man's day shall have arrived, 
 the new social institutions of that day will prevent
 
 SOCIALISM ITS FALLACY 39 
 
 the weeding out of weakness and inefficiency. All, 
 the weak and the strong, will have an equal chance 
 for procreation. And the progeny of all, of the 
 weak as well as the strong, will have an equal chance 
 for survival. 
 
 ' This being so, and if no new effective law of de- 
 velopment be put into operation, then progress must 
 ceasey And not only progress, for deterioration 
 would at once set in. 
 
 " It is a pregnant problem. What will be the 
 nature of this new and most necessary law of de- 
 velopment? Can the common man pause long 
 enough from his undermining labor to answer? 
 Since he is bent upon dragging down the bourgeoisie 
 and reconstructing society, can he so reconstruct that 
 a premium, in some unguessed way or other, will 
 still be laid upon the strong and the efficient so that 
 the human type will continue to develop? Can the 
 common man, or the uncommon men who are allied 
 with him, devise such a law? Or have they already 
 devised one? And if so, what is it? " * 
 
 We need only look about us for the answer. Na- 
 ture has answered the question from the beginning 
 and for all time. 
 
 * " War of the Classes," pp. 261-278, 1905.
 
 40 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 Creation's scheme only allows for the survival of 
 the fittest; the physically and mentally fit; not solely 
 the physically fit. The purely physically fit are quite 
 as unfit as the purely mentally fit; what the one lacks 
 mentally, the other lacks physically; both are wanting 
 in poise. 
 
 Look at primitive peoples and wild animals in 
 their natural state, sharing all things in common. 
 Which members survive and dominate the physi- 
 cally or mentally fit? Neither. It is the average 
 mentally and physically fit; those possessing the aver- 
 age physical and mental poise; the fit product of a 
 fit condition. 
 
 We are the unfit product of our unfit conditions. 
 And the great unfit majority of society must continue 
 to dominate so long as we maintain such conditions, 
 the same as it will under the artificial, unfit conditions 
 of Socialism. 
 
 Is this clear? A fit race of men can only spring 
 from natural conditions; an unfit, from artificial con- 
 ditions. 
 
 Nature placed all things within the reach of men 
 to enjoy and share in common the same as she did 
 for the individual members of the animal and vege- 
 table kingdoms, allowing the weak and the unfit an 
 opportunity to develop into the strong and the fit.
 
 SOCIALISM ITS FALLACY 41 
 
 But man, by disregarding this natural law and 
 natural distribution of the means of sustenance, has 
 placed the two minorities of society, the weak and 
 the fit, at the mercy of the great unfit dominant 
 majority. 
 
 The human type, like the animal and vegetable 
 types, can only develop naturally in conditions of 
 freedom. 
 
 The requirements essential to future human de- 
 velopment are far greater than those dreamed of by 
 Karl Marx when he penned his famous volume 
 11 Das Kapital." 
 
 The different forms of life inhabiting the terrestrial 
 sphere to-day were perfected in conditions of free- 
 dom, not in those of restraint. 
 
 Nature makes no distinction, shows no preference. 
 All, both the weak and the strong, are given a chance 
 to survive and thrive their alloted time within their 
 proper spheres according to their capacity for en- 
 durance and development. 
 
 The rigors of Nature and the efforts necessitated 
 by the struggle for food and shelter will continue 
 either to eliminate, or develop the weaker members 
 of society into the fit in the future just as they have 
 in the past, provided natural conditions prevail; and 
 this is as it should be.
 
 42 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 Let no man deceive himself by imagining that 
 governmental control of a human soul will be any 
 more beneficial to mankind, or easier to bear than 
 that of the individual's control of a human soul as 
 it is exercised by society to-day. 
 
 True Socialism has for its object the elevation 
 of mankind to that state of civic dignity in which 
 the individual's right to life and liberty is universally 
 recognized and held sacred by society; and without 
 which there can be no natural development of the 
 human race. 
 
 The slavery of the enforced labor of Socialism is 
 not the remedy for the economic slavery to which 
 man is subjected to-day. 
 
 All those who are familiar with the life, history, 
 and traditions of primitive peoples, know that the 
 spiritual development of certain tribes of North 
 American Indians and Bedouins of Africa and Asia, 
 before their contact with the White races of western 
 Europe, surpassed that of the so-called civilized na- 
 tions of to-day; which goes to prove that competition, 
 constant labor, and the accumulation of wealth, or 
 material progress, are not essential to man's spiritual 
 development. 
 
 The most striking example of this independence 
 of spiritual development on the part of man is clearly
 
 SOCIALISM ITS FALLACY 43 
 
 illustrated by the fact that the savage and the Mes- 
 siah, representing the two extremes of the human 
 family, meet face to face on a material footing of 
 equality. 
 
 The one, the undeveloped, the other, the mentally 
 and spiritually mature representative of the human 
 race; and both content with but that portion of the 
 material things of this world which are necessary for 
 the maintenance of life. 
 
 And this truth, when more thoroughly analyzed, 
 leads to the inevitable conclusion that man was 
 originally endowed with a birthright, or free heritage 
 sufficient to sustain life, rendering the spiritual ad- 
 vancement of man as natural and rational as that of 
 his physical development. That he, like the animals 
 when in a natural state, recognizes the individual's 
 right to that portion of the Earth's natural resources 
 which are essential to the supplying of his daily 
 wants. 
 
 This is man's inherent right, and although the 
 much dreamed of spiritual equality of the human 
 race as a whole can never be realized, the demand 
 that the Earth's natural resources should be equally 
 accessible to all is not only a justifiable, but a peremp- 
 tory one. 
 
 This natural footing of material equality has been
 
 44 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 man's from the beginning, and is the most sacred of 
 earthly trusts bestowed upon him by Nature. A 
 birthright which should not only be held inviolable, 
 but whose recognition on the part of man should 
 come before all his institutions. 
 
 But why should men compete at all for a living, 
 especially when the Earth is large enough to nourish 
 the entire human race from the cultivation of the 
 soil alone? 
 
 " Competition in its modern sense develops the 
 baser, not the higher qualities, when men or beasts 
 require to compete fiercely for a living. What they 
 develop are the tooth and claw and the fighting in- 
 stincts. To be successful in business a man must 
 trample the Golden Rule under foot." 
 
 It is not the struggle and strife of competition, 
 but love for his fellowman, leisure, and liberty, which 
 are the chief incentives that prompt men to mental 
 and spiritual activity, to a higher, clearer conception 
 of their relationship to one another, to God, and to 
 the Universe. 
 
 The rational solution of the social question is 
 neither modern Socialism nor schemes of government, 
 nor taxation, but a natural condition of life in which
 
 SOCIALISM ITS FALLACY 45 
 
 man's freedom and independence are assured, the 
 land, minerals, wood, and water equally accessible 
 to all, and competition voluntary, not compulsory; 
 rendering the acquiring of a livelihood purely one 
 of moderate industrial effort on the part of the in- 
 dividual. 
 
 With the possibility of gaining a livelihood as- 
 sured to every man, the opportunity to work and 
 properly feed and clothe himself and his family, the 
 present fierceness of enforced competition would sub- 
 side, and voluntary competition take its place. And 
 we should then have neither enforced competition 
 nor enforced labor, but freedom in both. 
 
 With such a natural footing of material equality 
 to stand upon, man need have no fear of the future; 
 for no one in possession of his physical and mental 
 vigor could possibly suffer want if moderately in- 
 dustrious. 
 
 Free the Earth's natural resources by limiting the 
 individual's use of them, and all forms of monopoly 
 can be easily reduced to the normal growth and ex- 
 pansion of trade and industry by the natural laws 
 of competition. 
 
 The advantages resulting from such conditions 
 would be infinite and far-reaching. 
 
 All branches of industry, science, and art, being
 
 46 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 limited to their normal growth, success in every call- 
 ing in life, so far as the amassing of wealth is con- 
 cerned, would depend upon the quality of the work. 
 
 A comfortable living would be assured to all; not 
 only to the farmer, but to everyone engaged in the 
 legitimate pursuits of trade and industry, of science, 
 and art, enabling each to accumulate wealth accord- 
 ing to his intelligence and thrift. 
 
 There would be no accumulation of wealth by 
 single individuals at the expense of the Public; there 
 would be few adulterations and imitations of food- 
 stuffs and articles of use, for the land, wood, water, 
 and minerals, the initial sources of wealth, being free 
 and equally accessible to all, the laws of competition 
 would incite and call forth the best efforts on the 
 part of man, compelling the individual who hoped 
 for success in his particular calling in life to produce 
 nothing but the best. 
 
 This is the Communistic Ideal; the condition which 
 we should create, or rather man's natural condition 
 to which we should revert. 
 
 According to the universal law governing life on 
 Earth, man is subjected only to that small amount 
 of labor necessary to sustain life. Beyond this, all 
 individual effort on the part of man, if natural, is 
 voluntary, not enforced.
 
 SOCIALISM ITS FALLACY 47 
 
 But why, we repeat, should men consider competi- 
 tion so necessary to progress since leisure is essential 
 to human happiness and development? 
 
 If every man, woman, and child on the face of 
 the Earth to-day spent half their time in recreation 
 there would be less grabbing and fewer schemes of 
 monopoly hatched throughout the world; and in their 
 stead there would result a vast amount of original 
 thought. 
 
 " The toiling farmer who works year after year 
 from early dawn until dark, and thinks work the 
 greatest virtue in the world, is often a mass of bony 
 knobs and rheumatism at fifty "; or the merchant, or 
 financier who passes year after year in his office until 
 youth and the joys of life have slipped away with 
 the years, awakes to the grand realities of life when 
 it is too late. Labor for material gain ceases to be 
 a virtue beyond such time bestowed upon the acquisi- 
 tion of a livelihood. 
 
 Man being exactly suited to the physical conditions 
 of his surroundings, a material footing of equality 
 a priori is as natural and quite as much in accord with 
 the existing order of things to-day as it was in the 
 past. 
 
 A natural division of the Earth's resources is not 
 only possible, but has become a necessity if the future
 
 48 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 development of the human race is to continue. But 
 in order that such a condition may become lasting, 
 granting freedom to the individual and to the race, 
 it must be sustained by natural laws, not by man-made 
 laws. 
 
 Society cannot be permanently reorganized by 
 means of human schemes. 
 
 Law-givers like Lycurgus, Confucius, Moses, 
 Solon, Caesar, and Mohammed tried it and failed; 
 but the two greatest social reformers known to his- 
 tory, Buddha and Christ, recognized this fact, and 
 did not attempt it, for they knew that it was not 
 only impossible but quite unnecessary; the material or 
 physical conditions essential to its reorganization 
 being already provided by Nature, rendering man's 
 existence quite independent of his schemes. 
 
 Were it not so, the universal scheme of life and 
 growth, of human evolution, would be for naught. 
 
 Now science offers two solutions to a problem : 
 a natural one and an artificial one. 
 
 If a condition be controlled by a natural law, the 
 true solution of the problem must be a natural one. 
 If, on the other hand, no natural law exists control- 
 ling it, science offers an artificial solution. 
 
 Modern Socialism, or Karl Marx's conception of 
 the Ideal Commonwealth, though highly scientific in
 
 SOCIALISM ITS FALLACY 49 
 
 one sense of the term, is, nevertheless, the artificial 
 solution of the social problem, and, therefore, the 
 wrong one. 
 
 The natural solution was provided by Nature from 
 time immemorial, and like all of Nature's laws, is 
 a simple one, namely, that the Earth is large enough 
 to nourish the entire human race, including its normal 
 increase, from the soil alone, without other effort on 
 the part of man than that necessitated by the mere 
 tilling of the soil. 
 
 But no man should be allowed more than that por- 
 tion of the Earth's natural resources which is neces- 
 sary for his support, or well-being. 
 
 Without this requisite to human development man 
 never could have become a free agent, but must have 
 remained the bondsman of his artificial schemes and 
 inventions the most unscientific thing imaginable: 
 a scheme of things quite as unscientific and unnatural 
 and ridiculous, as it would be to imagine man exist- 
 ing in a universe illumined by a light of his own 
 invention, not by that of the sun and the stars. 
 
 It would be the most astounding, overwhelming, 
 and crushing fact known to man were it proved that 
 his existence on Earth is dependent on some one 
 of his idiotic schemes of government. 
 
 The very fact of man's existence, which is the
 
 50 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 one supreme fact of the Universe, so far as man is 
 concerned, should be sufficient to convince him that 
 all natural necessities of life were, and still are, pro- 
 vided for him, else there could have been no logical 
 reason for his coming into consciousness of being.
 
 IV 
 
 THE LAND. ITS DISTRIBUTION 
 
 COCIETY in its most civilized or highly developed 
 state, being merely an elaboration or refined con- 
 dition of society in its primitive state, a further de- 
 velopment of mankind necessitate- a return to first 
 principles on the part of man if his higher evolution 
 is to continue along natural lines. 
 
 Hence the paramount issue of both political econ- 
 omy and future human development resolves itself 
 into the one, namely: What amount of the Earth's 
 natural resources can safely be adopted as a perma- 
 nent unit upon which to reconstruct society, securing 
 not only the prosperity and happiness of the fireside, 
 but the good already attained by present civilization, 
 and the freedom of the individual as well? 
 
 The first consideration in human development be- 
 ing always that of the food supply, it will be seen 
 that this question is concerned solely with natural 
 laws and conditions, with the basal principles of the 
 productivity of the soil. 
 
 51
 
 52 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 It was never intended that the Earth's natural 
 resources should become merchandise, but being 
 originally given to man to enjoy in common, the in- 
 dividual is as much entitled to his natural or free 
 portion of them as he is to the sunshine and the air 
 he breathes. 
 
 The true title to land lies not in ownership, but 
 in occupancy. And, furthermore, that title of occu- 
 pancy is limited by natural law to the amount re- 
 quired to sustain life comfortably no more. 
 
 Such an amount is man's birthright, and every 
 human being is entitled to his natural portion of 
 arable land to be held by him in peaceable possession 
 so long as he chooses, provided he utilizes it for pas- 
 toral or some other useful purpose. 
 
 If, however, he makes use of only a part of his 
 natural or lawful allotment, then the part utilized 
 is all that he can control because it is all that is 
 necessary for his maintenance. 
 
 In England, Germany, France, Holland, and the 
 Low Countries, five to thirty acres of arable land 
 are to-day considered ample for the support of the 
 husbandman and his family; while in the United 
 States, the homestead-law fixes the limit of individual 
 pre-emption of public lands to one hundred and sixty 
 acres.
 
 THE LAND ITS DISTRIBUTION 53 
 
 Just why one hundred and sixty acres were con- 
 sidered essential by the United States Government 
 for the maintenance of those living directly upon 
 the produce of the soil is not clear. There is cer- 
 tainly no logical argument for such a division, which 
 is evidently not the result of scientific experiment and 
 investigation, but of that prodigal liberality with 
 which the Government dispensed its bounties during 
 the early stages of its development. 
 
 According to the most reliable agricultural and 
 economic statistics the world over, from three to ten 
 acres of average arable land are known to be adequate 
 for supplying the wants of the individual and the 
 family devoted to the pursuits of husbandry; supply- 
 ing them not only with a comfortable livelihood if 
 they are moderately industrious, but also permitting 
 them to lay by a certain sum annually according to 
 their thrift. 
 
 Ten acres may appear an absurdly small amount 
 to those who to-day are permitted to hold as their 
 own vast tracts of land, but statistics prove that ten 
 acres of arable land is a very generous portion of 
 the Earth's surface to consign to the undisputed con- 
 trol of the individual. 
 
 The acquiring of a livelihood is not the accumula- 
 tion of wealth. The office of the soil is to yield a
 
 54 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 man a living, not riches. The latter, according to 
 natural law, can only be acquired legitimately 
 through the emanations and creations of the mind 
 and the hands. 
 
 As a matter of fact, if it became a necessity, not 
 ten, but five acres of arable land are quite sufficient 
 for the support of the average family consisting of 
 five persons; an acre per capita. 
 
 It was a common custom among the ancient Per- 
 sians and Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and Phoeni- 
 cians, to allot two acres of land per man to re- 
 tired soldiers and petty state officials from which 
 to sustain themselves through agricultural pur- 
 suits. 
 
 " The ancients," says Pliny, " were of opinion, 
 that, above all things, the extent of farms ought to 
 be kept within proper bounds. Wherefore it was a 
 maxim amongst them, to sow less and plow better "; 
 to which pithy utterance let us add the words of the 
 Roman Columella who also advocated moderation in 
 the size of farms. 
 
 " To other precepts," says he, " we add this, 
 which one of the seven wise men has pronounced as 
 a maxim that holds true in all ages, that there ought 
 to be limits and measures of things; and this ought
 
 THE LAND ITS DISTRIBUTION 55 
 
 to be understood, as applied not only to those that 
 do any other business, but also those that buy land, 
 that they may not buy more than they are fully able 
 for. To this is applicable the famous sentence of 
 our poet. You may admire a large farm, but culti- 
 vate a small one; which ancient precept this most 
 learned man (Virgil), . . . expresses in numbers. 
 This, too, is agreeable to an acknowledged maxim 
 of the Carthaginians, a very acute nation, That the 
 land ought to be weaker than the husbandman; for, 
 when they struggle together, should the farm prevail, 
 the master must be ruined. And, indeed, there is no 
 doubt, that a small field well cultivated produces 
 more than a large field ill cultivated." 
 
 In the Province of Samara, Russia, to-day, it is 
 estimated that over four hundred thousand persons 
 get their subsistence from less than three acres of 
 land per capita. 
 
 According to Dr. Thomas E. Green, the Empire 
 of Japan,* " containing an approximate area of 162,- 
 ooo square miles, of which only 15.7 per cent is 
 arable, supports a population of upward of 50,000,- 
 ooo. Of the 50,000,000 inhabitants over 60 per 
 cent are farmers and their families, the average 
 
 * Hampton's Magazine, Sept., 1909.
 
 56 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 amount of land tilled by each family being seven 
 tan (about one and three-quarter acres)." 
 
 The North American Indian was guided by a 
 natural law when he permitted individual members 
 of the tribe to cultivate a few acres of land whenever 
 they chose to do so. 
 
 They did not actually possess the land; their tenure 
 of the land was only respected so long as they culti- 
 vated it. 
 
 They were not permitted to dispose of it to anyone; 
 not even to members of the family, nor bequeath it 
 as a heritage. The instant they ceased to cultivate 
 it, the land fell free to the people once more.* 
 
 This custom was also practiced to a limited extent 
 by the early Norsemen, Celts, Teutons, and Slavic 
 nations, and is still practiced by all primitive people 
 who have not been forced by stronger nations to 
 relinquish their ancient customs and inherent rights. 
 
 " I believe," says Emerson, " in a spade and an 
 acre of good ground. Whoso cuts a straight path 
 to his own living by the help of God, in the sun and 
 the rain and sprouting grain, seems to me a universal 
 workingman. He solves the problem of life, not 
 
 *This primal custom is still in vogue among the Pueblo In- 
 dians of New Mexico and Arizona, the wild tribes of Mexico, 
 South America, India, Asia, and Africa.
 
 THE LAND ITS DISTRIBUTION 57 
 
 for one, but for all men of sound body." To which 
 we add the words of Ruskin. " But since we live 
 in an epoch of change, and too, probably, of revolu- 
 tion, and thoughts which are not to be put aside are 
 in the minds of all men capable of thought, I am 
 obliged to affirm the one principle which can and in 
 the end will close all epochs of revolution that each 
 man shall possess the ground he can use, and no 
 
 more."
 
 THE LAND. ITS PRODUCTIVITY 
 
 A S already stated, nothing could be more absurd 
 
 than to imagine that the future development of 
 
 man is dependent upon a special form of government. 
 
 The instant it is shown that the arable area of 
 the Earth is more than ample to support the human 
 race, assuring the independence of the individual, 
 there can be no particular demand for reformers' 
 schemes and theories, for the basis of human exist- 
 ence and development rests not upon them, but upon 
 the economy of Nature. 
 
 This great, underlying principle upon which human 
 society is founded is a natural law as available to 
 man now as it ever was in the past. But in order 
 that this truth may be made clear, it will be necessary 
 first to show by examples of the productivity of the 
 soil that all things have been provided for man from 
 the beginning. That he is to-day as free to go and 
 come, to think and act, and create and manifest his 
 wishes as he ever was, provided he recognizes and 
 abides by this natural law. 
 
 58
 
 THE LAND ITS PRODUCTIVITY 59 
 
 Owing to man's ignorance and indifference, the 
 true possibilities of rational and scientific farming 
 have been confined chiefly to small areas of land. 
 
 Thus far the surface of the Earth has only been 
 scratched with the plow; the soil has never actually 
 been tilled. 
 
 As a result of the prevailing unscientific methods 
 of land culture, the nations of the Earth, taken in- 
 dividually, are to-day agriculturally non-supporting, 
 and mutually dependent, one upon the other, for their 
 food supplies. 
 
 The most striking example of this agricultural non- 
 support is found, perhaps, in great Britain which, with 
 its present cultivable area of 33,000,000 acres of 
 land, provides food for only one-third of its popula- 
 tion; or, in other words, with 378 inhabitants per 
 square mile it can feed but 130, requiring thus an 
 average of nearly three cultivable acres per capita.* 
 
 The home-grown food production of France and 
 Belgium is much better. France produces food for 
 every 170 out of 188 inhabitants per square mile; 
 Belgium food for about 490 out of 579 inhabitants 
 per square mile. 
 
 The Malthusian theory that there is not enough 
 land area on the surface of the Earth for the nourish- 
 
 * See Appendix No. i for domestic consumption of flour per capita.
 
 6o MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 ment of its inhabitants is the reason given by most 
 economists and those in power for man's failure to 
 support himself from the soil. 
 
 But is this true? 
 
 Is it possible for Great Britain, for example, to 
 feed annually its 40,000,000 inhabitants from 33,- 
 000,000 acres of arable land, allowing Sy 2 bushels 
 of wheat required for one man's annual food? * 
 
 ' The average yield per acre in Great Britain is 
 28 bushels, or 3 1-2 quarters [wheat]," says Robert 
 Blatchford. "At 3 1-2 quarters to the acre, 8,000,- 
 ooo acres would produce 28,000,000 quarters; 
 9,000,000 acres would produce 31,500,000 quarters. 
 
 ' Therefore, we require less than 9,000,000 acres 
 of wheat land to grow a year's supply of wheat for 
 40,000,000 persons. 
 
 " Now we have in Great Britain and Ireland about 
 33,000,000 acres of cultivable land. Deduct 9,000,- 
 ooo for wheat, and we have 24,000,000 acres left for 
 vegetables, fruit, cattle, sheep, pigs, and poultry." f 
 
 " i. If the soil of the United Kingdom were cul- 
 tivated only as it was thirty-five years ago, 24,000,- 
 
 * See Appendix No. 2 for estimate of per capita consumption of 
 wheat in certain countries. 
 
 t See Appendix No. 3 for a more recent report.
 
 THE LAND ITS PRODUCTIVITY 61 
 
 ooo people, instead of 17,000,000, could live on 
 home-grown food. 
 
 " 2. If the cultivable area of the United King- 
 dom were cultivated as the soil is cultivated on the 
 average in Belgium, the United Kingdom would 
 have food for at least 37,000,000 inhabitants. 
 
 " 3. If the population of this country came to be 
 doubled, all that would be required for producing 
 food for 80,000,000 inhabitants would be to culti- 
 vate the soil as it is now cultivated in the best farms 
 of this country, Lombardy, in Flanders." * 
 
 This is what British agriculture is capable of ac- 
 complishing to-day, and yet, in spite of the fact that 
 a single acre of land is sufficient for the support of 
 a man, statistics for 1905 show that one person in 
 every forty in England and Wales is a pauper. 
 
 The idea that a large acreage is necessary to suc- 
 cess in farming is most erroneous. 
 
 In 1895 there were not less than 9,188,007 farms 
 in the United States, England, France, and Ger- 
 many, from one to twenty acres in size. The num- 
 ber of small farms in the United States is steadily 
 increasing. f 
 
 *" Fields, Factories, and Workshops": Prince Kropotkin. 
 
 t See Appendix No. 4 for small farms from one to twenty acres.
 
 62 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 "A large acreage is not always essential to suc- 
 cess in general farming. This is shown by a little 
 farm of fifteen acres near one of our large Eastern 
 cities. Twenty years ago this farm came into pos- 
 session of its present owner, with a mortgage of seven 
 thousand dollars upon it. A definite system of rota- 
 tion and soiling was adopted, which included the 
 growing of certain forage crops and their utilization 
 in the feeding of dairy cows. 
 
 ' The farm is now supporting a herd of twenty- 
 eight dairy cows, besides having some produce to 
 sell. 
 
 " The crops are those ordinarily found on any 
 farm, corn, timothy, clover, rye, and oats. All this 
 accomplished by close attention to details. System 
 and business methods are followed everywhere, and 
 the latest discoveries in agricultural science are util- 
 ized. . . . The new fields in agriculture are not 
 always to be found in general farming. 
 
 " Some of the most promising openings for young 
 men to-day are in the most intensive lines of work 
 connected with the growing of fruits, vegetables, and 
 other crops. ... In this field general fruit-growing 
 offers the greatest number of opportunities to young 
 men . . . five, ten, fifteen, or twenty acres de- 
 voted intelligently to this work should yield an income
 
 THE LAND--ITS PRODUCTIVITY 63 
 
 above the average secured in professional or mer- 
 cantile pursuits."* 
 
 The two following examples are merely average 
 yields, not maximum crops: 
 
 1. "The Island of Jersey, comprising an area of 
 28,707 acres, rocks included, not only nourishes about 
 two inhabitants to the acre, or 1,300 to the square 
 mile, but maintains in addition, 12,300 head of cattle 
 and 23,000 horses used solely for agriculture and 
 breeding. 
 
 2. " On a territory of 37,000 acres, all taken, in 
 the district of Saffelare in East Flanders, a popula- 
 tion of 30,000 inhabitants, all peasants, not only 
 finds its food, but manages, moreover, to keep no 
 less than 10,720 horned cattle, 3,800 sheep, 1,815 
 horses, and 6,550 swine, to grow flax, and to export 
 various agricultural produce." f 
 
 In reference to the Island of Guernsey ( The 
 World's Work, December, 1909), Mr. Bolton Hall 
 says: 
 
 " It is only four to seven miles long and three to 
 four miles wide, yet it supports a population of about 
 
 *Prof. B. T. Galloway, Chief of the Bureau of Plant Industry, 
 United States. 
 t" Fields, Factories, and Workshops": Prince Kropotkin.
 
 64 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 71,000 41,000 permanent and about 30,000 visi- 
 tors each year and also has exports to the value of 
 two and a quarter millions of dollars. 
 
 " The soil is naturally rocky and intractable, and 
 only 11,623 acres are capable of cultivation. Yet 
 this little strip produces about four and a half mil- 
 lion dollars' worth of farm and garden stuff annually, 
 or a little less than $400 to the acre. 
 
 " If the state of New York were cultivated and 
 populated at this rate, it would produce nearly $15,- 
 000,000,000 worth annually, and sustain 233,541,- 
 473 people, or about three times the present popula- 
 tion of the entire United States." 
 
 The following examples of remarkable yields will 
 attest the fact that still greater agricultural results 
 are obtainable from a higher standard of scientific 
 and intensive soil culture: 
 
 1. " At a recent competition [in America] in which hundreds of 
 farmers took part, the first ten prizes were awarded to ten farmers 
 who had grown, on three acres each, from 262 to 346 3-4 bushels 
 of Indian corn; in other words, from 87 to 115 bushels to the acre. 
 
 2. " In Minnesota the prizes were given for crops of 300 to 1,120 
 bushels of potatoes to the acre, i.e., from 8 1-4 to 31 tons to the 
 acre." 
 
 3. [Referring to Major Hallett's method of growing wheat in 
 rows; a method long employed in China, India, and Japan;
 
 THE LAND ITS PRODUCTIVITY 65 
 
 planting each grain of wheat separately from eight to ten inches 
 apart:] "The 8J/2 bushels required for one man's annual food 
 were actually grown at the Tomblaine station (France) on a sur- 
 face of 2,250 square feet, or forty-seven feet square, i.e., on very 
 nearly one-twentieth part of an acre." * 
 
 1. "James L. Rea of Lewis and Clark County, 
 Montana Territory, produced 102 bushels of good 
 wheat from one acre, and obtained the first premium 
 at the Fair for the largest yield of wheat raised in 
 the Territory. 
 
 2. "In the reports of wheat culture in 1879, 
 eleven different producers in various parts of the 
 United States grew wheat averaging from 4254 to 
 6i^4 bushels per acre. 
 
 3. " When the writer was a boy on the Genesee 
 Flats fifty years ago, it was a common thing among 
 farmers to obtain as high as 40, 50, and often 60 
 bushels of wheat per acre." f 
 
 " In Assiniboia, fifty to fifty-five bushels of wheat 
 per acre have been threshed from a field of one 
 hundred acres and over in the Indian Head, Wide 
 Awake, and Abernethy districts." $ 
 
 *" Fields, Factories, and Workshops": Prince Kropotkin. 
 
 f" Wheat Culture": D. S. Curtis. 1888, 4th edition, 1890. 
 
 | Report of Angus Mackay, Superintendent Experimental Farm 
 for the Northwest Territories, Indian Head, N.W.T., Canada, No- 
 vember 30, 1901.
 
 66 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 The annual yield of corn grown by Funk Brothers 
 of Bloomington, 111., averages from 96 to 157 
 bushels per acre. 
 
 'Thirty-five bushels of wheat (per acre) will 
 yield a fair remuneration for the work expended in 
 production when prices are at the lowest. When 
 they are high, the profits are two hundred and three 
 hundred per cent." * 
 
 But what is most noticeable in connection with 
 these data is that wheat culture has not improved 
 during the past fifty years. 
 
 The methods of culture now employed at our Ex- 
 perimental Stations were common knowledge among 
 the best farmers fifty years ago; while the average 
 maximum crop of 45 to 50 bushels now grown at 
 our Agricultural Institutions was regarded by them 
 also as an average crop. 
 
 " The culture of wheat in the United Kingdom 
 has decreased by more than half within the past 
 thirty years; consumption, meanwhile, has been stead- 
 ily increasing; and the situation now is that the 
 English people, an insular nation, produces less than 
 one-fifth of the grain that constitutes their chief 
 
 "The Farmstead": Isaac P. Roberts.
 
 THE LAND ITS PRODUCTIVITY 67 
 
 article of food, and are hence dependent for over 
 four-fifths of their supply upon over-sea transporta- 
 tion." * f 
 
 What an Acre May Produce in Vegetables and Fruits 
 " An area of 150 xioo feet [about two-fifths of an 
 acre] is generally sufficient to supply a family of five 
 persons with vegetables, not considering the winter 
 supply of potatoes; but the area must be well tilled 
 and handled. ... In other words, the produce 
 that could be thus obtained from an acre of land well 
 situated would abundantly supply with nearly all 
 the vegetables named, nineteen families, comprising 
 in all 114 individuals."! 
 
 An acre will produce in vegetables: 
 
 " Beets average crop is 300-400 bushels per acre. 
 
 Carrots good crop is 200-300 bushels per acre. 
 
 Cabbage 8,000 heads per acre. 
 
 Potatoes The yield of potatoes averages about 75 
 bushels per acre, but with forethought and good 
 tillage and some fertilizer, the yield should run 
 
 * Crop Reporter, October, 1905. Washington, D. C. 
 
 t For yields of wheat, corn, and potatoes, see Appendix, Nos. 5, 6, 
 7 respectively. For examples in Dry Farming and Date Raising in 
 the Sahara Desert, see Appendix, Nos. 8 and 9. 
 
 $" Principles of Vegetable Gardening": L. H. Bailey.
 
 68 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 from 200 to 300 bushels, and occasionally yields 
 
 will much exceed the latter figure. 
 Rhubarb From 2 to 5 stalks are tied in a bunch 
 
 for market, and an acre should produce 3,000 
 
 dozen bunches. 
 
 Salsify Good crop 200-300 bushels per acre. 
 Onions A good crop of onions is 300-400 bushels 
 
 to the acre, but 600-800 are secured under the 
 
 very best conditions." * 
 
 What we may hope to get from an acre, respec- 
 tively, in 
 
 " Potatoes, 300 bus. at 75c. a bu $225.00 
 
 Cabbages, 20 tons at $10.00 a ton . . 200.00 
 
 Carrots and Beets, 200 to 400 bus. 150.00 
 
 Tomatoes, 200 crates at 75c. a crate 150.00 
 
 Early peas, 50 bus. at $2.00 a bu. . . 100.00 
 
 Turnips, 400 bus. at 25C. a bu 100.00 
 
 Spinach, 100 bbls. at 5oc. a bbl. . . . 50.00 
 Asparagus, 3,000 bunches at 2Oc. a 
 
 bunch 600.00 
 
 Cauliflower, 100 to 300 bbls. at 
 
 $1.50, say 450.00 
 
 Onions, 600 bus. at 75c. a bu 450.00 
 
 Cabbage seed, 1,000 Ibs. at 4oc. a Ib. 400.00 
 
 *" Three Acres and Liberty": Bolton Hall.
 
 THE LAND--ITS PRODUCTIVITY 69 
 
 Brussels Sprouts, 3,000 quarts at ice. 
 
 a qt $300.00 
 
 Celery, 6,000 bunches, 50. a bunch 300.00 
 Parsnips, 300 bus. at $1.00 a bu. . . 300.00 
 Lettuce, 9,000 heads at 3c. a head . . 270.00 
 Lima Beans, 50 bus. at $5.00 a bu. 250.00 " * 
 
 What we may hope to get from an acre, respec- 
 tively, in 
 
 " Blackberries, 10,000 qts. at jc. a qt. $700.00 
 Dewberries, 9,000 qts. at 7c. a qt. . . 630.00 
 Gooseberries, 250 bus. at $2.00 a bu. 500.00 
 Strawberries, 8,000 qts. at 5c. a qt. 400.00 
 Currants, 3,000 plants yield 6,000 
 
 bus 200.00 
 
 Raspberries, per acre , $200.00 to 600.00 
 
 Peaches, per acre 200.00 to 400.00 
 
 Pears, per acre 200.00 to 500.00 
 
 Apples, per acre ....... 100.00 to 500.00 
 
 Grapes 100.00 " * 
 
 " One farm in the Sacramento Valley consists of 
 one single acre of irrigated land, and gives a better 
 home and larger net income for its owner than his 
 neighbors enjoy on places of thousands of acres each. 
 The little farm is at Orland, in Glenn County, and 
 
 "Three Acres and Liberty": Bolton Hall.
 
 70 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 is the property of Samuel Cleeks, who has grown old 
 tilling it for the past thirty years. 
 
 " Mr. Cleeks makes a comfortable living from 
 this one acre and is able to save an average of four 
 hundred dollars a year beside. 
 
 " He has money to loan, as well as fruit, vege- 
 tables, and poultry products to sell to those who are 
 getting poorer every year in carrying on big farms 
 without irrigation." *f 
 
 " The average annual yield of Southern California 
 orange and lemon groves," says Mr. Edgar French, 
 " is 30,000 carloads. The gross value of the crop 
 is considerably in excess of 30 millions a year. About 
 60,000 acres of citrus trees are in bearing. 
 
 " Translated into human terms, these figures mean 
 that about 6,500 families in Southern California live 
 in beautiful orange groves of five to twenty acres 
 apiece, upon a gross income of, say, $500 an acre 
 a year. 
 
 " This means not only the luxury of life in a gentle 
 climate on a fragrant plain, hemmed in by inspir- 
 ing vistas of mountainous ranges; it means that these 
 people practice a species of horticulture that is at 
 
 "Three Acres and "Liberty": Bolton Han. 
 
 f For a list of what this farm contains, see Appendix, No. ib.
 
 THE LAND ITS PRODUCTIVITY 71 
 
 once a fine art and a paying commercial investment; 
 that they tend their groves with an informed intelli- 
 gence that makes of rural life an intellectual enjoy- 
 ment, and have, besides, the leisure and means for 
 recreation, for travel, and for other uplifting ac- 
 quirements of culture." * 
 
 " California," says Mr. Bolton Hall, " is not the 
 only place in the United States where a man can live 
 on one acre of ground, by intensive culture and with 
 irrigation. The Eastern and Middle States can pre- 
 sent just as good, if not better opportunities, espe- 
 cially where land in small tracts is available near the 
 large cities. 
 
 " At Hyde Park, a little village three miles north 
 of Reading, Pa., there is a small farm owned by 
 Oliver R. Shearer, who may be said to be one of the 
 most successful farmers in the United States. 
 
 ' This farm contains 3 1-3 acres, only 2 1-2 of 
 which are cultivated, but they yield the owner annu- 
 ally from $1,200 to $1,500. From the profits of 
 his intensive farming, Mr. Shearer has paid $3,800 
 for his property, which, besides the land, consists of 
 a modern two-story brick house, with barn, chicken- 
 
 * " The Rediscovery of California ": Edgar French. The World's 
 Work, August, 1909.
 
 72 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 yard, and orchard, the whole surrounded by a neat 
 fence. 
 
 " He has also raised and educated a family of 
 three children. There are no secrets, Mr. Shearer 
 says, about his methods of farming. 
 
 " A study of conditions, the application of com- 
 mon-sense methods and untiring energy, he asserts, 
 will enable any farmer to do what he has done." 
 
 " Professor Thomas Shaw writes of a plot of 
 ordinary ground in Minnesota comprising the nine- 
 teenth part of an acre, which for years kept a family 
 of six matured persons abundantly supplied with 
 vegetables all the year, with the exception of potatoes, 
 celery, and cabbage. In addition, much was given 
 away, more especially of the early varieties, and in 
 many instances much was thrown away." f 
 
 The One-Acre Ranch 
 
 The owner of this acre of land is Mr. Joseph 
 Lipe, a resident of Clarkson, Wash. Previous to 
 the purchase of the land, Mr. Lipe lived in " a 
 small two-roomed flat in the crowded quarter of 
 Minneapolis," and " for thirty years, with hardly a 
 day's intermission, had piloted a locomotive." 
 
 "Three Acres and Liberty": Bolton Hall. 
 ^Maxwell's Talisman.
 
 THE LAND ITS PRODUCTIVITY 73 
 
 " He was over sixty years old," and " in poor 
 health. . . . He knew nothing of farming," but 
 " was anxious to give up railroading for a quieter 
 occupation." An acre of irrigated land in Clarkson 
 was offered him. " On it was a square, six-roomed 
 house, unpainted, one hundred and eighteen two-year- 
 old fruit trees, a few vegetables, dying for want of 
 attention, six half-starved chickens, and a huge rub- 
 bish pile. Inclosing it was a rickety barbed-wire 
 fence. That was all. 
 
 " He paid fourteen hundred dollars for the land 
 and ' improvements,' and an additional two dollars 
 and a half to the former owner's son for clearing 
 away the rubbish-heap. 
 
 " From that day he paid not another cent for 
 hired labor. . . . He read all that he could find 
 upon the subject, talked with men who had made a 
 study of irrigation farming, and went among those 
 of his neighbors who were successful, working in the 
 field with them. 
 
 " He saw the results obtained through practical 
 operation of scientific methods, and that intelligent 
 effort and careful supervision were what counted, 
 not the amount of land one possessed. 
 
 " He pruned the trees and set out thirty others of 
 different varieties; he plowed out the old vegetables
 
 74 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 and vines, and planted new ones; he sold the half- 
 dozen sick chickens, and replaced them by a thorough- 
 bred Black Spanish rooster and three hens, and built 
 them a chicken-yard, sowing it to wheat. 
 
 " He soon learned in just what quantities each 
 tree and vegetable required the life-giving moisture. 
 . . . At the end of the first year, the sale of fruits, 
 vegetables, and chickens had not only paid all living 
 expenses, but had left a surplus as well. This was 
 returned to the land for improvements. The house 
 was painted, new chicken-houses were built, and the 
 old fence was replaced by a neat wire one. 
 
 ' While the husband experimented with every 
 variety of fruit and vegetable, the wife experimented 
 with her preserves until they became as famous as her 
 husband's crops. 
 
 ' To-day the One-Acre Ranch has reached its cul- 
 mination. . . . Every inch of ground has its duty 
 to perform. . . . The land, however, is by no 
 means all given to agriculture. 
 
 " The house takes up one corner. In front of it is 
 a small, well-kept lawn and flower-garden. To the 
 north of the house is a large storage-cellar, a tool- 
 house, a dog-kennel, numerous chicken-houses, and 
 several fenced-in breeding and feeding pens, covering 
 one-half acre.
 
 THE LAND ITS PRODUCTIVITY 75 
 
 " The orchard occupies one-fourth of the acre. 
 In it are one hundred and thirty trees, including eight 
 varieties of peach, seven of cherry, and four of apple ; 
 also plum, apricot, quince, English walnut, Spanish 
 chestnut, and almond. 
 
 " Between the trees, and on the other fourth part 
 of the acre, are grown berries and vegetables, thirty 
 varieties or more, including potatoes, peas, beans, 
 cucumbers, tomatoes, beets, onions, squash, parsnips, 
 asparagus, peppers, pickles, turnips, cabbage, straw- 
 berries, grapes, currants, gooseberries, raspberries, 
 and blackberries. 
 
 " The one hundred and seventy-odd thorough- 
 bred chickens last year laid over five thousand 
 eggs." 
 
 At the Lewiston Inter-State Fair the One-Acre 
 Ranch was awarded thirty-six prizes. " In addition 
 to an astonishing variety of fresh fruits and vege- 
 tables, there were entered two hundred and sixty- 
 seven cans of preserves, all of which were different, 
 either in fruit or in the mode of preserving." * 
 
 *" One- Acre Ranch: How to Make a Living from One Acre of 
 Land": William Howard Kirkbride, Century Magazine, March, 
 1908.
 
 76 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 4 The London Daily News reports that in the year 
 1905, which was not a good year for all crops, on 
 half an acre of land, Mr. Henry Vincent, of Brigh- 
 ton, England, raised vegetables which gave him a net 
 profit of 59 odd pounds, or about $300. Thus this 
 yield is at the rate of $600 per acre.* 
 
 " Mr. Vincent explains how he came to go into 
 intensive cultivation : ' A few years ago the doctors 
 said if I did not go out more I could not live. Very 
 well, just at that time there was an outcry about the 
 land not paying cultivation. 
 
 ' I could not understand this, for as a boy at 
 seven years of age I had to go out to farm-work, 
 therefore, I never went to school. 
 
 " ' Anyhow, I thought something was very wrong 
 if the land did not pay; so, to compel myself to go out 
 in the fresh air, I took an allotment on the Sussex 
 Downs to work in the early morning before my daily 
 duties began. 
 
 " ' I might say that I am a waiter, and have been in 
 my present situation forty years, so you can under- 
 stand I could not know much of land or garden-work. 
 I may add that, my duty at the hotel I am working 
 in, means eighty hours a week, so I could not see my 
 way clear in the few spare hours I get to take more 
 
 * For list of products raised by Mr. Vincent, see Appendix, No. u.
 
 THE LAND ITS PRODUCTIVITY 77 
 
 than half an acre of land to garden early, especially 
 as I started knowing practically nothing about such 
 work, but I can manage to do my half-acre all 
 alone. 
 
 ' My garden is situated on the Brighton Race 
 Hill ridge, and twelve years ago it was but four inches 
 of soil on chalk, but I now have a foot of soil on the 
 whole of the half-acre, and year by year my profits in- 
 
 crease. 
 
 (( C 
 
 Yes, get the men to stop on the land in this 
 country. We ought not to have workhouses. Every 
 man could live, and live well, if he could get the 
 land, and would work it as it should be worked. 
 
 ' Farmers and landowners grumble because the 
 land does not pay. Now for the fault. It is quite 
 evident it is not the land, therefore, it must be the 
 fault of the man. 
 
 * Very well, get the land from these landed pro- 
 prietors, by sale preferred, and let it out to men, 
 not by 1,000 acres, as no man can farm well a thou- 
 sand acres in England; let the farms be greatly re- 
 duced, and then the land can be treated as it should 
 be. 
 
 1 Most of us have children, and we all know how 
 we love and treat them. Treat the land in the same 
 manner; feed it, and keep it clean, and you will have
 
 78 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 no cause to complain. The land of old England is as 
 good as it ever was. 
 
 ' I have serious thoughts of opening a kind of 
 school for people who would like to make $500 a 
 year off an acre. It is to be done, and done easily. 
 I do know that one man alone can manage two acres, 
 and at the end of this year I shall be able to tell 
 how much more he can manage alone, so under my 
 system one can gain 4 a week off two acres and do 
 all one's self. 
 
 " ' If the land will produce over one hundred 
 pounds per year per acre, is it not wrong for a man 
 to have, say, 500 or 1,000 acres which in no way 
 can he properly manage; as, in the first place, he can- 
 not feed such an acreage, let alone keep it clean and 
 gather in his crops?' ' *f 
 
 So much for intensive soil culture and maximum 
 crop raising; but for the benefit of all those who 
 still question the productivity of the soil and the 
 possibilities of agriculture, we refer to Appendix, 
 
 "Three Acres and Liberty": Bolton Hall. 
 
 t Information concerning the raising of game, pheasants, and 
 other wild fowl, as well as the addresses of persons engaged in 
 the business can be had from the U. S. Department of Agriculture. 
 Also information regarding fish and bee culture, the rearing of 
 squabs, growing mushrooms, flowers, drug-plants, and other novel 
 and profitable uses of land. See Appendix, No, 12.
 
 THE LAND ITS PRODUCTIVITY 79 
 
 No. 13, for the history of " The Twenty-Acre 
 Farm." 
 
 " Our means," says Prince Kropotkin, " of obtain- 
 ing from the soil whatever we want, under any cli- 
 mate and upon any soil, have lately improved at such 
 a rate that we cannot foresee yet what is the limit of 
 productivity of a few acres of land. . . . Soil 
 does not matter now, nor climate very much. 
 
 ' There is quite a new science of agriculture which 
 makes its own soil and modifies its climate. Corn and 
 fruit can be grown on any soil on rock, on sand, 
 on clay. 
 
 " All we can now say is, that 600 persons could 
 easily live on a square mile; and that, with culture 
 methods already used on a large scale, 1,000 human 
 beings not idlers living on 1,000 acres, could 
 easily, without any kind of overwork, obtain from 
 that area a luxurious vegetable and animal food, as 
 well as flax, wool, silk, and hides necessary for their 
 clothing." 
 
 In conclusion let us quote from the address of 
 James J. Hill, President of the Great Northern 
 Railroad, delivered at the Minnesota State Fair in 
 St. Paul, September 3, 1906.
 
 80 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 Mr. Hill's words seem to be truly Inspired, and 
 coming as they do from a man of his type, one of 
 the most conservative representatives of Organized 
 Capital, they may be classed among the most remark- 
 able utterances made on American soil since the 
 American Declaration of Independence. 
 
 After referring to the prodigal waste and wanton 
 destruction of our minerals and forests, and the im- 
 poverishment of the soil by our deliberate neglect 
 of it, Mr. Hill asks : 
 
 " Where are our children to find standing room 
 and the tens of millions of the future a place for 
 wholesome industry? What are we to do with our 
 brother, whose keeper we are? No nation in history 
 was ever confronted with a sterner question. 
 
 ' Within forty-four years we shall have to meet 
 the wants of more than two hundred million people. 
 In less than twenty years from this moment the 
 United States will have 130,000,000 people. 
 
 " Where are these people, not of some dim, dis- 
 tant age, but of this very generation now growing 
 to manhood, to be employed and how supported? 
 
 " A generous estimate of competent geologists for 
 the life of the better coal measures of Europe as a 
 whole, is less than one hundred years. It is certainly
 
 THE LAND ITS PRODUCTIVITY 81 
 
 a moderate statement to say that, by the middle of 
 the present century, when our population shall have 
 reached the two hundred million mark, our best and 
 most convenient coal will have been so far consumed 
 that the remainder can only be applied to present uses 
 at an enhanced cost which will probably compel the 
 entire rearrangement of industries and revolutionize 
 the common lot and common life. 
 
 ' This is not a mere possibility, but a probability 
 which our country must face. . . . Our available 
 iron deposits have been carefully catalogued. All the 
 fields of national importance have been known for at 
 least twenty years. In the year 1950, so far as our 
 resources are concerned, we will approach an ironless 
 age. 
 
 " For a population of 200,000,000 people our 
 home supply of iron will have retreated almost to the 
 company of the precious metals. There is no sub- 
 stitute whose production and preparation for prac- 
 tical use is not far more expensive. . . . The peril 
 is not one of remote geologic time, but this genera- 
 tion. And where is there a sign of preparation for it? 
 
 " If any man thinks this prophecy of danger fan- 
 tastic, let him glance at Great Britain . . . already 
 there is a cry of want and suffering from every street 
 in England . . . men are hovering together in her
 
 82 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 cities, uttering that most pathetic and most awful ul- 
 timatum, ' Damn your charity, give us work ! ' And 
 this is only the beginning of that industrial read- 
 justment which the unwise application of industry 
 and the destruction of natural resources must force 
 everywhere. 
 
 " Every people is thus reduced in the final ap- 
 praisal of its estate to reliance upon the soil. This is 
 the sole asset that does not perish, because it contains 
 within itself, if not abused, the possibility of infinite 
 renewal. A self-perpetuating race must rely upon 
 some self-perpetuating means of support. Our one 
 resource, therefore, looking at humanity as something 
 more than the creature of a day, is the productivity 
 of the soil. . . . When we have added to the na- 
 tional export trade $500,000,000 per annum, the 
 country rings with self-congratulation and we demand 
 the plaudits of the world. 
 
 " If a process for extracting metallic wealth from 
 rocks were to be discovered to-morrow, such as to as- 
 sure the country an added volume of a $1,000,000,- 
 ooo in wealth every year, the nation would talk of 
 nothing else. Yet these things would be but a trifle 
 when compared with the possibilities of agricultural 
 development in the United States. 
 
 " The official estimated value of all farm products
 
 THE LAND--ITS PRODUCTIVITY 83 
 
 of the country last year ( 1905) was $6,415,000,000. 
 Discount this for high prices and generally favorable 
 conditions by twenty per cent., and more than $5,- 
 000,000,000 remain. It is also officially recorded 
 that, of the appropriated farm area of the United 
 States, a little less than one-half is under cultivation. 
 Utilize the other half and without any change in 
 method, the output would be practically doubled. 
 
 " We should be able, by the adoption of a system 
 of culture in full operation elsewhere, greatly to in- 
 crease this minimum present yield of $5,000,000,000 
 per annum of farm products. That is, we may add 
 $10,000,000,000 or $15,000,000,000 every year to 
 the national wealth if we so choose. 
 
 " Only one-half of the land in private ownership is 
 now tilled. That tillage does not produce one-half 
 of what the land might be made to yield, without los- 
 ing an atom of its fertility. Yet the waste of our 
 treasure has proceeded so far that the actual value of 
 the soil for productive purposes has already deterio- 
 rated more than it should have done in five centuries of 
 use. There is, except in isolated and individual cases, 
 little approaching intensive agriculture in the United 
 States. There is only the annual skimming of the 
 rich cream, the exhaustion of virgin fertility, the ex- 
 traction from the earth by the most rapid process of
 
 84 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 its productive powers, the deterioration of life's sole 
 maintenance. And all this with that army of another 
 hundred million people marching in plain sight to- 
 ward us, and expecting and demanding that they shall 
 be fed. 
 
 " The first step is to realize our dependence upon 
 the cultivation of the soil. The next will be to con- 
 centrate popular interest and invention and hope upon 
 that neglected occupation. We are still clinging to 
 the skirts of a civilization born of great cities. We 
 at this very moment use a slang which calls the stupid 
 man ' a farmer.' 
 
 " Genius has shunned the farm and expended itself 
 upon mechanical appliances and commerce and the 
 manifold activities whose favorable reactions filter 
 back but slowly to the plot of ground upon which 
 stands solidly the real master of himself and his 
 destiny. 
 
 " Japan is a world's university for instruction in 
 the art of agriculture. Of her 45,000,000 people, 
 30,000,000 are farmers. The whole body is sup- 
 ported by a cultivated area of but 19,000 square miles 
 ... the farmer is a specialist. For twenty-five 
 centuries this people has turned to tillage as the basic 
 industry of life. Her progress is in the right direc- 
 tion; growth like that of the tree, from the ground up.
 
 THE LAND ITS PRODUCTIVITY 85 
 
 ' The Government should establish a small model 
 farm on its own land in every rural Congressional 
 district, later, perhaps, in every county in the agricul- 
 tural States. Let the Department of Agriculture 
 show exactly what can be done on a small tract of 
 land by proper cultivation, moderate fertilizing, and 
 due rotation of crops. ... It can be shown that 
 an average of two persons or more may be supported 
 on every acre of tillable land by the highest form of 
 intensive farming. 
 
 " But dismissing this as unnecessary, it has been 
 shown that a people like those of Belgium to-day, 
 raise from the soil food enough for the needs of 490 
 persons to the square mile. 
 
 " Accepting provisionally that ratio as a point of 
 departure, though the actual ratio of area to popula- 
 tion gives a figure considerably higher even than this, 
 414,498,487 acres of improved farm lands in the 
 United States on the date of the last official report, 
 an area materially enlarged by the present time, would 
 support in comfort 317,350,405 people. . . . Ap- 
 plying the same ratio to the entire acreage of farm 
 lands within the United States, both improved and 
 unimproved, which was at the same date 838,591,- 
 774, the population indicated as able to live with com- 
 fort and prosperity on the actually existing agricul-
 
 86 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 tural area of this country, under an intelligent system 
 and a fairly competent, but by no means highly 
 scientific, method of culture, rises to 642,046,823. 
 
 ' The conclusion is that, if not another acre were 
 to be redeemed from the wilderness, if the soil were 
 treated kindly and intelligently, and if industry were 
 distributed duly and popular attention were concen- 
 trated upon the best possible utilization of the one 
 unfailing national resource, there would be produced 
 all the necessary food for the wants of, in round num- 
 bers, 650,000,000 people." 
 
 Rational, or small farming, is indeed the salvation 
 of the human race. Search where you will through- 
 out the world, the deepest content and greatest pros- 
 perity are ever found among the people who possess 
 small farms who live upon and till their own soil. 
 
 The Belgium farmer and those of the Channel 
 Islands on their five- and ten-acre farms, like the 
 farmers of New York, California, and Oregon, pos- 
 sessing but ten- and twenty-acre farms, are far more 
 prosperous than the farmers of the great English 
 and Russian estates, or the ranch owners of the 
 United States and Canada. 
 
 Average crops never pay in the long run, since 
 average land under present-day methods of cultiva-
 
 THE LAND ITS PRODUCTIVITY 87 
 
 tion yields only about one-fifth of what may be pro- 
 duced by more intensive methods of cultivation. 
 
 The true principles of soil culture can only be 
 worked out and successfully exploited by single in- 
 dividuals on small areas of land. The reason why 
 men fail at small farming is because they are ignorant 
 of such principles; without such knowledge, no one 
 can engage successfully in small farming if depend- 
 ent on present-day markets. 
 
 The area of the Earth affords but a limited number 
 of acres of arable land to be placed at the disposal 
 of the individual, for which reason, intensive soil 
 culture and raising of maximum crops becomes not 
 only a necessity, but the inevitable end and aim of 
 true agricultural science. 
 
 " Give us the man with his little patch of ground, 
 his bean-rows and bee-loud glades, his morning musi- 
 cal with the lark and his evening full of the linnets' 
 wings. 
 
 " In his sinews is the strength of the good brave 
 soil, and in his soul is the glory of the sun and the 
 splendor of the stars. 
 
 " God send him the singing rains, the day's tender 
 warmth, gladness for his seedtime, and plenty for 
 his harvests ! "
 
 VI 
 
 THE ARABLE AREA OF THE EARTH 
 
 "1T7E know what the soil will produce if intelli- 
 gently cultivated; we also know that no limit 
 can at present be set to the future possibilities of 
 agriculture. 
 
 It, therefore, only remains to be proved whether 
 or not the arable area of the Earth is sufficient to 
 nourish the human race. 
 
 According to Ravenstein, the land area of the 
 Earth is 49,402,099 square miles; its population, in- 
 cluding the polar regions, 1,602,127,461, or 32.43 
 inhabitants to the square mile; and with present 
 methods of soil culture and production the Earth 
 could easily support 207 inhabitants to the square 
 mile, or a population of 10,226,234,493. 
 
 Again, according to Ravenstein, there are 28,269,- 
 200 square miles of fertile lands, and 13,901,000 
 square miles in steppes; making 42,170,200 square 
 miles of cultivable land, not including 4,180,000 
 square miles of desert; a large portion of which, as 
 
 88
 
 THE ARABLE AREA OF THE EARTH 89 
 
 has been proved, is also cultivable if properly tilled 
 and irrigated. 
 
 We have, therefore, at present 42,170,200 square 
 miles, or 26,988,928,000 acres of arable land at our 
 disposal; an average of over 16^ acres to each in- 
 habitant of the Earth. 
 
 The Earth is, then, not only capable of nourish- 
 ing the human race to-day, but with our present 
 knowledge of the possibilities of the soil and the 
 application of scientific methods of cultivation, it 
 could easily support, if necessary, a population of 
 26,988,928,000; one acre per capita.* 
 
 These are facts, not theories. And in the face of 
 such facts it is hardly necessary to add that Malthus' 
 economical theories are not tenable; especially when 
 we take into consideration the additional fact that, if 
 the Earth were as thickly populated as Great Britain 
 and Ireland to-day, it would have, exclusive of desert 
 and polar regions, but 15,300,846,254 inhabitants. 
 
 Will anyone, in the face of these facts and figures, 
 longer dispute the individual's right to his natural 
 
 * The population of Europe has about doubled itself during the 
 last century, but its general increase has already practically reached 
 its maximum. There is, however, no reason to believe that the Earth 
 will ever become over-populated, for so far as we are at present 
 able to observe, there seems to be a natural law governing the 
 higher evolutionary life whose energy is expended, not in the in- 
 crease of reproduction, but in the quality of men.
 
 90 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 portion of the soil, or the possibility of nourishing 
 himself therefrom? 
 
 Human economy, to be rational, must rest upon 
 the soil the same as natural economy, for the reason 
 that human and animal existence depends alike upon 
 the productivity of the soil. 
 
 Nature has given man the soil. If he allows him- 
 self to be robbed of his natural portion of it, or if 
 he fails to utilize its productivity by neglecting to 
 increase its fertility, he has no one but himself to 
 blame; especially if the land can neither be bought, 
 sold, taxed, rented, nor taken from him. 
 
 As a result of the above eduction of facts, every- 
 body is to-day entitled to 16^4 acres of arable land, 
 but in order that we may not be seriously inconveni- 
 enced by any future increase in the world's popula- 
 tion, we will withdraw 6-)4 acres from each indi- 
 vidual's share for a reserve fund of land; in other 
 words, about 10,814,360,361 acres, which, allowing 
 ten acres to the man, represents a land area capable 
 of supporting an increase of 1,081,436,036 inhab- 
 itants, or 520,691,425 inhabitants less than the entire 
 population of the world to-day; a reserve area of 
 land more than ample to meet the demands of any 
 rational estimate of the world's increase in popula- 
 tion for centuries to come.
 
 THE ARABLE AREA OF THE EARTH 91 
 
 Knowing what we do of the productivity of the 
 soil, it is no exaggeration to state that, the present 
 area of farm lands in the United States, 841,201,546 
 acres, together with 500,000,000 acres of Canadian, 
 and 100,000,000 of Mexican soil, a total of 1,441,- 
 201,546 acres, could furnish all necessities of life 
 for the entire population of Asia, Europe, the United 
 States, and Canada, a total of 1,303,841,666 in- 
 habitants. And when it is further stated that the 
 continents of North and South America could to-day 
 easily clothe and feed the entire human race, it will 
 perhaps be worth our while to consider seriously 
 whether or not there is any justification for a con- 
 tinuance of past and present policies. 
 
 In fact, it cannot at present be accurately estimated 
 just what amount of arable land man will have at 
 his disposal in the near future. 
 
 Ravenstein's figures, though accurate, are in a 
 measure antiquated. Large areas of the Earth's sur- 
 face have never been surveyed at all. 
 
 With our ever increasing knowledge of agricultural 
 methods, irrigation, and dry farming, the present 
 area of arable land will be vastly increased. 
 
 Regions that were once regarded as arid wastes 
 and worthless, are no longer so considered. Even 
 the pure desert sands are no longer looked upon as
 
 92 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 hopeless, beyond the possibilities of reclamation, 
 large areas of which must inevitably yield to superior 
 methods of soil culture. 
 
 There is no doubt that, once the Earth's surface 
 has been properly surveyed, it will be found that 
 there is much more arable land than we at present 
 imagine and that the portion of land falling to the in- 
 dividual might be greatly increased. But that does 
 not alter the fact that ten acres of land are all that 
 he should be permitted to hold, all that he can con- 
 sistently use. 
 
 Ten acres of land are not only a fair allotment, 
 but a very generous portion of the Earth's surface 
 to consign to the control of the individual during a 
 lifetime, especially since it has been shown that a 
 single acre of arable land under ordinary cultivation 
 yields only one-fifth the amount of produce it is 
 capable of yielding, were intelligent and intensive 
 culture methods employed upon it. 
 
 If one acre of land is capable of nourishing the 
 individual, five acres would be nearer a fair average 
 than ten to allot to single individuals; but as there 
 is an abundance of land for everyone, it is not neces- 
 sary to reduce the individual's holding to so small a 
 portion. 
 
 Ten acres, therefore, being ample not only for the
 
 THE ARABLE AREA OF THE EARTH 93 
 
 maintenance of the individual, but also for the aver- 
 age family as well, every human being born into the 
 Earth-life should be entitled to that amount of the 
 Earth's surface (arable land), and should be allowed 
 to continue in possession of the same until death, 
 provided he makes use of it for pastoral purposes, 
 or utilizes it to its full extent for some other useful 
 purpose.* 
 
 The farmer should be permitted to hold ten acres 
 if single; if married, he and his wife twenty acres in 
 common (two ten-acre plots adjoining) ; because he, 
 like the nomad and the savage, is the only remaining 
 member of the human family who still lives within 
 the natural sphere of his earthly environment, and 
 is, therefore, entitled to that portion of the Earth's 
 surface which is necessary to yield him a comfortable 
 living. 
 
 This same law would also apply to the dweller 
 of the city and to all those who acquire a living from 
 other pursuits than that of husbandry were they not 
 one step removed from man's natural condition. 
 
 But having removed themselves from man's natu- 
 
 * To-day three acres of land are commonly considered essential 
 to provide the necessities of life for a single person, or the annual 
 sustenance for one head of horned cattle or eight sheep; reckoning 
 9,000 Ibs. of hay to each horned head ; with intensive soil culture, 
 one acre would more than suffice for the same.
 
 94 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 ral condition to that of an artificial one of their own 
 creating, Nature demands as a sacrifice from all those 
 who have thus transgressed her laws, that portion of 
 their original birthright which they have ceased to 
 cultivate or occupy; or better, the whole of it; as 
 the source from which their living is derived is no 
 longer a natural one, but an artificial one.
 
 VII 
 
 TOWNS AND CITIES 
 
 T T has been seen that since the husbandman lives 
 in harmony with natural law, drawing his main- 
 tenance from natural sources, he is entitled to such a 
 portion of the Earth's surface as is required to yield 
 him a livelihood. 
 
 This same law, it is evident, would apply in like 
 manner to the town or city dweller had he not chosen 
 to leave man's natural or normal sphere of existence, 
 and create for himself more or less artificial condi- 
 tions, lying outside the pale of that law. 
 
 We say artificial for the reason that all institutions 
 called towns and cities, and all phases of government, 
 whether of a local or national character, which extend 
 beyond those of a primitive people, are sustained, not 
 from natural sources, but through the artificial means 
 of taxation man's invention, not Nature's. 
 
 Since, therefore, natural laws cannot be applied 
 to towns and cities, a special method must be em- 
 ployed for the distribution of such lands and property 
 
 95
 
 96 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 in order that a system of equality may be established 
 and maintained within them. 
 
 The dweller in towns and cities who has chosen 
 some one of the many artificial and more or less pre- 
 carious methods of obtaining a livelihood in prefer- 
 ence to the natural occupation of husbandry, has also, 
 by that very choice, renounced his original birthright. 
 He can no longer lay claim to that definite allotment 
 of the Earth's surface which is the farmer's due and 
 whose only valid tenure is its direct cultivation by 
 the holder. 
 
 He is, however, entitled to a residence or residences 
 surrounded by such ground space within the ten-acre 
 limit as he chooses to beautify and maintain as a 
 garden. 
 
 He is entitled, moreover, to such further ground 
 space, still within his ten-acre allotment, as he is able 
 to cover with buildings, including that which is re- 
 quired for the purposes of his commercial, scientific, 
 or artistic pursuits with free ground space for the 
 storage or occupancy of raw materials, or for the clay 
 used for making bricks, tiles, crockery, etc. But 
 not another square inch of the Earth's surface beyond 
 that which is necessary for his immediate require- 
 ments within the ten-acre limit should the individual 
 be permitted to hold, for the reason that he would
 
 TOWNS AND CITIES 97 
 
 otherwise monopolize land to the detriment of the 
 Public. 
 
 This restriction, limiting all persons not engaged in 
 pastoral pursuits to that amount of ground space 
 within the ten-acre allotment which they can cover 
 with buildings, or which is essential to the immediate 
 requirements of their vocations, will prevent effectu- 
 ally any monopolization of vacant land on the part 
 of the individual, while the provision that a man may 
 surround his dwelling with but a single acre of ground 
 unless he beautifies it, will likewise prevent him from 
 monopolizing it under the pretense that he is using 
 it for residential purposes when in reality he is using 
 it for no useful purpose whatever. 
 
 Buildings are not only subject to decay and destruc- 
 tion, but they are valueless unless occupied. Conse- 
 quently their erection is controlled by natural law, 
 and no one in his right mind would erect a 
 building unless it were for his personal use, or its 
 occupancy by someone else were practically assured 
 the owner beforehand. 
 
 All persons, therefore, should be permitted to 
 erect as many buildings as they choose within the 
 ten-acre limit, it being evident that, apart from the 
 shelter of the roof-tree and the immediate require- 
 ments of pastoral, commercial, scientific, and artistic
 
 98 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 purposes, they can have no value except in cities, 
 towns, or small communities. 
 
 And since such cities or towns occupy but an in- 
 finitesimally small space in comparison with the 
 country at large, the ground thus occupied by build- 
 ings can in no wise seriously affect the area used for 
 pastoral purposes. 
 
 Since, however, the tenure of all property not used 
 for pastoral purposes depends upon the fact that it 
 is occupied by buildings, or is used in connection with 
 the holder's vocation, that holder may remain in un- 
 disputed possession of such property only so long as 
 he owns the buildings erected upon it, or otherwise 
 employs it for obtaining a livelihood. 
 
 Should a building or other structure be destroyed, 
 the privilege of continuing the occupancy of such 
 property ceases, unless its owner erects another within 
 a fixed time, and in case of his failure to do so within 
 the time limit, the property in question reverts to the 
 public domain and is again open to occupancy. 
 
 This law of occupancy, however, applies only to 
 city property, or other lands used for commercial, 
 scientific, or artistic purposes. The right of occu- 
 pancy of pastoral lands, depending as it does upon 
 cultivation or other pastoral uses, is not affected in 
 any way by the erection or non-erection of buildings.
 
 99 
 
 It should be repeated, however, that those who 
 wish to possess farms can do so only by making their 
 permanent residence upon them and by cultivating the 
 soil themselves. What they may do during their 
 leisure hours is no concern of the world's, but their 
 pastoral pursuits must come before all others if they 
 wish to hold their full allotment of lands. 
 
 On the other hand, those who have chosen some 
 vocation other than that of agriculture, or other pas- 
 toral pursuits, cannot hold pastoral lands. 
 
 For example a physician, or manufacturer, or 
 any other person not engaged in pastoral pursuits as 
 a profession, and not living upon such land, cannot 
 monopolize land within the ten-acre limit by hiring 
 others to cultivate it for him, thus reaping a financial 
 harvest not only from the land, but also from his own 
 business or profession. 
 
 The individual must make his choice. He may 
 gain his livelihood directly from the soil or through 
 some other calling, but he cannot at the same time 
 hold pastoral land and pursue another independent 
 vocation. 
 
 In order, therefore, that the distribution of city 
 lots may be a fair and equitable one, all those which 
 are considered the choicest, owing to their location 
 for residential, commercial, or other purposes, should
 
 TOO MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 be disposed of at public auction by the municipal 
 authorities for the highest price the individual is will- 
 ing to pay for the privilege of occupying them; the 
 money or bonus thus paid going into the public 
 treasury. 
 
 The individual pays not for the land, which cannot 
 be bought or sold, but merely for the privilege of 
 occupying a certain piece of property within a city's 
 limits, and he can hold or occupy it only so long as 
 it is built upon, or is used in connection with the 
 immediate requirements of his business or pro- 
 fession. 
 
 This bonus exacted by the Municipality for the 
 privilege of occupancy should be paid but once, other- 
 wise it would assume the nature of a tax on land, 
 which is unlawful. 
 
 If, on the other hand, there are no competitors for 
 the occupancy of any city lots, the person desiring 
 them for a residence, for the erection of buildings, 
 or for other useful purposes in connection with his 
 vocation, may make use of them without paying a 
 bonus. 
 
 This device, the purpose of which is to prevent as 
 far as possible the erection of cheap or poor buildings 
 in select city quarters, only applies to towns and 
 cities. A number of persons desiring a particular
 
 [TOWNS AND CITIES 101 
 
 allotment of pastoral land must draw lots for it; 
 the land falling to him who draws the lucky 
 number. 
 
 It goes without saying that all public buildings, 
 parks, and institutions created and maintained 
 solely for the benefit of the Public, may occupy 
 as much land or ground space as is considered 
 necessary for the purposes for which they are in- 
 stituted. 
 
 This law, however, does not apply to such institu- 
 tions as hotels and clubs. 
 
 Hotels being merely money-making institutions, 
 should be treated like all other commercial institu- 
 tions. They are not public, but private institutions, 
 and must be limited to ten acres of land, no matter 
 whether one person or a thousand be interested in 
 their operation. 
 
 If a hotel is erected in a town or city, the owner or 
 owners thereof should be allowed only that amount 
 of ground space which the hotel proper and its acces- 
 sory structures occupy, together with such free ground 
 space within the ten-acre limit as is necessary for its 
 operation. 
 
 If the hotel is erected in the country or rural dis- 
 tricts, any free ground space within the ten-acre limit 
 not occupied by the buildings, structures, etc., may be
 
 102 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 used for a garden if beautified by the owner or owners 
 of the hotel. 
 
 No person can possess an interest in a hotel if such 
 interest represents a ground space which, when added 
 to his individual allotment, would make his holdings 
 exceed the ten-acre limit. 
 
 Clubs may be classed as limited public institutions 
 if maintained by those desiring them solely for pleas- 
 ure and recreation; but they cannot be so classified 
 if used as money-making institutions. 
 
 All clubs, whether in cities or in rural districts, 
 should be permitted to occupy only that amount of 
 ground space, within the ten-acre limit, which is re- 
 quired for their various buildings, with enough free 
 ground space for their proper operation. 
 
 People who wish to indulge in golf or other out- 
 door sports and pastimes may do so in parks or com- 
 mons, maintained by the Public for purposes of recre- 
 ation, or on any unoccupied land which is free to the 
 Public. 
 
 Our present-day clubs of the nature described could 
 still, under the new dispensation, retain their exclusive 
 rights and privileges in connection with all necessary 
 ground space within the ten-acre limit; but all free 
 and open lands now controlled by them or used for 
 recreation, sports, or other pastimes should be sur-
 
 TOWNS AND CITIES 103 
 
 rendered to the Public and be controlled for the Pub- 
 lic's benefit. 
 
 And if there is found to be enough available free 
 land in any community for such recreation grounds, 
 they may be maintained by that community for the 
 good of all. 
 
 As all communities beyond the primitive form are 
 sustained, not from natural sources, but by the arti- 
 ficial means of taxation, all those wishing to enjoy 
 the pleasures or benefits which towns or cities are 
 supposed to bestow upon mankind must pay the reve- 
 nues demanded for the privilege of living in them, 
 or else move on to their free portions of pastoral 
 land which cannot be taken from them. 
 
 Since revenues are necessary to sustain all forms 
 of government beyond the primitive type, every 
 citizen enjoying the protection of the State or a 
 Municipality should pay his due share of such 
 revenues. 
 
 And in case those enjoying such protection refuse 
 to contribute that share, the State or Municipality 
 shall have the power to take from the delinquents 
 such parts of their personal property as it deems 
 necessary to reimburse it for the loss of such 
 revenues. 
 
 But it cannot touch the land. For man and the
 
 io 4 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 land come before man's institutions. The soil is as 
 essential to human existence as the air or the water, 
 and to deprive man of that portion of the Earth's 
 surface which is necessary for his maintenance is quite 
 as illogical and unnatural as to deprive him of the 
 air and sunlight.
 
 VIII 
 
 FAMILY HOLDINGS AND INHERITANCE 
 
 PERSONS engaged in pastoral pursuits cannot con- 
 trol two separate allotments of land. They can 
 control only the full amount or such part of their 
 rightful portion of land as is in one piece. 
 
 For example a single individual cannot control 
 two separate five-acre tracts of land, nor can a mar- 
 ried couple control two ten-acre tracts of land in 
 common unless they are adjoining. 
 
 Neither can a married couple holding two ten-acre 
 tracts in common erect buildings on the line of their 
 adjoining tracts. All buildings must lie wholly 
 within the limits of one or the other of the separate 
 holdings in order that no confusion may arise in con- 
 nection with the redivision of the land should the 
 couple separate or one of them die. 
 
 In like manner any number of persons may culti- 
 vate their lands in common if they so desire. In 
 such cases they may either live on their separate 
 tracts, or cluster in villages, forming a central point 
 from which their fields radiate. 
 
 105
 
 io6 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 Or again, if on account of the individual's safety, 
 or owing to sanitary reasons, it is found necessary 
 and expedient for certain communities living in iso- 
 lated regions to cultivate fields or lands lying at a 
 distance from their towns, such communities should 
 be permitted to exercise this custom. But such com- 
 munities should be strictly pastoral in character, and 
 the ground space occupied by the individual's dwell- 
 ing must be included in the ten-acre limit. 
 
 Such practices are in vogue, especially among primi- 
 tive peoples, in certain unhealthy and desert regions 
 throughout the world to-day, and should be respected 
 wherever they are necessary. Like regard may be 
 paid to the tribal customs of many communities in 
 Asia, Africa, Asia Minor, and our own Pueblo In- 
 dians which have been forced to adopt this method 
 from earliest times and are still practicing it. But 
 this practice must be confined to such communities 
 only. 
 
 Should a person living on a ten-acre tract, or less, 
 of pastoral land marry, the couple or unit constituting 
 the family, can increase the size of their farm up 
 to the twenty-acre limit (ten acres to each person) 
 only if the additional land adjoins their original 
 tract. Otherwise they must be content with their 
 present allotment or move to a larger tract within
 
 FAMILY HOLDINGS 107 
 
 the twenty-acre limit if such a one is available. 
 And such tract must be equally divided between 
 them. 
 
 This will confine the family unit to one spot, as 
 is fitting, and force everybody to utilize the land 
 which he occupies. 
 
 The children of parents living on pastoral lands 
 can lay claim to their rightful portion of land only 
 if they leave the shelter of the family roof and 
 establish homes of their own. All youth should 
 be considered eligible to pastoral lands at the age 
 of sixteen; to city property at the age of twenty- 
 one. 
 
 A family or married couple engaged in pastoral 
 pursuits may, as stated, hold twenty acres of land 
 in common for the reason that unencumbered pastoral 
 lands can easily be divided and redistributed upon the 
 separation of husband and wife, or the death of 
 either. But twenty acres of land encumbered with 
 buildings, structures, &c., cannot be held in common 
 by a couple engaged in other than pastoral pursuits, 
 since such a redivision would be impossible. 
 
 Therefore, in order that there may be no confusion 
 arising from such cases, or from single individuals 
 falling heir to property which encumbers more than 
 ten acres of ground space, a husband or wife, or any
 
 io8 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 number of persons engaged in non-pastoral pursuits, 
 should be permitted to use or build over only ten 
 acres in common. 
 
 A husband or wife, however, may make use of or 
 cover with buildings, structures, &c., each in his or 
 her own name and right, and in connection with his 
 or her chosen vocation, the ten-acre tract which is the 
 legal allotment of the individual. But such holdings 
 must be kept separate; under no circumstances may 
 they be held in common. 
 
 The adjustment of such estates would be an easy 
 matter upon the separation of a couple, or upon the 
 death of a husband or wife. 
 
 For example if one member of a married couple 
 possessing ten acres in his or her own right (covered 
 with buildings, structures, &c.), should die, the re- 
 maining member of the family could inherit the whole 
 or a part of the deceased's estate only on condition 
 that he or she disposed of an equal part of his or 
 her personal holdings before coming into possession 
 of the new estate. 
 
 If heirs already in possession of their full allotment 
 of land encumbered with structures, &c., do not wish 
 to exchange the whole or a part of their holdings 
 for the property left them, the State must dispose 
 of the deceased's estate at public auction. In which
 
 FAMILY HOLDINGS 109 
 
 case the proceeds of the sale must be rendered unto 
 the deceased's heirs. 
 
 These requirements of the law must be complied 
 with within a given time fixed by law. 
 
 It is immaterial whether or not such persons are 
 obliged to dispose of their property, or property 
 willed to them, at a loss; for no one, under any con- 
 dition whatever, shall at any time be permitted to 
 hold more than his rightful portion of land. 
 
 If any person fails to comply with this requirement 
 of the law, the property in question falls free to the 
 State or Municipality, and must be disposed of at 
 public auction; the proceeds of the sale going into 
 the Public Treasury. 
 
 If one member of a married couple occupying pas- 
 toral lands should die, leaving no children, the sur- 
 viving member of the family must immediately sur- 
 render the deceased's land to the State if at the time 
 of the latter's death their mutual holdings exceed the 
 ten-acre limit. 
 
 All structures, &c., encumbering such lands shall 
 be disposed of by the State at public auction, the 
 proceeds of which shall be rendered unto the surviv- 
 ing member of the family. 
 
 Should a person die without heirs or without will- 
 ing his property or effects to anyone, his possessions
 
 no MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 fall free to the State or Community in which he 
 dwelt. They must be disposed of at public auction, 
 the proceeds going into the Public Treasury. 
 
 All estates which have been left to heirs not of 
 age, should be held in trust by the State until such 
 heirs have reached the age of majority, upon which 
 they should be permitted to come into control of their 
 own. 
 
 Also, heirs to property who cannot be found at the 
 time they are lawfully entitled to come into posses- 
 sion of said property, or, who cannot be found upon 
 the demise of those who have willed it to them, should 
 be allowed a reasonable length of time in which to 
 appear to prove their right of claim to said property. 
 All such property should be held in trust by the State 
 during such lapse of time. Should no heirs appear 
 during this lapse of time fixed by law, the State falls 
 heir to the property. 
 
 Again, if during his lifetime, an individual en- 
 gaged in pastoral pursuits wishes to change or re- 
 linquish his allotment of land for another, he is at 
 liberty to do so. In which event, he surrenders all 
 claim to the land he has hitherto occupied, which 
 again falls free to the Public, or to the person who 
 pays the highest price for the structures or improve- 
 ments found upon it. The price paid for such im-
 
 FAMILY HOLDINGS in 
 
 provements should be duly rendered unto the former 
 occupant of the land. 
 
 All structures or improvements occupying aban- 
 doned pastoral lands must either be removed or dis- 
 posed of by their owners within a given time specified 
 by law, or the State falls heir to them, and may dis- 
 pose of them at public auction. 
 
 Should such improvements, occupying pastoral 
 lands or city property, find no purchasers after the 
 date set for the public auction has expired, lots shall 
 be drawn for such property, and it shall fall to him 
 who draws the lucky number. 
 
 It will be seen that the individual remains in un- 
 disputed possession of his lawful portion of land, 
 whether city or pastoral, during his lifetime, or so 
 long as he uses it in connection with his vocation; and 
 upon his death his family or heirs may inherit and 
 retain possession of any buildings, structures, &c., 
 erected upon it, or may cultivate or use it for pas- 
 toral, commercial, scientific, or artistic purposes as 
 long as it pleases them, provided said land is not in 
 excess of the individual's ten-acre limit. 
 
 It will not be necessary to go into further detail 
 concerning the right of occupancy of property en- 
 cumbered with buildings, structures, &c., or used in 
 connection with business and other professions.
 
 ii2 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 All buildings, edifices, mechanical constructions, 
 devices, &c., of whatever character, should be bought, 
 sold, rented, inherited, or disposed of on precisely 
 the same principles as they are to-day. 
 
 Ten acres, as already shown, are a very generous 
 amount of land to consign to the agriculturist, and 
 more than ample for the support of the individual if 
 covered with buildings. 
 
 In fact, only the few, the extreme rich, are to-day 
 able to cover that amount of ground space with sub- 
 stantial structures, or use it in connection with pro- 
 fessions and pursuits not pastoral in their nature. 
 
 The law, as here set forth, compelling the indi- 
 vidual to use the land which he occupies for some 
 good purpose or surrender it to the Public, will ulti- 
 mately force him to make the best use of the ten acres 
 of land at his disposal.
 
 IX 
 
 WOOD 
 
 "\T7OOD, like land, is one of the natural resources 
 of the Earth. It should, therefore, be under 
 the direct control of the State, and its distribution 
 regulated by practically the same natural law as that 
 which governs the land. 
 
 The State should appoint the officials whose duty 
 it is to attend to the preservation of the forests, to 
 oversee the felling of the trees required by the public 
 demand for timber, and to control also the distribu- 
 tion of that timber. 
 
 The State also appoints its officials in every city, 
 town, and rural district where they are required to 
 receive the timber, and to control its distribution to 
 the Public. 
 
 Not a tree within the radius of the public forestries, 
 or on unoccupied land, can be bought or sold, or dis- 
 posed of for remuneration by the individual unless 
 it is felled by order of the State; and for felling the 
 trees the State should employ laborers, paying them, 
 
 "3
 
 ii 4 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 as it does its laborers to-day, according to the current 
 rate of wages. 
 
 The State, therefore, assumes the responsibility of 
 preserving the forests, felling trees, transporting tim- 
 ber in its rough state, and distributing it after it has 
 reached its destination. 
 
 The trees, like the land, are free to all. The price 
 paid the State for them is not for the trees, which 
 cost nothing, but merely the actual cost of maintain- 
 ing the forestry service and of distributing the timber. 
 
 This point must be kept clearly in view: The cost 
 of timber acquired after this manner is in no sense 
 a revenue on wood, which would be unlawful, but 
 is merely the actual or minimum expense entailed 
 on the State by its production, preservation, and de- 
 livery to the Public; a price fully one hundred per 
 cent cheaper than that exacted to-day from the con- 
 sumer who is obliged to pay the profits demanded by 
 the owners of forests, and lumbermen, railroads,* 
 and middlemen. 
 
 It would be impossible to place wood within the 
 reach of the Public at less expense. 
 
 The State assumes no other responsibilities in re- 
 
 * The railroads, like certain other public utilities, shall be owned 
 and operated by the State, to the discussion of which a special 
 chapter shall be devoted.
 
 WOOD 115 
 
 gard to wood than those already mentioned. All ad- 
 ditional expense entailed by its removal from the 
 State depots, or public wood-yards, as well as the 
 cost of cutting and sawing it, &c., must be borne 
 by the individual. 
 
 The individual may ask any price he chooses for 
 cutting and sawing such timber, for the prepared lum- 
 ber itself, and for any articles manufactured from 
 wood. It is only timber in the rough state which 
 has been obtained from the Public Forestries that the 
 individual is debarred from selling, bartering, or 
 exchanging for something else. 
 
 It thus becomes apparent that only those who pos- 
 sess sufficient means for obtaining timber to sell again 
 in the shape of lumber or other manufactured articles 
 can acquire it of the State for such purposes. Those 
 who are unable to pay the price demanded by the 
 State cannot obtain a foot of timber to dispose of 
 to others for money or any other form of compensa- 
 tion. 
 
 Everyone, however, is entitled to enough timber 
 to supply his immediate and actual wants for fuel 
 and for the construction of his dwelling, &c. ; this 
 portion belonging to him by natural right or law as 
 truly as does his free allotment of land. 
 
 If he is too poor to purchase it from the State, he
 
 ii6 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 should be allowed to cut the timber himself from a 
 public forestry, furnishing his own instruments for 
 the purpose. And it will be the duty of the forest 
 officials to see that he takes no more timber than he 
 actually requires. 
 
 When once he has cut the timber, he must carry 
 it away as best he can, and he must also erect his 
 dwelling, &c., without employing the help of anyone 
 else. His friends may assist him in the work if they 
 see fit, but such help must be given without remunera- 
 tion, after the custom of primitive communities whose 
 members voluntarily assist one another in the con- 
 struction of their houses. 
 
 Once this free portion of wood has been allowed 
 the individual, he must henceforth obtain it from 
 the State in the same manner as does his neighbor, 
 or else go without. So much wood is free to the 
 individual no more. 
 
 Naturally this law of free heritage, the pioneer's 
 and the frontiersman's right, can be of practical value 
 only to those living in the immediate vicinity of a 
 public forest. 
 
 It goes without saying that trees, like everything 
 else raised and produced on and from individual 
 allotments of land, may be disposed of as their owners 
 see fit.
 
 WOOD 117 
 
 With such conditions prevailing, no one would be 
 able to monopolize a forest at the expense of the 
 Public, while the absolute justice resulting from such 
 an impartial distribution of timber is so evident, it is 
 unnecessary to emphasize the fact that only those 
 really desiring the privilege of felling their free allot- 
 ment of trees would apply for it. 
 
 The State, moreover, should discourage all unnec- 
 essary use of timber by requiring the individual to 
 use substitutes for it whenever possible. 
 
 Thus, for example, stone, bricks, plaster, cement, 
 and adobe are to be had in almost every part of the 
 world as easily and cheaply as wood. These ma- 
 terials, therefore, should, as far as possible, be sub- 
 stituted for wood in the construction of houses. 
 
 In like manner metal poles should be employed 
 instead of wooden ones in carrying telephone and 
 telegraph wires across country, while in cities those 
 wires should be placed underground. 
 
 Railroad ties should be of metal. Tanning and 
 wood-pulp industries should be permitted to use only 
 wood grown on individual allotments of land, to- 
 gether with the waste products of public timber.
 
 X 
 
 FORESTRY 
 
 men realize the value of forests. 
 
 " Our civilization is built on wood. From the 
 cradle to the coffin, in some shape or other, it sur- 
 rounds us as a convenience or a necessity. 
 
 u It enters into nearly all our structures as an es- 
 sential part. Over half our people live in wooden 
 houses, and the houses of the other half require wood 
 as an indispensable part in their construction. 
 
 " It serves to ornament them, to furnish them with 
 conveniences, to warm them, to cook the food. . . . 
 The forest furnishes the cooperage to market our 
 vintage, to store our flour and fruit. 
 
 " The forest furnishes the plow-handle and the 
 harrow-frame to cultivate, the threshing-machine and 
 windmill to prepare the crops, the cart to bring them 
 to market, the bottoms in which they cross the ocean 
 to foreign marts, and even the tar and pitch needed to 
 keep the cargo safe. 
 
 " We are rocked in wooden cradles, play with 
 
 118
 
 FORESTRY 119 
 
 wooden toys, sit on wooden chairs and benches, eat 
 from wooden tables, use wooden desks, chests, trunks, 
 are entertained by music from wooden instruments, 
 enlightened by information printed on wooden paper 
 with black ink made from wood. . . . Every pound 
 of iron, every ounce of gold, requires wood in its 
 mining, wood in its manufacture, wood in its trans- 
 portation. 
 
 ' There is hardly a utensil, a tool, or even a ma- 
 chine, in the construction of which wood has not 
 played a part, were it only to furnish the handle or 
 the mold or pattern." * 
 
 Many trees of the tropical and temperate zones 
 yield tannin. Says Julia E. Rogers, in " The Tree 
 Book " : " Among the products of native trees the 
 nuts are important. Their food value is coming to 
 be appreciated at home and abroad. The hickories 
 include the pecan and two shagbarks, both nuts of 
 commercial value. 
 
 " Walnuts and chestnuts are secondary. Beech 
 and acorn mast fatten hogs and furnish a living to 
 innumerable birds and wild game, as also do berries, 
 plums, and other tree fruits. Flowers of locust and 
 basswood, plum, and cherry pasture honey bees. So 
 
 *" Economics of Forestry": Professor Bernhard E. Fernow.
 
 120 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 do many trees of less conspicuous inflorescence. 
 Gums of balsam fir and other conifers, sweet gum 
 and wax myrtle, berries of buckthorns, wild cherry 
 and holly, roots of sassafras, twigs of witch-hazel, 
 all yield drugs. 
 
 " Our Southern silva furnishes valuable dyewoods. 
 Sugar from the sap of maples forms an important 
 and delicious food product. In the Old World and 
 in the tropics are trees whose great value to the hu- 
 man race is suggested by the mere mention of their 
 names. The cinchona tree yields quinine from its 
 bark. The juice of certain trees hardens into rubber. 
 Lacquer varnish is the juice of a sumach in Japan. 
 . . . Nutmeg and mace and cloves and all-spice 
 grow on trees in tropical countries. The palms feed, 
 clothe, and house people. It is an endless story the 
 useful products of trees, cultivated and growing wild 
 on the Earth. The tropical woods are full of undis- 
 covered possibilities. Our own rich forest flora has 
 but begun to show its value to man." 
 
 Besides contributing in all ways to the service of 
 man, forests create and maintain the climatic condi- 
 tions most favorable to his existence. Trees cast a 
 grateful shade, form windbreaks against hot and cold 
 winds, and prevent the shifting of the soil.
 
 FORESTRY 121 
 
 The roots of trees are rock-breakers. They shat- 
 ter even ledges of granite, and thus in the process of 
 the years crumble rock into soil. Trees on hillsides 
 and mountains prevent the flooding of valleys. They 
 extract poisonous gases from the air, their leaves 
 form soil. Waste land, swamps, and semi-arid 
 regions may be reclaimed through the agency of trees. 
 
 The supreme beauty and significance of trees in a 
 landscape have from the earliest ages deeply influ- 
 enced the minds of men. 
 
 The Greeks humanized the forests, peopling them 
 with dryads and hamadryads, exquisite creatures of 
 the moonlight and the mist, who guarded each chosen 
 tree and perished with it. So did also, in a measure, 
 the inhabitants of ancient India, China, and Japan. 
 
 The ancient Druids, Teutons, Celts, and Norse- 
 men worshiped the oak, pine, and mistletoe, express- 
 ing their veneration in secret rite and solemn cere- 
 mony. The myths and songs, the legends and poems 
 of all primitive peoples repeat over and over in vari- 
 ous forms the veneration with which solemn wood- 
 lands were regarded, a purifying emotion which we 
 moderns share in varying degrees and after our mod- 
 ern fashion. 
 
 It should be the first object of every country to 
 renew, increase, and conserve its forests. A treeless
 
 122 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 land means a desert; the greatest calamity that can 
 befall a people. In the same ratio that the forests 
 disappear, the waters of a land diminish. 
 
 Every tree is a perennial spring, small though the 
 quantity of water may be which each one represents. 
 Trees are not only the fountainheads or sources of 
 springs and streams, but also the medium through 
 which soil can be retained on sloping and precipitous 
 ground. 
 
 Mountains that have been denuded of their forests 
 lose their soil. It is washed down into the valleys; 
 the rains gradually diminish or cease altogether in 
 such localities; the mountain sides become barren, hot 
 rock reflectors whose intense heat renders the valleys 
 in turn arid and non-productive. 
 
 It is also a well-established scientific fact that 
 where forests decrease, tornadoes increase. Without 
 forests there can be little or no sources for irrigation 
 in a land. 
 
 4 There are parts of Asia Minor, of Northern 
 Africa, of Greece," says Mr. G. P. Marsh, " and 
 even of Alpine Europe, where the operation of causes 
 set in action by man has brought the face of the Earth 
 to a desolation almost as complete as that of the 
 moon; and though, within that brief space of time
 
 FORESTRY 123 
 
 men call the historical period, they are known to have 
 been covered with luxuriant woods, verdant pastures, 
 and fertile meadows. . . . The destructive changes 
 occasioned by the agency of man upon the flanks of 
 the Alps, the Apennines, the Pyrenees, and other 
 mountain ranges in central and southern Europe, and 
 the progress of physical deterioration, have become so 
 rapid that, in some localities, a single generation has 
 witnessed the beginning and the end of the melan- 
 choly revolution. 
 
 " It is certain that a desolation like that which has 
 overwhelmed many once beautiful and fertile regions 
 of Europe awaits an important part of the territory 
 of the United States, unless prompt measures are 
 taken to check the action of destructive causes already 
 in operation." 
 
 The reclamation through irrigation of the vast 
 areas of arid land in the United States will be im- 
 possible unless forests are re-established and per- 
 manently maintained on its mountains and in all 
 localities and districts throughout the country which 
 are the head-waters or sources of its springs and 
 streams. 
 
 A permanent system of forestry should be estab- 
 lished and maintained by the State, like that, for
 
 i2 4 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 example, which is maintained by the German Empire 
 to-day. 
 
 A quarter of the Empire of Germany is covered 
 with forests whose cost of maintenance is met in great 
 part by the mere thinnings and prunings of the grow- 
 ing woodlands. For more than a thousand years 
 the city of Zurich in Switzerland has owned a forest 
 which has been so carefully tended that it has sup- 
 plied a definite amount of lumber each year through- 
 out the centuries, and yet it is in better condition 
 to-day than when it was originally placed under a 
 definite system of forestry. 
 
 The highroads of the country, the courses of rivers 
 and streams, and the margins of lakes and other 
 bodies of water, natural and artificial, belonging to 
 the State, should be lined with trees, while large 
 areas of the plains and prairie-lands should be con- 
 verted into forests. 
 
 Artesian wells should be sunk wherever possible 
 in arid districts; reservoirs and artificial lakes should 
 be constructed by damming mountain gorges and 
 natural water basins of the plains, thus catching and 
 preserving the incalculable quantities of snow and 
 rain water which are annually lost and wasted, owing 
 to the lack of such storage basins. 
 
 A beginning has already been made in this direc-
 
 FORESTRY 125 
 
 tion by the United States Government, but only a 
 beginning. 
 
 By such a systematic increase and preservation of 
 the forests and by the storage of waters, the percent- 
 age of moisture will be increased and more equally 
 distributed throughout the length and breadth of the 
 land. The vast arid regions of the country will be 
 conquered, and the desert compelled to blossom with 
 fruit and grain. 
 
 The people of the United States cannot act too 
 quickly in the matter of the preservation and the 
 increase of their forests. 
 
 " A third of this country was originally covered 
 with what were, all in all, the most magnificent for- 
 ests of the globe a million square miles of timber 
 land. In the short time, as time counts in the life 
 of nations, that we have been here, we have all but 
 reached the end of them. 
 
 " We have thought it unimportant until lately that 
 we have been destroying by fire as much timber as we 
 have used. But we have now reached the point 
 where the growth of our forests is but one-third of 
 the annual cut, while we have in store timber enough 
 for only twenty years at our present rate of use. This 
 wonderful development, which would have been im-
 
 126 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 possible without the cutting of the forests, has 
 brought us where we really face their absolute ex- 
 haustion within the present generation. ... A tim- 
 ber famine will touch every man, woman, and child in 
 all the land; it will affect the daily life of every one 
 of us; and yet without consideration, without fore- 
 cast, and without foresight, we have placed ourselves 
 in a position where a timber famine is one of the in- 
 evitable events of our near future. 
 
 " Canada cannot supply us, for she will need her 
 timber herself. Siberia cannot supply us, for the tim- 
 ber is too far from water transportation. South 
 America cannot supply us, because the timbers of that 
 vast continent are of a different character from those 
 we use, and ill adapted to our needs. 
 
 ' We must suffer because we have carelessly wasted 
 this great condition of success. . . . Forest de- 
 struction means far more than the mere loss of wood. 
 . . . With the denudation of the forests the rain- 
 fall, instead of being taken up by the earth and turned 
 out again in perennial springs, rushes away to the 
 sea, carrying millions of wealth before it. ... The 
 soil which is washed from the surface of our farms 
 every year to the amount of a billion tons, making, 
 with the further loss of fertilizing elements carried 
 away in solution, the heaviest tax the farmer has to
 
 FORESTRY 127 
 
 pay, may in the course of centuries be replaced by 
 the chemical disintegration of the rock; but it is de- 
 cidedly wiser to keep what we have by careful 
 methods of cultivation. 
 
 " We may very profitably stop putting our farms 
 into our streams, to be dug out at great expense 
 through river and harbor appropriations. Fertile 
 soil is not wanted in the bed of a stream, and it is 
 wanted on the surface of the soil of the farms and the 
 forest-covered slopes of the mountains; yet we spend 
 millions upon millions of dollars every year removing 
 from our rivers what ought never to have got into 
 them." * 
 
 " Experts tell us that, aside from Alaska, the 
 present forest remnants of the United States contain 
 only about 1,300 billion feet of timber, broad meas- 
 ure, which is less than seventeen times our annual 
 consumption. From 1890 to 1900 the lumber busi- 
 ness of the country increased 94 per cent. ... If 
 the increase from 1900 to 1910 be anything nearly 
 as great, where shall we be in 1920? Unless some- 
 thing radical is done, and done at once, this nation 
 will soon be at the summer solstice of its civilization. 
 
 * An address to the National Geographic Society, January 31, 
 1908, by Gifford Pinchot.
 
 128 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 " Nations die with their forests. The experience 
 of the world goes to show that no civilized nation 
 can live without timber. 
 
 "Where are Phoenicia, Assyria, and Babylonia? 
 One by one they sank with the setting shadows of 
 their disappearing forests. As the forests were swept 
 from the basins and water-sheds of the Tigris and 
 Euphrates, the sands of the deserts were carried by 
 the winds over the valleys, while the soil of the hills 
 was swept by floods to the Arabian Sea. So too, 
 Palestine and northern Africa were destroyed by de- 
 forestation and erosion." * 
 
 The same fate which overwhelmed the Ancients, 
 and which is to-day overtaking Italy and Spain, 
 Greece, Asia Minor, and vast areas of India and 
 China, will overtake us also very shortly if the wan- 
 ton devastation of our forests does not cease imme- 
 diately. 
 
 " In the home of the fir, the spruce, and the cedar, 
 the song of the ax, the saw, and the hammer begins 
 with the dawn and rests only with the close of the 
 day. Go where you will, the crop of the centuries is 
 
 * Professor W. G. M. Stone, President of the Colorado State 
 Forestry Association.
 
 FORESTRY 129 
 
 being harvested. With each breath a monarch of 
 the forest falls. 
 
 " Engines whistle to engines, as the huge trunks of 
 these noble trees are dragged to the water or to the 
 railroad; the locomotive whistles to the mill, as it 
 comes with long trains of the wealth of our forests; 
 and the mill whistles back to the locomotive, as its 
 saws sing while they work; steamers for coastwise and 
 trains for eastern markets whistle back to the mill, 
 as they hasten for its product; the deep-loaded ship 
 spreads its sail, and the winds waft our lumber to 
 the four corners of the Earth. . . . But is there 
 no other note in the song? Do these people e^er 
 think? 
 
 4 They are leaving nearly half of the crop in the 
 woods to be burned, and burning, destroy more ; and 
 for the half they are marketing they are obtaining 
 no proper equivalent. They are leaving the ground a 
 desolate, fire-swept waste, where fire will follow fire, 
 until all things valuable have been destroyed. They 
 are taking to themselves the whole of the heritage in- 
 trusted to them, and in return are not even scattering 
 a few seeds for the benefit of their children. 
 
 ' They are vandals, but no law can reach them. 
 They would be adjudged insane, except for the neces- 
 sity which governs. The sacred right of property is
 
 130 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 theirs, and they can do what they will with their 
 own." * 
 
 It has been noted in South America that clouds 
 generally hang over forest lands. Thus in regions 
 of the Cordilleras heavy clouds may frequently be 
 seen, pouring their rain upon the forests beneath 
 them, while over the neighboring agricultural lands 
 the sky is blue and the sun is shining. The same 
 phenomenon may be witnessed any time during the 
 summer months in the semi-arid regions of our 
 Western country. 
 
 The great trees of the forest, for example, those 
 of the Pacific slope, should not be cut down until 
 actual decay renders such action imperative. They 
 are the guardians, the well-springs, the life-givers of 
 the forest, creating and preserving the greater quan- 
 tities of water and moisture necessary to sustain the 
 younger growth of trees. 
 
 A comparison of the continent of North America 
 as it is now, with the North America of the early 
 explorers, covered with magnificent forests unsur- 
 passed in the history of the planet, proves conclusively 
 that the White Man and his modern inventions are 
 
 * Colonel George H. Emerson, Vice-President Northwestern Lum- 
 ber Company, Washington. American Forest Congress, 1905.
 
 FORESTRY 131 
 
 most destructive agents of natural conditions and of 
 true civilization. 
 
 Much unnecessary loss of timber is caused annu- 
 ally by forest fires. Careless or malicious people are 
 undoubtedly responsible for some of these conflagra- 
 tions, but the greater number of them are directly 
 due to sparks from railroad engines. The Public 
 should insist that the railroads guard against such 
 destruction. 
 
 As far as possible, metals and other materials 
 should be used in place of wood, since the chief value 
 of the forests is for preserving moisture, conserving 
 the fertility of the soil, and supplying man with wood 
 for natural uses.
 
 XI 
 
 WATER 
 
 OTNCE water is as essential to man as the air he 
 breathes, the individual should not be permitted 
 to exploit it for commercial purposes. 
 
 Like all the other natural resources of the Earth 
 it should be declared free to all, whatever the pur- 
 poses for which it may be employed. 
 
 The State and Communities should control and 
 dispose of all waters, gathering and transmitting 
 them by means of aqueducts and canals erected and 
 maintained through the medium of taxation for the 
 purposes of irrigation, the supplying of towns and 
 cities, &c. 
 
 All special waters of whatever nature used for 
 bathing, drinking, medicinal purposes, &c., should 
 be under the direct supervision of the State; those 
 making use of them being charged merely the 
 nominal price which it costs to maintain establish- 
 ments in connection with such waters, or for gather- 
 ing or bottling and transporting them. 
 
 132
 
 WATER 133 
 
 Those who wish to drink of and bathe in such 
 waters without paying for such privileges demanded 
 by the State, must go to them, drink of them and 
 bathe in them as best they can. 
 
 The individual cannot make use of or control the 
 power obtained from natural bodies of water, or 
 artificial bodies of water under State or Communal 
 control. Only the State or Community should be 
 allowed to use and control it for the common good. 
 
 All acqueducts, reservoirs, canals, &c., built for 
 the purposes of irrigation and the reclamation of 
 arid lands, or used as highways of commerce, must 
 be erected and controlled by the State. All systems 
 supplying cities and other communities with water 
 must be constructed and maintained by those com- 
 munities. 
 
 All such institutions must be self-sustaining and 
 non-moneymaking institutions, the consumer being 
 charged only the exact rate per cent it costs the 
 State or Community to maintain them. 
 
 Communities, farms, railroads, factories, and other 
 establishments, wharfs and landing places used for 
 shipping purposes excepted, should not be allowed to 
 encroach on the immediate shores of streams or other 
 bodies of water. Any establishment, however, which 
 is erected and maintained by the State or Community
 
 134 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 for the benefit of the Public may thus encroach upon 
 the water. 
 
 This prohibitive law would not only prevent the 
 monopolization of any such bodies of water by the 
 individual, but would also create what Nature origi- 
 nally designed a neutral zone or highway, free and 
 accessible to the Public. 
 
 This is man's right by natural law; all natural 
 bodies of water being the natural reservoirs and high- 
 ways of a land. 
 
 Since pure water is as essential to man as pure air, 
 the contaminations of waters should be prohibited by 
 the State. Most waters throughout the world to-day 
 are so contaminated with refuse matter that it is 
 almost certain death to drink of them. 
 
 The freeing and purifying of Nature's highways 
 and reservoirs, the springs, streams, and lakes, is in- 
 dispensable to natural conditions. 
 
 Towns and cities, factories, vessels, &c., must de- 
 vise other means of disposing of their sewage and 
 refuse matter than through the medium of streams 
 and other bodies of water. 
 
 The sewage of communities should either be col- 
 lected in a common reservoir to be destroyed, or 
 every house should be equipped with a special furnace
 
 WATER 135 
 
 for receiving all sewage and refuse matter, and de- 
 stroying it daily by the mechanical means of fire or 
 electricity. 
 
 All vessels should be equipped with similar fur- 
 naces. Such contrivances are simple enough; they 
 should have been adopted long ago. 
 
 ICE 
 
 Ice, like water, being a natural product of the 
 Earth, it should be equally free to all, and if obtained 
 from natural bodies of water, or artificial bodies of 
 water under State or Communal control, it should 
 not be sold. 
 
 The individual should be allowed to cut it freely 
 from all such bodies of water for himself or for 
 others; but the person who gathers ice for others 
 receives merely the price they are willing to pay him 
 for his labor with no remuneration for the ice itself. 
 
 Anyone wishing to create an artificial pond on his 
 lawful portion of land for the sake of the ice which 
 he may obtain from it during the winter to sell to 
 the Public, may do so. 
 
 In all such cases, the owner may dispose of his 
 ice for the highest price he can get for it in the 
 market, just as he would sell any other products 
 obtained from his land.
 
 136 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 The State places no further restrictions upon the 
 gathering of ice from natural bodies of water, or 
 from artificial bodies of water under State or Com- 
 munal control, than that of preventing individuals 
 from monopolizing the supply. 
 
 NATURAL GAS 
 
 Since natural gas is available only in the locality 
 or immediate vicinity where it is found, it should 
 not be controlled by the State, but by the Community 
 where it exists. 
 
 Its supply cannot be exploited or controlled by the 
 individual, but only by the Community for the Com- 
 munal good.
 
 XII 
 
 MINERALS 
 
 / ~T~ S HE baser metals and minerals should be distrib- 
 uted after the same manner as wood; but for 
 the distribution of gold, silver, platinum, and other 
 precious and semi-precious metals and minerals, a spe- 
 cial method must be employed. 
 
 Were it not for the fact that gold and silver are 
 used as a circulating medium called money, and that 
 man holds all other precious and semi-precious metals 
 and minerals at a premium, their distribution might 
 be effected in the same manner as that of all other 
 natural products of the Earth. 
 
 The assumption by man that they should be held 
 at a premium is, of course, not justifiable. They 
 should, in reality, be as free to all as are any other 
 of the Earth's natural resources. But since the facts 
 are as they are, and since the values placed upon them 
 are purely fictitious and not in any sense intrinsic, it 
 follows that, In order to control their supply, the 
 State must dispose of them at the highest price they 
 will bring in their rough state. 
 
 137
 
 i 3 8 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 Only the absolute necessities of life, such as land, 
 water, wood, iron, &c., possess an intrinsic value. 
 Nothing else viewed from a material standpoint has 
 a value in itself. It is only the imaginative value 
 we place upon a thing which raises it in our estima- 
 tion. 
 
 Gold as a substance possesses no more value than 
 coal or iron. The beauty of gold as a metal is 
 supreme, its utility but limited; while as regards its 
 real worth or usefulness, a single bar of steel or a 
 well-seasoned beam of oak is of more value to man- 
 kind than a mountain of pure gold. But so long as 
 men continue to place a fictitious value upon gold 
 and all other precious and semi-precious metals and 
 minerals, just so long should they continue to pay 
 for the extravagance of their fancies, and procure 
 them from the State only at the full market price 
 they command in their natural condition. 
 
 With this exception, their distribution should be 
 the same as that of the other natural products of the 
 Earth. 
 
 All mineral deposits found on land already occu- 
 pied by individuals, if they are in sufficient quantities 
 to warrant their development, must be surrendered 
 to the State. Other land should be provided for 
 all such persons, and full compensation made them
 
 MINERALS 139 
 
 for any losses they may sustain in thus surrendering 
 their land. 
 
 Whenever necessary, the State should offer a lib- 
 eral bonus for the discovery of new mineral deposits 
 in sufficient quantities to warrant their develop- 
 ment. 
 
 Naturally these general laws concerning the dis- 
 tribution and control of minerals apply only to such 
 deposits as will reimburse the State for the expense 
 entailed to work them for the convenience of the 
 Public. 
 
 Once the individual has obtained the raw product 
 from the State, and has smelted it, or had it smelted 
 by others, he may dispose of the metal or refined 
 product as he pleases. He may turn it to such use 
 as is necessary to supply his wants, or he may sell or 
 barter it. 
 
 The statement that he may sell or barter it may 
 appear at first glance to contradict the preceding argu- 
 ment; but that is not the case. 
 
 The minerals are a part of man's birthright. He 
 cannot buy, sell, rent, or tax them in their rough state. 
 He may, however, dispose of metals and other min- 
 erals after he has smelted or refined them from his 
 free portion of minerals, just as he is permitted to dis- 
 pose of the agricultural products which his portion
 
 i 4 o MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 of land yields him, or the bricks, crockery, tiles, &c., 
 made from the clay of that land. 
 
 The minimum price demanded by the State for 
 minerals would practically mean free access for the 
 individual to them, and would in turn have the direct 
 result of reviving the hand-industries in connection 
 with metallurgy, the craft of gold and silver smith- 
 ing, and the work of artificers in iron, copper, brass, 
 &c. 
 
 As for mineral deposits not worked by the State, 
 any person living in the vicinity of such deposits may 
 take his lawful portion of minerals from them as 
 freely as he supplies himself with his lawful portion 
 of wood. But he cannot monopolize the deposits, 
 nor can he sell or otherwise dispose of the raw prod- 
 ucts. 
 
 For example an individual without means who 
 wishes coal and knows where to find it, is privileged 
 to take enough to supply his immediate wants. 
 
 Again, if he wants his free portion of minerals of 
 whatever nature, from iron to gold, he must dig it, 
 smelt or refine it himself without the assistance of 
 anyone. 
 
 Or, should anyone wish to follow the vocation of 
 collecting precious and semi-precious minerals, he 
 may do so. In which event, he can make use only
 
 MINERALS 141 
 
 of hand implements, and cannot accept or employ the 
 aid of anyone else in connection with his work. And 
 all minerals gathered after such manner cannot be 
 disposed of in their rough state unless in the form 
 of nuggets and stones. 
 
 The individual may, therefore, dispose of the baser 
 minerals which he has dug, in their refined state if 
 he himself refines them. The precious and semi- 
 precious minerals he can only dispose of in their 
 rough state if found in the form of stones and 
 nuggets, and dust or flakes. 
 
 The amount of gold found in nuggets, panned and 
 washed from the soil and streams with hand imple- 
 ments, precious and semi-precious stones collected, or 
 the amount of ore dug and smelted by a single person 
 in a kiln of his own, would be infinitesimally small 
 in proportion to the amount obtained from the State 
 by the general Public. 
 
 It would in no wise, as might at first be supposed, 
 seriously affect general trade or industry carried for- 
 ward through the medium of minerals obtained from 
 the State. And this for two very good reasons. 
 
 The individual could not control and hold as his 
 own any mineral deposits from which he obtained 
 his free portion of minerals, because they are as free 
 to all others as to him.
 
 i 4 2 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 And secondly, practically only those living in the 
 vicinity of unutilized deposits would make use of the 
 privilege of exploiting their free portion of minerals. 
 The position of all such persons would be practically 
 the same as that of the individual who desired his 
 free portion of wood. 
 
 Besides, the more individuals assumed the respon- 
 sibility of procuring their own free portion of min- 
 erals without monopolizing the deposits, the better 
 it would be, and the less the State would be burdened 
 with the supervision of the same. One other consid- 
 eration should not be lost sight of in discussing the 
 use of wood and minerals; namely, the amount which 
 may legitimately be placed at the individual's dis- 
 posal for the purposes of trade and industry. 
 
 The more commercialized man becomes, the more 
 prodigal and wasteful he is with the Earth's natural 
 resources. Nature places at his disposal wood and 
 minerals enough to meet the requirements of a simple 
 normal life. If the individual uses these resources 
 for the exploitation of his commercial interests be- 
 yond the amount required for the normal life of 
 man, the supply must inevitably be exhausted; a fact 
 which is already becoming apparent to man, owing 
 to his present wastefulness and extravagance. 
 
 Like the land, wood and minerals were originally
 
 MINERALS 143 
 
 designed for the nourishment of man, not for the 
 exploitation of commercial enterprises beyond the 
 simple necessities of life. 
 
 All indications go to show that the Earth has 
 reached the zenith of her development. That from 
 now on, each day heralds that fate, remote though 
 it may be, which must inevitably overtake her: the 
 physical conditions existing on the Moon to-day. 
 
 Therefore, the highest duty which man owes his 
 race is to husband to the utmost the Earth's natural 
 resources.
 
 XIII 
 
 CONTROL OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE EARTH'S 
 NATURAL RESOURCES 
 
 /^ RANTING the distribution of the Earth's nat- 
 ural resources in the manner here set forth to 
 be fair and rational, the question naturally arises: 
 How can the supply of these various raw products 
 be so controlled that those possessing great wealth 
 may not be able to monopolize them? 
 
 The method is simple enough. 
 
 Take the coal supply, for example. The output 
 of coal mines being limited by their working capacity, 
 the management of a mine or mines can pledge itself 
 to supply only such orders in the aggregate as the 
 annual output will warrant. 
 
 This being so, the management through its various 
 agents should accept advance orders only for such 
 an amount of coal as equals the monthly production 
 of the mines. 
 
 If this monthly production of the mines, or the 
 monthly supply of coal on hand at the State depots, 
 
 144
 
 CONTROL OF EARTH'S RESOURCES 145 
 
 covers the full amount of coal represented in the 
 applications of those desiring it, their demands should 
 be satisfied in full. If, however, the supply proves 
 insufficient, the agent of the State should allow each 
 applicant only a proportionate amount of the entire 
 supply according to his order. 
 
 A demand for one or for a thousand tons of coal 
 could thus be met at one and the same time, whether 
 in whole or proportionally in part, according to the 
 annual production of the mines. 
 
 This same method should be applied to the dis- 
 tribution of all other natural resources of the Earth, 
 land, of course, excepted. 
 
 Under such circumstances the monopolization by 
 the individual of the Earth's natural resources, no 
 matter how great his wealth, would be impossible. 
 
 It will be seen that the amounts of raw products 
 ordered by the individual would be a matter of 
 record, and that, therefore, if anyone appeared to 
 be ordering greater quantities of such products than 
 were required by the legitimate and actual demands 
 of his profession or business, it would be easy for 
 the State officials to investigate the matter. 
 
 A further advantage resulting from the State con- 
 trolling in such fashion the distribution of the Earth's 
 natural resources, would lie in the fact that no branch
 
 i 4 6 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 of trade or industry could monopolize the raw sup- 
 ply to the. detriment of the general Public, should a 
 shortage occur in any such products. 
 
 The natural resources of the Earth were designed 
 for all the People, not for any special groups of 
 individuals engaged in particular industries. Under 
 such a system as has been described the State would be 
 obliged to safeguard this natural right of the People. 
 
 The State should be empowered, upon the consent 
 of the majority of the People, to appropriate ade- 
 quate sums from the National Treasury whenever 
 required for the development of forests, mines, &c., 
 and for the construction of public utilities; but it 
 may not acquire a penny's worth of revenue from the 
 control of the Earth's natural resources or from public 
 utilities. Otherwise, the State itself would become a 
 tyrannical monopolist. 
 
 The national revenues should be raised through 
 the medium of voluntary taxation on the part of the 
 People, not by the unlawful method of bartering 
 away the Earth's natural resources, which cannot be 
 bought, sold, taxed, or rented. 
 
 As already stated, all public utilities and institu- 
 tions, as well as the control and distribution of the 
 Earth's natural resources, must be maintained at a 
 minimum cost.
 
 CONTROL OF EARTH'S RESOURCES 147 
 
 Naturally the guarding and preservation of the 
 Earth's natural resources would require the strictest 
 vigilance on the part of the State. 
 
 All persons found guilty of monopolizing or de- 
 stroying the Earth's natural resources, or of con- 
 taminating or polluting waters, should be punished 
 with a fine or imprisonment or both for a first offense, 
 with the confiscation of their entire personal property, 
 and imprisonment for a second offense, and with 
 death for a third offense. 
 
 The penalties inflicted upon all such transgressors 
 of the law should be severe, for the reason that he 
 who robs man of his birthright, by that very act 
 proves himself an enemy to society and to the human 
 race.
 
 XIV 
 
 PUBLIC UTILITIES 
 
 A LL public utilities, such as railroads and canals, 
 with the express, telegraph, and telephone sys- 
 tems which, like the postal service, have become con- 
 venient and necessary means of communication and 
 transportation, should be owned and controlled by 
 the State. 
 
 They should be thus owned and controlled for two 
 reasons. First: because of the magnitude of their 
 operation which would require more ground space 
 than any individual could hold, and second: because, 
 as all experience teaches, such institutions, when left 
 in the hands of private individuals, inevitably become 
 excessive forms of monopoly. 
 
 In like manner the water-works and lighting plants 
 of towns and cities, together with all other merely 
 local public utilities, should be owned and controlled 
 by the Communities which they serve. 
 
 State or Municipal ownership of these various utili- 
 ties has already been adopted to a limited extent in 
 
 148
 
 PUBLIC UTILITIES 149 
 
 different parts of the world. They have been man- 
 aged, however, not for the benefit of the Public, but 
 merely as sources of revenue for the State or Com- 
 munity. 
 
 If the Public is to derive from the Communal 
 ownership of such institutions the full benefit to which 
 it is entitled, the State or Municipality should charge 
 merely such rates as will enable these public utilities 
 to be equipped and maintained in the most complete 
 and serviceable manner. Otherwise they would as- 
 sume the form of monopolies, and the State and 
 Municipal monopoly of a public utility is hardly more 
 desirable than the private monopoly. 
 
 Were these institutions treated as mediums of 
 public convenience only, the necessary means of com- 
 munication and transportation could be secured by 
 the Public at a minimum expense. 
 
 The railroads, for example, could deliver to the 
 consumer all raw and refined products of the Earth, 
 as well as all other articles of trade and commerce, 
 at much lower rates than would be possible if the 
 roads were maintained by the State for the purpose 
 of obtaining revenue. 
 
 There can be no question regarding the justice of 
 this argument. Railroads have become as much pub- 
 lic necessities as the highroads of a country, and
 
 150 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 should, therefore, be no more regarded as sources of 
 revenue than the latter. 
 
 The maintenance of railroads, &c., as simple me- 
 diums of public convenience, dependent entirely upon 
 public patronage for their support, would free the 
 Public of any unnecessary burden or expense con- 
 nected with their management. They would stand 
 or fall according as the Public patronized or neg- 
 lected them. 
 
 The object of this work is to show how easily man 
 may create and maintain for himself a natural earthly 
 condition, entirely self-sustaining and independent of 
 all complicated inventions, provided he possesses the 
 simple implements necessary to clothe and nourish 
 himself. 
 
 When once such natural conditions prevail, the 
 present overcrowded centers of population, trade, and 
 commerce, will become decentralized, and the popula- 
 tion will be more equally distributed throughout the 
 country. Large cities will be reduced to normal size, 
 and towns and villages will increase in number. 
 
 Owing to this normal distribution of population 
 and the resulting centralization of communities, the 
 markets for both agricultural products and manufac- 
 tured articles will lie nearer their sources of pro- 
 duction; and, as a consequence, the highroads of
 
 PUBLIC UTILITIES 151 
 
 the country will assume greater importance and use- 
 fulness as natural mediums of communication and 
 transportation, while the railroads will be used chiefly 
 by travelers, for carrying the mails, and all products 
 requiring swift transportation, and for long distance 
 freight hauls.
 
 XV 
 
 WILD ANIMALS 
 
 /"\NE of the surest signs of a nation's decay is the 
 wanton destruction of its eagles, for with them 
 perish the ideals which the eagle has symbolized 
 through all the centuries of recorded history. 
 
 " The world," says Kipling, " will be ghastly and 
 unpicturesque if ever man succeeds in being the only 
 beast left to range up and down the planet." Yet 
 that day is not far remote unless an end is speedily 
 put to the present reckless destruction of animal life 
 by fur companies, sportsmen, and game-dealers. 
 
 Only those who have journeyed from the Missouri 
 River to the Rocky Mountains, or from the Mexican 
 border to the Saskatchewan River during the early 
 days of our civilization can realize the high carnival 
 of slaughter which has been directed against the wild 
 animals of the North American continent during the 
 last century. 
 
 Where are the deer, elk, buffalo, antelope, moun- 
 tain-sheep, and wild horses which once roamed the 
 mountains and prairies in countless numbers? Where 
 
 152
 
 WILD ANIMALS 153 
 
 are the martin, mink, beaver, and otter which in- 
 habited the forests and streams? Where are the 
 grouse, quail, duck, geese, wild-swan, pigeon, and 
 turkey which were once found in all parts of the land ? 
 
 Thanks to commercial enterprise, to fur companies, 
 and sportsmen, to " tourists and pistol-flourishing 
 cowboys who emptied their Winchesters or Colts at 
 a retreating herd for the fun of the thing, without 
 even taking the trouble to go a step out of their way 
 to put wounded beasts out of their misery," they 
 have been reduced to the verge of extinction. 
 
 Where once the presence and the voices of the wild 
 flocks and herds enlivened the wilderness, the silence 
 of death and wail of the wind now reign in their 
 stead. 
 
 Only game-dealers and those interested in the fur- 
 trade know the actual number of wild animals that 
 are annually killed for the markets. Their methods 
 are so systematic that not a feather or a hair escapes 
 them. They regularly employ thousands of men 
 equipped with the latest improved weapons who fol- 
 low the game constantly, even the migratory flight of 
 birds, year in and year out, giving it no rest. 
 
 " While it is true that in certain specially favored 
 localities, such as Long Island Sound, Chesapeake
 
 154 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 Bay, and certain Southern waters, wild fowl still con- 
 gregate in very large numbers, it is beyond question 
 that in recent years their numbers have notably and 
 painfully decreased in most localities, and over vast 
 areas have all but disappeared. 
 
 " In our Eastern and Middle States several species 
 of ducks which once were common are now practically 
 gone. Such are the blue-winged and green-winged 
 teals, also shoveler, bald-pate, gadwall, buffle-head, 
 ruddy, and wood-ducks. This last species is declared 
 by the Department of Agriculture to be on the verge 
 of extinction. 
 
 " Within my own recollection several of these were 
 common in Massachusetts in the fall flight; now the 
 hunter can hardly find a flock or two during the en- 
 tire season. In many inland localities where not very 
 long ago there was good shooting, all the edible ducks 
 have become so scarce that it is hardly worth while to 
 hunt them. Men will wait for days in the best 
 gunning-stands, hardly seeing a duck. 
 
 "To keep our wild-fowl from further decrease; 
 and better, to increase their abundance, it is vir- 
 tually necessary so to regulate shooting that there 
 shall always remain each spring a sufficient breeding 
 stock to these wilderness ' nurseries,' certainly in no 
 less numbers than the year before.
 
 WILD ANIMALS 155 
 
 ' Various restrictive measures which are now in 
 force are none too many and are eminently neces- 
 sary. But there are the best of reasons for believ- 
 ing that the thing most emphatically needed at the 
 present time is the absolute stopping of spring shoot- 
 ing in all parts of the country . . . spring shooting 
 adds a most destructive element. 
 
 ' The birds become tamer and tamer as the breed- 
 ing season approaches, and decoy more readily, so 
 much so at times that I have known good sportsmen 
 declare that it was no better than murder to shoot 
 the poor love-lorn things. But this is the harvest 
 time for the pot-hunter and the game-hog. 
 
 " Moreover, if even one member of a pair be shot, 
 it is believed by naturalists that the survivor is liable 
 not to secure a mate; and so a pair is prevented from 
 breeding, even by the killing of one bird."* 
 
 The nature of this work and a lack of space alike 
 forbid that any adequate record of the destruction 
 of wild animal life should be recorded in these pages. 
 But the following instances, all well authenticated, 
 will serve to show something of the havoc that is 
 being wrought. 
 
 * Herbert K. Job, Country Life in America, Vol. IX, No. 6, 
 April, 1906.
 
 156 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 In the report of the American Ornithologist's 
 Union, published some years ago, it was estimated 
 that about five million birds were annually required 
 to fill the demand for the ornamentation of the hats 
 of American women. The slaughter is not confined 
 to song birds; everything that wears feathers is a 
 target for the bird butcher. 
 
 "The destruction of 40,000 terns in a single 
 season on Cape Cod for exportation, a million rail 
 and reed birds (bobolinks) killed in a single month 
 near Philadelphia, are facts that may well furnish 
 food for reflection." * 
 
 " About 10,000 deer, 200 moose, and countless 
 birds and small animals were killed in Maine in the 
 season that ended at midnight Tuesday, December 
 15, 1908," f The reports for 1909 are about the 
 same. 
 
 Reports show that 3,235 deer, moose, and cari- 
 bou were killed during the open season of 1903 in 
 Ontario, Canada. 
 
 There are five thousand men annually engaged in 
 seal hunting in the North Atlantic off the coasts of 
 
 * Report of the American Ornithologist's Union, 
 t " Bangor, Me. Special Despatch to New York Herald, Decem- 
 ber 17, 1908.
 
 WILD ANIMALS 157 
 
 Newfoundland and Labrador. The catch averages 
 from 250,000 to 300,000 seals annually. 
 
 " The seal herd of the Pribiloff Islands, which 
 numbered approximately 4,700,000 in 1874, has been 
 reduced to 224,000.* 
 
 ' The chief special agent of the Department of 
 Commerce and Labor confesses that the startling loss 
 of 58 per cent of virile male life since 1904 on the 
 breeding grounds of this fur seal herd is so great 
 as to threaten the existence of the species itself." 
 
 The salmon of the Pacific Coast is also surely 
 doomed to extinction owing to the salmon canning 
 industries and the methods employed in catching this 
 noble fish. 
 
 There are no less than five thousand boats em- 
 ployed in catching salmon at the mouth of the Co- 
 lumbia River alone during the height of the season, 
 and these boats represent so many great seine nets 
 spread across the mouth of the river, barring ingress 
 to the fish which, before the days of the canning 
 industry, ascended the river some 1,200 to 1,300 
 miles to their spawning grounds, to the source of 
 the river at Upper Columbia Lake. 
 
 * Mr. W. G. FitzGerald in the Technical World Magazine, 
 January, 1908, places the number at about 180,000.
 
 158 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 Immense quantities of salmon are annually caught 
 in these nets, but the wholesale destruction of the fish 
 does not cease at the mouth of the Columbia. The 
 greater number of the fish that escape the nets fall 
 victims to the innumerable traps or salmon-wheels 
 which ensnare them on their way up the river to 
 their natural spawning grounds. 
 
 In 1905 thirty-five million fish were shipped from 
 Alaska. When to this wholesale destruction is 
 added the immense catches of the Columbia River 
 and other Pacific salmonries, it is evident that unless 
 means are taken to restock the rivers, the salmon 
 supply will soon be exhausted. 
 
 Mr. W. G. FitzGerald estimates the annual fur 
 production of the world at $25,000,000. " Consid- 
 ering the untold millions of skins taken annually, one 
 is apt to wonder whether the supply can be main- 
 tained? True, the buffalo as a fur yielder has gone, 
 and the beaver is practically extinct. The sea otter, 
 too, that once yielded 100,000 pelts every year, has 
 now dwindled to a few hundreds (400). And the 
 fur seal is fast on its way to extinction. . . . The 
 swamps of New Jersey and Delaware alone yield 
 three million muskrats in a fairly dry season." 
 Every year are taken from the woods of Maine 
 "over 200 bears; 300 loups-cerviers; 700 otters;
 
 WILD ANIMALS 159 
 
 2,000 fisher cats; 50,000 foxes; 75,000 skunks, and 
 hundreds of thousands of muskrats. 
 
 " In one season there will come on the market 260,- 
 ooo English foxes; 300,000 Siberian; 625,000 Ger- 
 man; 400,000 from Russia in Europe; 120,000 
 American red foxes, and some 60,000 Alaskan foxes 
 of all varieties. 
 
 " Over 600,000 nutria skins come to New York 
 every year from Brazil alone " ; while " 700,000 mink 
 are exported from Canada and the United States 
 to European markets. ... Of raccoon, over half 
 a million are sent from our Northwestern States to 
 the London market. . . . Then comes the badger, 
 wolverine, and opossum. In the case of the last 
 named, we send another half million pelts to Europe 
 annually. Muskrat, squirrel, and rabbit are sold 
 literally in millions." * 
 
 A formidable array of figures, and yet the voice 
 of the People is not raised against the destruction of 
 Nature's herds the Public's stock of wild animal 
 life! 
 
 Truly the White Man has been well styled the 
 most savage and destructive of all sentient beings. 
 
 *" Romance of the Fur Trade": W. G. FitzGerald. Technical 
 World Magazine, January, 1908.
 
 160 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 " Allow me to revel this day," he cries, " and pos- 
 terity with all things else may perish." 
 
 This reckless destruction of wild life brings, in 
 many cases, still other evils in its train. 
 
 Deer and elk are the greatest known destroyers of 
 weeds, while owing to the slaughter of grouse, wild 
 turkeys, sage-hens, and other birds, the crops and 
 pastures of many of the Western States and Provinces 
 of the United States and Canada are annually threat- 
 ened with destruction by insects. 
 
 " It is clearly established that a fruit-grower can- 
 not expect to successfully combat insect rivals without 
 the help of his winged allies. The more we improve 
 our agricultural methods and reduce the land to gar- 
 den crops, the more we stimulate the development of 
 predatory insects. A recent writer says, ' We believe 
 that not only is the success of our farmers dependent 
 upon the help of birds, but we believe that without 
 them man would have to vacate the land.' ' 
 
 " The economic value of birds to man," says Mr. 
 Frank M. Chapman, " lies in the service they render 
 in preventing the undue increase of insects, in de- 
 vouring small rodents, in destroying the seeds of 
 
 *" Orchard and Fruit Garden": E. P. Powell, 1905.
 
 WILD ANIMALS 161 
 
 harmful plants, and in acting as scavengers. . . . 
 While the chickadees, nuthatches, wood-peckers, and 
 some other winter birds are ridding the trees of 
 myriads of insects' eggs and larvae, the granivorous 
 birds are reaping a crop of seeds, which, if left to 
 germinate, would cause a heavy loss to our agricul- 
 tural interests." 
 
 " Sparrows are not the only birds that consume the 
 seeds of weeds. The eastern quail, or bobwhite, is a 
 confirmed eater of weed seeds. A bevy or two of 
 quail on a farm is an asset the value of which no 
 thrifty farmer should overlook. Doves also are seed 
 eaters, especially the turtle-dove. . . . Many birds, 
 as fly-catchers, warblers, swallows, and chimney- 
 swifts, live exclusively, or almost so, on insects, and 
 very many more, as blackbirds, orioles, and some 
 hawks, depend on them for a considerable part of 
 their livelihood. 
 
 ' The little sparrow-hawk lives largely upon grass- 
 hoppers, crickets, and beetles . . . the Swainson 
 hawk destroys enough of these injurious insects, to- 
 gether with small rodents, to save the Western farmer 
 upwards of a hundred thousand dollars a year. . . . 
 The popular idea regarding hawks and owls is that 
 they are nothing but robbers and bold maurauders.
 
 162 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 The fact is that the great majority of our hawks and 
 owls are beneficial, and spend the greater part of 
 their lives in killing small rodents, most of which are 
 always and everywhere noxious." * 
 
 Hawks, owls, crows, blackbirds, and jays, which 
 have usually been counted among the farmer's ene- 
 mies, have proved worthy of the wages they exact 
 in corn and chickens by the services they render the 
 agriculturist. 
 
 The State of Pennsylvania awhile ago offered a 
 bounty for the heads of owls and hawks because 
 farmers complained of the loss of their chickens. 
 Such quantities of these birds were killed that the 
 field mice and other vermin which they had kept in 
 check increased so rapidly that the State lost, through 
 their depredations, upwards of four million dollars 
 in a year and a half. The law was quickly repealed, 
 but it will be years before the balance can be restored. 
 A like plea may be made for the much abused cherry- 
 bird, which has rescued whole villages from the elm 
 worm plague and, in so doing, has certainly earned 
 the right to a little fruit. 
 
 " Differing widely as they do in structure and 
 
 * Henry Wetherbee Henshaw: The National Geographic Maga- 
 zine, February, 1908.
 
 WILD ANIMALS 163 
 
 habits, birds collectively are able in man's interests 
 to police earth, air, and water. The thrushes and 
 other ground-feeders scour the surface of the earth 
 and hunt under leaves for hidden insects. The war- 
 blers, titmice, nuthatches, creepers, and others search 
 among the foliage and in the crevices of bark for all 
 manner of creeping things. 
 
 " The woodpeckers perform a service no other 
 birds are equal to. 
 
 " They dig into wood and drag forth the hidden 
 larva? that prey on our forest monarchs. . . . The 
 waters too and their shores have their feathered deni- 
 zens which exact tribute of the insect world. So 
 that, quite aside from questions of sentiment, birds 
 must be adjudged to play an active and important 
 part in keeping nature's balance true." 
 
 Many of our leading entomologists estimate that 
 insects and other vermin cause an annual loss of at 
 least five hundred million dollars to the agricultural 
 interests of the United States. This statement seems 
 incredible, but it is based upon well authenticated 
 statistics. 
 
 Why, indeed, should the sight of wild creatures 
 breed in man the lust to slaughter them? 
 
 Man, too, is an animal, and they, like him, are
 
 164 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 sentient beings, only different. They form a body 
 politic, as truly as man does. They have their habits 
 of life as man has his social scheme of existence. 
 Their life is different from man's, but is as perfect 
 in its way. 
 
 ' They are our fellow-mortals. They are im- 
 meshed in the same mighty process as we are. They 
 came from the same source and are destined to the 
 same end. They lived, moved, and breathed on 
 primeval land fragments when the continents we 
 creep over were asleep in the seas. They are our 
 ancestry. They are the forms of being that have 
 made you and me possible." 
 
 It is a well-established fact that animals have 
 added directly and indirectly more to the civilization 
 of man than science or art. 
 
 Without the domestication of the wild horse, ox, 
 and dog, the camel, elephant, llama, buffalo, deer, the 
 wild jungle fowl of India, and the bee and silkworm, 
 man to-day would possess neither the advanced means 
 of locomotion nor half his knowledge of agriculture 
 and husbandry. 
 
 Shall a handful of individuals styling themselves 
 fur-traders, milliners, sportsmen, and game-dealers
 
 WILD ANIMALS 165 
 
 be permitted to exterminate within a few years that 
 which it has taken Nature uncounted ages to bring 
 forth through the process of natural growth or evo- 
 lution ? 
 
 Man will indeed do well to consider seriously this 
 question. At the present time laws are enacted and 
 clubs and societies are formed for the supposed pro- 
 tection and propagation of game ; but in reality those 
 laws are merely a means for enabling sportsmen and 
 game-dealers to kill off the annual increase of wild 
 animals. 
 
 It is not proposed that man shall abstain altogether 
 from killing wild animals, for argue as we may, life 
 to sustain life must devour life. The existence of 
 all phases of life from the lowest to the highest on 
 the earth-plane depends on the mutual destruction of 
 the one by the other, but not on their extermina- 
 tion. 
 
 In order, therefore, that man may still continue 
 to hunt, and the different species of wild animals now 
 existent be preserved, the following laws should be 
 enacted and observed: 
 
 All traffic in wild animals, birds, and fish, not 
 caught in the sea, shall be forever prohibited by 
 law. 
 
 Only fish caught in the open sea shall be allowed
 
 i66 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 to be sold in the markets, since only such fish have a 
 chance to escape extermination. 
 
 Once they enter bays, rivers, lakes, or other land- 
 locked waters they cannot be bought or sold, or bar- 
 tered, or used for any commercial purposes what- 
 ever, but like land animals are only for the personal 
 use and consumption of those who catch them. 
 
 Seal, walrus, sea-otter, or other fur-bearing animals 
 inhabiting the sea must be protected like land animals. 
 
 The law shall prohibit the use of nets, traps, or 
 snares at or near the mouth of rivers emptying into 
 the sea, lakes, or other rivers. 
 
 Again, it shall be unlawful to kill or take fish or 
 any other sea animals by means of fire-arms, auto- 
 matic or air-guns, or missiles mechanically discharged 
 from machines. 
 
 Steamships or vessels impelled by motive powers 
 other than those of wind or oars shall not be allowed 
 to fish in any waters for commercial or other pur- 
 poses. The modern steam trollers in use to-day ex- 
 terminate the fish and deprive the fisherman who uses 
 the sailing vessel of his living. 
 
 Again, the use of shotguns, air guns, automatic 
 and repeating guns shall be prohibited in the chase. 
 Only the single-shot rifle (no silent guns), and primi- 
 tive weapons shall be used.
 
 Neither shall individuals be allowed to catch fish 
 or destroy any form of animal life for mere pleasure. 
 Destroying wild animal life for pleasure is virtually 
 the same as setting fire to a forest for the pleasure 
 of seeing it burn. 
 
 The true object of hunting and fishing for men who 
 no longer live by the chase is not the game that is 
 killed, but the benefits derived from the free life in 
 the wilderness. They should, therefore, limit their 
 destruction of wild animals to the amount necessary 
 to supply their immediate wants in camp. 
 
 So much Nature permits, it being in perfect accord 
 with her universal and fundamental law, all life 
 dependent upon life. But the wanton destruction of 
 wild animals for mere pleasure or for traffic in them 
 is an inglorious thing, unworthy of civilized man, 
 and contrary to the law of life. 
 
 The penalties imposed for violation of the game 
 laws should be the same as those exacted for the 
 transgression of any other laws governing the Earth's 
 natural resources. Naturally there should be no pro- 
 tection for venomous reptiles and skunks. 
 
 Even the claim that people have a right to kill wild 
 animals because they trespass on their fields and herds 
 cannot be freely allowed. 
 
 There is no law higher than that of self-preserva-
 
 i68 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 tion, and back of such a condition of affairs lies the 
 undoubted fact that man has deprived wild animals 
 of their natural food by driving them to the deserts 
 and barren fastnesses of the mountains, and that, 
 therefore, these wild creatures occupy the same posi- 
 tion as does the man who, owing to unjust circum- 
 stances, is forced to steal to save himself from star- 
 vation. 
 
 Nature takes no cognizance of the shallow laws 
 and formulas invented by man to endow the indi- 
 vidual with rights which enable him to live while his 
 neighbor starves, thus placing that neighbor outside 
 the pale of universal justice. 
 
 Whenever the national welfare of a country is 
 threatened by the invasion of an enemy, the State un- 
 hesitatingly seizes both the citizen and his property 
 if necessary for the public defense. 
 
 So also when, owing to the monopolization of land 
 and the destruction of natural food products, men or 
 animals are deprived of their natural means of ex- 
 istence, they are justified in taking their subsistence 
 from those who possess it in exactly the same manner 
 as an army takes from the citizen, whether with or 
 without his consent, whatever is needed to supply its 
 immediate wants. 
 
 The national welfare is imperiled the existence
 
 WILD ANIMALS 169 
 
 of the State is at stake. Soldiers must have food to 
 fight ; animals food to preserve the species. 
 
 Wild animals cannot thrive properly without ex- 
 tensive range. The deer, elk, buffalo, mountain 
 sheep, and other wild animals which formerly sought 
 their summer pasturage among the mountains, always 
 descended to the foothills and plains at the approach 
 of winter, thereby escaping the deep snows of the 
 mountain ranges and the severe cold of the high alti- 
 tudes. And it is because their winter pasturage is 
 now occupied by ranchmen and farmers that so many 
 of these creatures perish during seasons of long 
 drought or in severe winters. 
 
 The free range of wild animals which should form 
 a part of the new order would minimize this evil. 
 
 Furthermore the land should be restocked, not only 
 with animals which formerly abounded in the various 
 sections of the country, but also, when possible, with 
 desirable species from foreign countries. 
 
 Man may barter and sell any wild species which 
 he raises on his own private preserves, but upon the 
 wild animals at large he has no claim. They, like 
 the land or man himself, form a part of the Earth's 
 natural products and cannot be destroyed wantonly 
 or monopolized by the individual. 
 
 All rivers, streams, and lakes, and all artificial
 
 170 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 bodies of water under State control, as well as moun- 
 tains, forests, and free lands, should be fish and game 
 preserves in which wild animals should be allowed 
 to range at will. 
 
 When man's birthright is restored to him, and 
 wild animals are allowed plenty of free range in 
 which to thrive and propagate, and are properly pro- 
 tected by the law, their increase will be a hundredfold 
 over that of to-day, and there will be an abundance 
 of game for everyone so long as this planet is habit- 
 able.
 
 XVI 
 
 GOVERNMENT 
 
 / ~|~ V HE North American Republic was believed by 
 many, at the time of its establishment, to pre- 
 sent the ideal earthly form of government, but time 
 has shown that the very conditions from which the 
 founders of the Republic sought to escape the 
 tyranny and misrule of individuals have been 
 brought about once more by the growth and misrule 
 of wealth, and the formation of a plutocracy which 
 is now riding roughshod over the Public. A condi- 
 tion no better than that of social institutions founded 
 upon a landed aristocracy whose hereditary rights 
 were originally established upon the hereditary line- 
 age of conquerors who seized the lands and main- 
 tained their positions by force, distributing the com- 
 munal lands among those who aided them. 
 
 Already as far back as 1883, Mr. W. G. Moody * 
 pointed out this menace to the State. 
 
 * " Land and Labor."
 
 172 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 " Within the last twenty years," he says, " we have 
 taken immense strides in placing our country in the 
 position in which Europe is found after a thousand 
 years of feudal robbery and tyranny of capital with 
 the lands concentrated in large tracts in the hands of 
 the few, and cultivated by a people who are the slaves 
 of the few. . . . The effects growing out of this 
 state of things are of the most serious character and 
 will inevitably bring upon our people the most ter- 
 rible revolutionary conflict." 
 
 The picture is merely reversed. The European 
 aristocracy of heredity is no worse than the American 
 aristocracy of wealth. In some respects, indeed, it 
 is more desirable. The one holds by force that 
 which its ancestry seized by force, the other holds 
 by force all that money can purchase. 
 
 Both represent the unbridled and unscrupulous 
 misrule of power vested in the individual, and both 
 are incompatible with the future development of the 
 human race. 
 
 The United States Government, like all other gov- 
 ernments to-day, rests upon territory or property, not 
 upon persons; upon the township as the unit of a 
 political system, not upon the gens which is the unit 
 of a social system.
 
 GOVERNMENT 173 
 
 A political organization which rests upon territory, 
 not upon persons with the individual as the unit of 
 its political system, cannot be otherwise sustained than 
 through the power of an hereditary aristocracy or 
 an aristocracy of wealth. 
 
 The Constitution of the United States might indeed 
 have been the greatest thing of its kind, as Glad- 
 stone asserted, had not its framers committed the 
 fatal error of vesting the will or power of the People 
 in its body of National Representatives. 
 
 Instead of establishing, as they thought, a govern- 
 ment for the People and by the People, they in reality 
 created merely a government for its Representatives 
 and by its Representatives. 
 
 The disastrous effects of thus vesting National Rep- 
 resentatives with the supreme powers of the Nation 
 are too evident to require illustration. All history, 
 both past and present, shows that individuals, with 
 but rare exceptions, prove themselves the world over 
 unworthy and incapable of directing the affairs, or 
 shaping the destinies of Nations. 
 
 A People can commit no greater folly than that of 
 permitting a handful of men, its Representatives, the 
 majority of whom are swayed by every petty passion 
 and ambition, fanatical and mercenary sentiment, to
 
 174 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 settle questions of national importance the life or 
 death of a Nation 1 
 
 Only a Nation itself should have the power to 
 decide such questions by the direct vote of the Peo- 
 ple; for or against such measures. The National, 
 State, and Municipal Representatives of a country 
 should be merely a presiding council with power to 
 originate and mature public acts of national or com- 
 munal importance, but the People only should have 
 the power to give those acts vitality. 
 
 The Representatives of a Nation may be empow- 
 ered to mature and decide all measures of secondary 
 importance, but those directly affecting the Public 
 at large, of such magnitude, for example, as the 
 declaration of war, the creation and increase of 
 armies and navies, the creation of taxes and tariff- 
 systems, the disposition of the public revenues, &c., 
 should be decided by the People alone. 
 
 The people of the United States have been living 
 in a fool's paradise of imagined self-government long 
 enough. It is high time they began to govern them- 
 selves by stripping their National, State, and Muni- 
 cipal Representatives of the supreme powers which 
 they hold, and vesting those powers in themselves, 
 the People. 
 
 A State patterned after the present Republic, but
 
 GOVERNMENT 175 
 
 with direct government by the People substituted for 
 representative government, and such communal 
 ownership of the Earth's natural resources as is set 
 forth in these pages, would be indeed a Government 
 for the People and by the People ; a State worthy to 
 serve as a proper medium for the creation of Democ- 
 racy's ideal.
 
 XVII 
 
 LAWS AND THEIR ENFORCEMENT 
 
 FT is better to have no Government at all than a 
 
 Government that is too weak to enforce the laws. 
 
 It will be impossible in a work of this nature to 
 give more than a slight outline of what the ideal 
 Government (if we may employ the term), should 
 be; but meager though it be, it will serve to point 
 the way to the simplification of government, and to 
 true Democracy. 
 
 The least governed people are the best governed 
 people, and there is no reason why all nations should 
 not be governed by the simple laws of the primitive 
 community. 
 
 In fact, no nation is thoroughly civilized until it 
 can dispense with the complicated and unnecessary 
 machinery of modern Governments, and every man 
 becomes a law unto himself, bearing the responsibili- 
 ties of citizenship without other restraint than that 
 which is necessitated by the observance of a few sim- 
 ple laws. 
 
 176
 
 LAWS AND THEIR ENFORCEMENT 177 
 
 1. True Democracy admits of no discrimination 
 in persons. Women shall enjoy equal suffrage with 
 men. 
 
 2. There shall be no authority in the land but 
 that of the majority of the People; no court, no per- 
 son, or number of persons not constituting a majority 
 of the People shall interfere with the right of the 
 People. 
 
 30. The People are everything the Law, the 
 Government, the Supreme Court, the President, the 
 Cabinet, the Congress, the Legislature, the City 
 Council, the Mayor, the Police, &c., the power 
 or machine that makes or abolishes at will all public 
 acts, institutions, and offices. 
 
 b. The approval or disapproval of any measure 
 or policy by the majority of the People shall stand 
 supreme, and there shall be no appeal from it. 
 
 c. The decision of a judge or a jury, or of any 
 tribunal in the land shall count for naught if at any 
 time it meet with the disapproval of the majority 
 of the People. 
 
 d. The People create their entire Government, 
 and direct it themselves from day to day. 
 
 40. There shall be no arbitrary enactment on 
 laws. 
 
 b. There shall be no laws on the Statute Books
 
 178 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 that are not placed there by the wish and consent of 
 the majority of the People. 
 
 5. The majority of the People shall have the 
 power to place any law they wish upon their Statutes, 
 or to instantly repeal and remove it if they so desire. 
 
 6. Any law that has been annulled with the ap- 
 proval of the majority of the People shall become 
 null and void in the same instant that the said major- 
 ity of the People so decide, even before it has been 
 removed from the Statutes. 
 
 70. No person shall be eligible to any public elec- 
 toral office who has not been duly elected to that 
 office by the majority of the People. 
 
 b. Any person may present himself as a candidate 
 for any public electoral office; but in order to be 
 eligible to that office he must have received a majority 
 of all the votes cast for that office at the election. 
 The present dictation of party bosses will thus be 
 eliminated. 
 
 c. All chief National and State Representatives, 
 and all Municipal or public officials shall be elected 
 to office by the direct vote of the People. 
 
 d. All public officials, excepting the President 
 and National and State Representatives, shall main- 
 tain their offices until the age limit of active service 
 is reached.
 
 LAWS AND THEIR ENFORCEMENT 179 
 
 e. The holding or occupancy of a public office 
 depends entirely upon the good behavior and efficiency 
 of the individual. 
 
 /. Any person shall be entitled to hold the office 
 of the Presidency as often as the People elect him to 
 said office. 
 
 g. Only a native-born citizen can be elected to 
 the office of the Presidency. 
 
 80. No person shall be permitted to hold or retain 
 any public office whose position has been made by 
 appointment by a public official if the majority of the 
 People object to his incumbency of the said office. 
 
 b. The People shall have the Power of Recall, 
 and it shall apply to all public offices. 
 
 ga. The Right of the Initiative and the Referen- 
 dum shall stand supreme. A small percentage of the 
 Community or People, from five to ten per cent, may 
 at any time suggest to the Public anything that 
 pleases or displeases them concerning the public 
 welfare. 
 
 b. Whenever such a percentage of the People sign 
 a petition demanding that a question be submitted 
 to popular vote, the Government, National, State, or 
 Municipal, shall be obliged to submit the question 
 to the Public within a specified time for popular 
 approval or disapproval.
 
 i8o MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 c. The operation of this Initiative and Referen- 
 dum shall be permitted at any time or place. 
 
 d. This same Initiative and Referendum shall 
 apply alike to State, Provincial, and Municipal Gov- 
 ernments. 
 
 10. As the least governed People are the best gov- 
 erned People, the State shall offer a perpetual and 
 liberal standing reward to any person who shall suc- 
 ceed in showing why any law should be simplified or 
 abolished, or why any official office should be abol- 
 ished. 
 
 n a. No person shall be eligible to vote until he 
 has attained the age of twenty-one. 
 
 b. A foreigner may become a naturalized citizen 
 if, after a five years' permanent residence in the 
 country, he is able to pass successfully such examina- 
 tions as the State demands of him, and also takes the 
 oath of allegiance to the country. 
 
 c. All persons shall enjoy freedom of speech and 
 action so long as they do not in any way interfere with 
 the life, liberty, welfare, and property of the in- 
 dividual. 
 
 d. The individual shall work for as long or short 
 a time, and for as great or small a wage daily as it 
 pleases him. 
 
 e. Child labor shall be prohibited.
 
 i2a. All questions of international dispute which 
 the Nations are unable to settle amicably themselves 
 shall be referred to the International Peace Tribunal 
 at the Hague for settlement. 
 
 b. Immigration shall be controlled by an Inter- 
 national Commission appointed and maintained by 
 the Nations. 
 
 c. The State shall accept such immigrants only as 
 it can provide with land; otherwise it cannot accept 
 any. 
 
 d. The State shall own and maintain its Legation 
 Houses. 
 
 e. The State shall provide its foreign Representa- 
 tives with such salaries as will enable them to repre- 
 sent their Country with dignity and in a becoming 
 manner. 
 
 13^7. All public institutions, utilities, and charities 
 shall be maintained by the National Government, 
 State, or Municipality. 
 
 b. All such institutions shall be maintained at a 
 minimum cost. 
 
 140. All children as regards primary education 
 shall be wards of the State. 
 
 b. Education in the Public Schools shall be com- 
 pulsory for all children. 
 
 c. Boys and girls shall enjoy co-education.
 
 i8i MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 d. No child shall enter school before the age of 
 ten. 
 
 e. The State shall not permit any child to attend 
 any other than a Public School until that child has 
 completed the elementary course in the Public School. 
 
 /. The curricula in the Public Schools shall in- 
 clude thorough courses in the Liberal Arts and 
 Domestic Science. Every child shall also be required 
 to take a course in general Agriculture and Hus- 
 bandry in order that he may become self-sustaining 
 and be equipped for the ordinary duties and require- 
 ments of life. 
 
 g. All necessities required for pursuing this course 
 of study in the Public Schools shall be furnished the 
 child by the State free of cost. 
 
 h. Courses of instruction in the higher institutions 
 of learning, such as the Universities, shall not be 
 compulsory, but shall be free. 
 
 i. The ordinary requisites for instruction in the 
 Universities must be supplied by the individual; they 
 will not be furnished free by the State. 
 
 150. The State shall provide for all homeless, 
 destitute, and orphaned children until they have 
 reached the age of sixteen. 
 
 b. All State institutions for orphans, homeless, 
 and destitute children shall be situated in the country.
 
 LAWS AND THEIR ENFORCEMENT 183 
 
 c. The State provides all such children upon at- 
 taining the age of sixteen, as well as all destitute 
 but able-bodied grown persons, with ten acres of 
 arable land, together with free transportation to said 
 land, and all the necessary requisites for a pastoral 
 life; seeds, trees, implements, &c., two horses with 
 harness and wagon, and a modest house and stabling. 
 
 d. The State shall confer this favor upon such 
 persons but once; if they prove unworthy of the trust 
 confided in them, they must shift for themselves. 
 
 i6a. The State shall provide for all persons who 
 are incapable of self-support. 
 
 b. All State institutions maintained for such pur- 
 poses shall be situated in the country. 
 
 i 1 -] a. The State shall compel all persons, married, 
 unmarried, divorced, or separated to support any 
 children they may possess until such children attain 
 the age of sixteen. 
 
 1 8. No person shall receive any compensation 
 whatsoever for breach of promise in connection with 
 marriage, nor for alienation of the affections, nor 
 shall any alimony be granted. 
 
 19. The State shall prohibit and suppress prosti- 
 tution. 
 
 2oa. The State shall inspect and exercise strict 
 supervision over all foodstuffs.
 
 i8 4 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 b. The State shall punish all persons found guilty 
 of misrepresentation concerning articles of use and 
 commerce, and adulteration of all foodstuffs, drugs, 
 medicines, &c. 
 
 21. The State shall prohibit the sale of all poisons 
 to individuals without a written prescription from a 
 Physician. 
 
 22. Vivisection shall be prohibited by law.
 
 XVIII 
 
 REVENUES 
 
 ia. The Nation shall be self-sustaining. 
 
 b. The revenues of the Nation, National, State, 
 and Municipal, shall be derived from an Income- 
 tax. 
 
 c. The rate of taxation shall be fixed by the ap- 
 proval of the majority of the People, and this rate 
 of taxation shall be subject to change at any time 
 according to the wish of the majority of the People. 
 
 2. The State shall not contract foreign loans. 
 
 30. The Income-tax shall be the sole source of 
 permanent revenue. 
 
 b. Whenever there is insufficient money on hand 
 in the National, State, and Municipal Treasuries for 
 the construction of Public Utilities which are used 
 for the Public's convenience only, such as railroads, 
 canals, city water-works, lighting-plants, &c., the 
 National Government, State, and Municipality, re- 
 spectively, shall be empowered by the consent of the 
 majority of the People or Community to issue inter- 
 
 185
 
 i86 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 est-bearing bonds for the construction of such Utili- 
 ties. 
 
 c. When said Utilities have paid for their initial 
 cost, the bonds shall be canceled. 
 
 d. The per cent charged for the use of such Utili- 
 ties shall be fixed at such a rate as shall cause them 
 to pay off their initial cost as speedily as possible. 
 
 e. All such loans for the construction of Public 
 Utilities can only be national loans; foreign capital 
 cannot invest in them. 
 
 /. The above-mentioned law does not apply to the 
 construction and maintenance of State Institutions of 
 learning and charity, &c., but only to those which 
 can strictly be termed mediums of public convenience. 
 The means for the construction and maintenance of 
 all other State Institutions must be drawn from the 
 National Revenues obtained through the medium of 
 an Income-tax. 
 
 4. The Government shall issue monthly state- 
 ments in its official gazette concerning the exact state 
 of the entire public revenues of the Country Na- 
 tional, State, and Municipal. 
 
 5. This statement shall specify the amount re- 
 ceived; the amount expended; the purposes for which 
 it was expended, or is to be expended; and the amount 
 of revenue on hand in the several treasuries.
 
 REVENUES 187 
 
 6a. Notices of the intended expenditures of the 
 public revenues must be published not later than six 
 months prior to the date set for such expenditures in 
 order that the People may be duly apprised of the 
 proposed disbursements of their revenues. 
 
 b. If the majority of the People agree to the 
 proposed expenditures, they shall be duly made, but 
 they shall not be sanctioned, permitted, or modified 
 without such consent.
 
 XIX 
 
 CORPORATIONS 
 
 1. Any stockholder in a corporation shall at 
 any time have the right to examine its books and 
 to obtain any information he desires in regard to its 
 affairs. 
 
 2. Any corporation wishing to increase its capital 
 stock must first give ample notice of its desire by 
 publication, and then present the matter before an 
 open meeting of the stockholders who shall have the 
 right either to approve or reject the measure. 
 
 3. Every corporation, large or small, public or 
 private, must publish at regular intervals an exact and 
 detailed statement of its condition; every detail of 
 its operations, receipts, expenditures; the amount of 
 business transacted, its profits or losses, the disposition 
 of its profits, &c. These reports must appear in 
 an official periodical provided for the purpose by 
 the State, and any corporation or stock company not 
 listed in this official periodical shall be immediately 
 confiscated by the State, and the directors and officials 
 
 of the same punished for violating the law. 
 
 1 88
 
 XX 
 
 PENSIONS 
 
 I a. Only unfortunates who are mentally or phys- 
 ically incapable of acquiring a livelihood shall be 
 pensioned by the State. 
 
 b. Persons who have wrecked their lives through 
 dissipation are not included in this category. 
 
 2. All pensions cease with the death of the pen- 
 sioner. 
 
 b. The right of a State pension cannot be in- 
 herited. 
 
 There will be no occasion for pensioning anyone 
 else, since with ten acres of arable land at the dis- 
 posal of every individual, it would be at once needless 
 and senseless for a People to burden itself with the 
 taxation required to maintain a larger pension roll. 
 
 All persons in the employ of the State who have 
 completed their due term of service shall be retired 
 at the age of fifty or sixty, as the State may determine 
 in the individual's case. 
 
 All such persons shall be privileged to retire at the 
 189
 
 i 9 o MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 age of fifty if they wish. At the expiration of their 
 active terms of service, the State shall provide all 
 such persons with ten acres of arable land, together 
 with free transportation to said land, and also all 
 the necessary requisites for a pastoral life: seeds, 
 trees, implements, &c., two horses with harness and 
 wagon, and a modest house and stabling. 
 
 Wherever possible all such persons shall be allowed 
 to choose the location of their land. 
 
 Such a method of providing a pension only for 
 those who stand absolutely in need of it, will effectu- 
 ally prevent the formation of a permanent bureau- 
 cratic class, one of the most dangerous elements with 
 which the State, regardless of its nature, has ever 
 had to contend. 
 
 Furthermore, no amount of argument can prove 
 that the State should pension one able-bodied man, 
 unless it pensions every able-bodied citizen, or, in 
 other words, adopts Karl Marx's conception of the 
 Socialistic State, and enthrones the Common Man.
 
 XXI 
 
 THE ARMY AND NAVY 
 
 / "T A HE universal trade and exchange, and the swift 
 means of communication which are fast bind- 
 ing all nations of the Earth into one brotherhood, 
 render war incompatible with future human develop- 
 ment. 
 
 It is true that primitive tribes and nations emi- 
 grated in ancient days from one country to another, 
 but there is not a single instance in history of a 
 People or Nation as a whole deliberately going to 
 war. 
 
 It will always be found that the Nation has been 
 led to take such a step by ambitious chieftains or 
 statesmen, or other leaders who have urged the Peo- 
 ple to war purely for the accomplishment of their 
 personal ambitions and desires. 
 
 Wars are unworthy of a civilized People, and men 
 should no longer furnish either themselves or money 
 for the furtherance of such schemes, which are 
 nothing more than gigantic undertakings of greed
 
 192 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 and aggrandizement instigated by individuals, not 
 by Nations. 
 
 The armies and navies of the world should not 
 be maintained for the conquest of Nations, but should 
 be reduced to their original and proper spheres of 
 action and usefulness, namely, the policing of the 
 land and seas. 
 
 A small international fleet consisting of the swiftest 
 battleships should be formed out of our existing 
 navies for the purpose of an international sea-patrol, 
 and should be maintained jointly by the Nations of 
 the Earth for the suppression of piracy and the 
 maintenance of peace on the high seas nothing more. 
 
 The armies of the Nations should be transformed 
 into national patrols, after the manner of the Royal 
 Northwest Mounted Police of Canada, or the Rurales 
 of Mexico, and should be limited to such numbers 
 as will form an effective body of men for the preserva- 
 tion of peace within the borders of their respective 
 Countries.
 
 THE RECONSTRUCTION 
 
 'T^HE People of the United States and of Switzer- 
 land already possess the requisite governmental 
 machinery for the creation of the economic conditions 
 proposed in ihis volume. 
 
 Naturally such a reconstruction can be brought 
 about only by the most sweeping reforms, but let it 
 not be forgotten that we are entering upon a new 
 era of civilization; that we have worn dead men's 
 shoes and followed dead men's footsteps long enough; 
 that posterity ever inherits the full measure of our 
 lives, the evil as well as the good, and must bear the 
 burden of our short-sightedness should we neglect to 
 prepare for it that economic condition which will in- 
 evitably lead to Democracy's ideal. 
 
 We are all to blame for present conditions. The 
 children of the rich and the poor alike will inherit 
 the blight of our ignorance, unless both rich and 
 poor alike make such sacrifices as are necessary to 
 accomplish the end in view. 
 
 193
 
 194 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 Such sacrifices, however, need not be so great as 
 would at first thought appear. No sudden reaction- 
 ary or revolutionary measures will be required. It 
 will not be necessary to destroy existing commercial 
 systems and relations in order to establish the new 
 social order. 
 
 The change can be accomplished through the grad- 
 ual and peaceful acquisition of the Earth's natural 
 resources by the People through the medium of their 
 revenues. 
 
 It is always easier to return to normal conditions 
 than to estrange ourselves from them. 
 
 That which we have failed to attain through arti- 
 ficial means during centuries of endeavor, namely, a 
 condition which grants a priori to the individual a 
 material footing of equality, the People of the United 
 States, or any other country, may easily bring about 
 without loss of life and within a reasonably short 
 space of time. 
 
 It will not do to beggar the rich in order to enrich 
 the poor. Neither will it be necessary to pauperize 
 the Nation by buying back the Earth's natural re- 
 sources at speculative values from those who hold 
 more than their rightful share of them. 
 
 Indeed it would be an impossible task for the 
 State to attempt to cope with such speculative value?
 
 THE RECONSTRUCTION 195 
 
 since there would not be enough gold in the universe 
 to handle them. It should settle with individuals 
 on a purely nominal basis of economic values. The 
 justice of such a course is apparent since, when once 
 our present artificial economic basis is replaced by a 
 natural one, all speculative values will be either en- 
 tirely destroyed or reduced to their legitimate worth, 
 while actual and intrinsic values will increase in the 
 same ratio. 
 
 But how is this to be accomplished? 
 
 First. The Nation shall set a time during which 
 the transition shall take place. Possibly fifty years, 
 not more; as fifty years represents two generations 
 and a half of human existence, an ample time in 
 which to accomplish the end in view. 
 
 Second. The individual shall be permitted to ac- 
 quire only ten acres of land, pastoral or city prop- 
 erty, through present means of acquisition. 
 
 Third. All citizens or non-citizens holding land 
 in excess of ten acres shall be obliged to dispose of all 
 their excess lands during said period fixed by law. 
 
 Fourth. The individual shall not be permitted to 
 acquire forests, minerals, or waters. 
 
 Fifth. All persons possessing mineral deposits, 
 forests, waters, &c., shall surrender their holdings to 
 the State at the expiration of the first twenty years of
 
 196 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 said period set for the reconstruction. The State takes 
 this step on the grounds that the wealth amassed by 
 individuals from such holdings is out of all propor- 
 tion to that acquired through the channels of legiti- 
 mate finance. 
 
 Sixth. During said period the State shall place 
 all such holdings under partial State supervision in 
 order that such natural resources may not be 
 unnecessarily wasted or injured by the individual 
 holder. 
 
 Seventh. The State shall also, during said period, 
 undertake the reforestation and preservation of all 
 such natural resources. 
 
 Eighth. All excess land, pastoral or city property, 
 held by the individual at the expiration of said period 
 shall be immediately surrendered to the State. 
 
 Ninth. During said period no foreign capital shall 
 be invested in the country wherever such capital con- 
 flicts with the People's rights. 
 
 Tenth. Wherever possible all foreign capital in- 
 vested in the country which conflicts with the People's 
 rights shall be withdrawn during said period. Where 
 not possible, all representatives of foreign capital 
 invested in the country, as well as all non-citizen 
 holders of United States Bonds, shall be reimbursed 
 dollar for dollar for the full amounts involved during
 
 THE RECONSTRUCTION 197 
 
 said period and thereafter until such obligations have 
 been discharged. 
 
 Eleventh. The State and Municipalities shall, as 
 far as possible during said period, acquire all Public 
 Utilities, purchased from the individual at nominal 
 though liberal prices. 
 
 Twelfth. Those who possess nothing beyond their 
 daily wage will be furnished by the State, if they so 
 desire, ten acres of arable land with the necessary 
 trees, seeds, implements for the cultivation of the 
 soil; two horses with harness and wagon, a modest 
 house and stabling, and free transportation to the 
 land. 
 
 All vagrants, destitutes, and dwellers in city slums 
 will be forced to accept this latter proposition, the 
 State furnishing them free instruction in the simple 
 forms of agriculture, thus assuring them a fair start 
 in life. 
 
 All such persons should be exempt from taxation 
 during the first two years of their occupancy of the 
 land, after which they should be taxed the same as 
 other citizens. 
 
 They will be placed on land in the country and 
 given an opportunity to nourish themselves from the 
 land. If they leave it, they will be obliged to shift 
 for themselves as best they can.
 
 198 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 They cannot return to their former wretched lives 
 in city slums for there will be no more city 
 slums, no more vagrants or gutter-wolves tolerated 
 in cities. 
 
 Neither will they be permitted to interfere in any 
 way with the peace and welfare of the Public. 
 
 The State will be quite justified in taking this stand 
 toward all such people, for it is far better that those 
 who refuse to work and acquire an honorable living 
 should starve in the country than in the cities. 
 
 Naturally the present systems of revenues should 
 remain in force until the foreign capital invested in 
 the country has been paid off, since without them it 
 would be impossible for the State to meet its obliga- 
 tions to foreigners. 
 
 The method proposed for the reconstruction would 
 undoubtedly be treated with contempt by the ex- 
 tremely rich whose fortunes range from ten to two 
 hundred millions or more. 
 
 The craze for money-getting has so taken posses- 
 sion of men's minds that, those who in our Fathers' 
 time would have considered themselves well off in 
 the possession of a few thousand dollars, now look 
 with indifference on anything short of hundreds of 
 thousands or a million; while the multimillionaires 
 regard a million dollars as little more than a bagatelle
 
 THE RECONSTRUCTION 199 
 
 and the presence of its insignificant possessor hardly 
 worthy of social toleration. 
 
 But in order that we may form an adequate idea 
 of the power represented by the enormous wealth 
 centered in the hands of single individuals to-day, and 
 at the same time create a standard by which we may 
 measure a man's wealth, let us take a million dollars 
 as an illustration. 
 
 $1,000,000, drawing y z % interest, yields an annual income 
 
 of $ 5,000 
 
 $1,000,000, drawing i % interest, yields an annual income 
 
 of 10,000 
 
 $1,000,000, drawing 2% interest, yields an annual income 
 
 of 20,000 
 
 $1,000.000, drawing $% interest, yields an annual income 
 
 of 30,000 
 
 A million dollars without drawing interest at all will 
 yield an annual income of $20,000 for fifty years, 
 or $10,000 for one hundred years before it is con- 
 sumed. 
 
 A million dollars, therefore, will provide in mod- 
 eration the average family with every luxury the 
 world has to offer, permitting that family to travel 
 annually to any part of the globe, and this without 
 any labor from any member of it during the lifetime 
 of the average man. 
 
 A million dollars is a tremendous sum of money
 
 200 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 more money than a man should possess a sum so 
 vast that, under natural conditions, only a few men 
 would be capable of amassing it through the channels 
 of legitimate finance. 
 
 So it will be seen that it is not without reason the 
 State adopts arbitrary methods in settling with in- 
 dividuals and putting an end to the commercial 
 brigandage which has fastened itself upon the world. 
 
 In consideration of what will be secured in return, 
 liberty and prosperity, the like of which civilized 
 man has never yet known, the individual can well 
 afford to be content to abide by the decrees of the 
 State. For unless the signs of the times count for 
 naught, the people of the United States will have to 
 face this problem at no distant date. 
 
 Therefore, those who might complain that they 
 are getting too little may well be reminded of a 
 salient truth, too often demonstrated in history to 
 be any longer questioned, namely : that revolutions 
 usually make short shrift of those who oppose the 
 common good, whether high or low, rich or poor, 
 and that it is better to sacrifice a part of one's pos- 
 sessions and yet remain comfortably off in life, than 
 to lose everything one possesses and perhaps one's 
 head as well. 
 
 Moreover, it should be borne in mind that it is
 
 THE RECONSTRUCTION 201 
 
 our children who will reap the direct benefits result- 
 ing from the change, and that, therefore, it should 
 be the first consideration and duty of every citizen 
 to make such sacrifices as may be demanded of him 
 to bring it about. " If," as Carlyle says, " the poor 
 and humble toil that we may have food, must not 
 the high and glorious toil for him in return, that 
 he may have Light, have Guidance, Freedom, Im- 
 mortality? " 
 
 This is one way of accomplishing the transition 
 from the old to the new condition. 
 
 The method proposed is at once simple, economi- 
 cal, and workable. When once the State has ad- 
 justed its affairs on this basis it will become econom- 
 ically self-poised. All citizens will be free to begin 
 life anew on a footing of equal opportunity; there 
 will be no poor except those who insist on remaining 
 poor. 
 
 If any man has a better method to propose let him 
 come forward with it.
 
 XXIII 
 
 THE TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE 
 
 "The Golden Age, which a blind tradition has hitherto placed in 
 the past, is before us." SAINT-SIMON. 
 
 REE the land and the Earth's natural resources 
 by placing them within the reach of everyone, 
 and humanity will adjust itself to the new order as 
 easily and freely as water seeks its own level. 
 
 The accumulation of wealth will become a sec- 
 ondary consideration. Men will instinctively and 
 unconsciously simplify their lives; will cease grubbing 
 in the dust for superfluous riches; will no longer bur- 
 den themselves with the thousand and one useless 
 possessions which now add to their responsibilities 
 and cares. 
 
 They will become independent units and stand on 
 a natural footing of material equality. 
 
 No one will possess arbitrary power over another. 
 The man living in the city will not dictate to the man 
 living in the country, nor the man in the country to 
 the man in the city. The high will not dictate to 
 
 303
 
 TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE 203 
 
 the low, nor the low to the high. Each member of 
 society will be relegated to his natural sphere of action 
 by the natural laws of supply and demand. 
 
 The individual will go and come, think and act, 
 work for as long and short a time, and for as much 
 and as little hire, or will refrain from working alto- 
 gether as he pleases. 
 
 There can be no oppression when such conditions 
 prevail. 
 
 The organizations which to-day intimidate and 
 control mankind will be effectually broken up; for 
 the State or Community will then be in a position 
 to say with perfect justice to the individual all 
 things which the Earth has to offer are as accessible 
 to you as to your neighbor, use them or not as it 
 pleases you, tut if you interfere with that neighbor's 
 rights, you do so at your peril. 
 
 Then indeed will men be in a position to practice 
 the Golden Rule in daily life, not merely theorize 
 upon it as they are doing to-day. 
 
 Man is the highest order of animal inhabiting the 
 Earth, and is subject to the same natural and physical 
 laws as are the lower orders. Nature supplies him 
 as she does them with that portion of her bounties 
 which is necessary to sustain him, but with nothing 
 more.
 
 204 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 If, therefore, man refuses to sustain himself, 
 whether directly from the Earth's natural resources 
 or through his higher intelligence, let him perish. 
 
 The State would not be called on to take cogni- 
 zance of drones or idlers, nor should it be obliged to 
 maintain other charities than those necessary for the 
 care of helpless children and adults whom misfortune 
 has rendered incapable of self-support. 
 
 When man reclaims his birthright, and every able- 
 bodied member of society is welcome to his rightful 
 portion of Nature's bounties, he will be obliged to 
 sustain himself therefrom or the rigors of Nature 
 will sweep him from the face of the Earth which 
 is as it should be. 
 
 Vagrancy will practically become a thing of the 
 past, and poverty a matter of individual choice. 
 There will be no wretchedly poor people in the cities, 
 since the laws will force them, if work is not ob- 
 tainable, to move on to their free portions of land 
 where, provided by the State with the requisites for 
 a pastoral life, a livelihood will be assured them. 
 
 This is not the " political economy " of luxury and 
 extravagance which is everywhere taught and prac- 
 ticed throughout the world to-day, and which permits 
 those in power to rob and burden the Public with 
 debts, obtaining the most by giving the least. It is
 
 TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE 205 
 
 the fundamental, underlying principle of life the 
 working out of the natural laws of growth, supply, 
 and demand, visible on every hand throughout Na- 
 ture, by which and through which men will be placed 
 in a position to acquire a livelihood from natural 
 sources and conditions. 
 
 Verily, he who does not work shall not eat ! This 
 is justice to all. The farmer or husbandman will 
 possess his lawful portion of land; the city dweller, 
 his residence surrounded by an ample garden and 
 such further plots of ground within the ten-acre limit 
 as his business or profession requires or as he can 
 cover with buildings. 
 
 This will effectually destroy all speculative values 
 in land and other natural resources. 
 
 It will render money powerless to injure humanity 
 seriously since the land cannot be bought or sold, 
 taxed or rented, or taken from man, nor can wood, 
 water, or minerals be controlled by individuals. 
 There will be enough for all. 
 
 It will prevent the overcrowding of cities, and will 
 bring about the proper diffusion and concentration 
 of populations in agricultural districts. 
 
 When a livelihood is secured to all, and the pres- 
 ent mad scramble for money is ended, there will be 
 fewer thefts, fewer crimes against property rights,
 
 206 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 and so fewer prisons. Men and women will no 
 longer be driven insane by want and the dread of 
 want, and so there will be fewer insane asylums. 
 None but the physically or mentally unfit need ever 
 suffer for the necessities of life, and so there will be 
 fewer alms-houses. And thus the demand on public 
 charity will be reduced to a minimum. 
 
 The farmer will be especially benefited by such 
 conditions, and will become a husbandman in the 
 true sense of the term. 
 
 The first step in human economy and the first 
 consideration in regard to a man's welfare should be 
 to render him self-sustaining and independent of the 
 outside world. But the farmer of to-day is abso- 
 lutely at the mercy of the capitalist who controls at 
 once the fluctuations of the stock market and the 
 railroads. Under the new conditions, if he possesses 
 a fair knowledge of husbandry, he will be in a situa- 
 tion to render himself self-sustaining and independent 
 of railroads, capital, or the uncertain prices which 
 his products command in the markets. 
 
 Where to-day he raises only a single cereal, or a 
 few fruits, and is forced to devote his entire time 
 to them, owing to the large tracts of lands which 
 he possesses, under the new conditions he and his fam- 
 ily will be able to devote their energies not only to
 
 TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE 207 
 
 all that pertains to the farm, but also to those hand- 
 industries which are as much a part of husbandry as 
 is the cultivation of the soil. 
 
 On a farm of ten acres or less, a family endowed 
 with average intelligence will be able to raise a small 
 amount of stock, poultry, and such grains, vegetables, 
 fruits, and flowers as the climate and location permit. 
 
 From the animals are obtained milk, butter, eggs, 
 meat, wool, hides, tallow, soap, feathers, &c. From 
 the grain, flour and meal; from the fruit and vege- 
 tables, preserved and dried fruits and vegetables for 
 winter use; from the flowers, honey, perfume, and 
 flowers for the market ; from the wool and flax, home- 
 spun cloth and linen, rugs and hangings; from the 
 trees, shrubs, and other vegetation, fuel, wood for 
 general use, brooms, baskets, dyes, &c. 
 
 The man who, with the knowledge that the tenure 
 of his land is secure, and that he cannot be taxed 
 if his crops and income fail him, is yet unable, under 
 such circumstances, to become self-supporting and 
 independent of the world, will have nobody but him- 
 self to blame. If he cannot maintain himself on his 
 little domain with such resources at his command, he 
 will have no further excuse for existence on Earth. 
 
 The greatest boon, however, which must result to 
 humanity from such conditions is, that all phases of
 
 208 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 monopoly resulting from the accumulation of capital 
 can easily be broken or reduced to the normal and 
 legitimate limitations of trade and commercial enter- 
 prise by the return of the People to the soil which 
 lies free for them to appropriate, and to a life in 
 which the individual is liberated from the conventions 
 and laws governing society in cities. 
 
 Viewed from a material standpoint, this is the only 
 logical solution of the social question which preserves 
 the personal liberty of the individual without a return 
 on the part of society to the nomadic state, or that 
 of the clan. 
 
 It is universal in its application, from the primitive 
 to the civilized man; a condition that will stand with 
 or without government. 
 
 If it were not the rational distribution of the 
 Earth's surface and its resources, a natural law com- 
 pelling animals, savages, and aboriginal peoples to 
 pass their entire existence struggling for the posses- 
 sion of bits of the Earth's surface would prevail 
 throughout Nature. Such a law, however, does not 
 obtain. The animal struggles for his food and den 
 or nest only; the primitive man for his food and the 
 ground space which his tent or hut occupies; the hus- 
 bandman for the plot of ground that will nourish 
 him.
 
 209 
 
 This is the universal law governing the Earth-life 
 ordained by Nature. It is idle to dispute it. 
 
 Were it otherwise, were the individual entitled to 
 more than his natural portion, then indeed, both 
 men and animals might well struggle together even 
 as the so-called civilized nations are struggling to-day 
 for square inches of dirt. And the Earth, to meet 
 the full requirements of such a struggle and the laws 
 of inequality, should of necessity be flat instead of 
 round, with the law of gravitation ceasing at its 
 margins, and the chief aim of man and beast to push 
 his weaker fellow nearer and nearer the danger-line 
 and over the brink into space. 
 
 But the Earth is round and limited in area, and 
 escape from it impossible. The conditions of 
 material inequality which exist to-day are solely the 
 result of man-made laws and institutions, while those 
 of equality prevailed a priori before the human race 
 dreamed of framing thought into words, before the 
 first eye opened on a universe of worlds. 
 
 Again, such a distribution of the Earth's surface 
 and its resources is according to the evolutionary laws 
 of Nature, upon which all Earth-life is dependent 
 for its development. 
 
 It is true that all forms of life, from the lowest 
 to the highest, prey upon one another for their main-
 
 210 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 tenance and development, but their decay, like their 
 growth, is a natural one, not the unnatural one carried 
 forward by man into every phase of his existence even 
 to the extermination of his own species. 
 
 Every form of animal and vegetable life appears 
 upon Earth at a given time prepared for it by the 
 laws of growth or evolution, and although every 
 form of life is destined to be preyed upon by that of 
 a higher or more vigorous form, its decay and final 
 extinction under normal conditions proceeds no faster 
 than did its original growth and development. 
 
 The various forms appear upon the Earth, flourish 
 their alloted time, then gradually disappear to make 
 way for new forms of life which, obeying the laws 
 of growth, come to replace them during the succeed- 
 ing eras of earthly development brought about by 
 the aging of the planet and its attendant climatic 
 changes. But the encroachment of new and vigorous 
 forms of life upon those of a less vigorous nature is 
 a gradual one; the struggle for supremacy between 
 them is not one of extermination. It is the gradual 
 and natural displacement of the one by the other or- 
 dained by the irrevocable and creative laws of the 
 universe. 
 
 This gradual process of change prevailing through- 
 out the Earth-life is Nature's definition of natural
 
 TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE 211 
 
 selection, or the survival of the fittest on a material 
 plane ; a very different matter from man's brutal and 
 unnatural extermination of any and every living 
 thing for the mere pleasure of satisfying his whims 
 and insatiable mercenary desires. 
 
 Were Darwin still alive, he would certainly re- 
 pudiate this false and unscientific conception of natu- 
 ral selection which the majority of men hold to-day. 
 
 A law which would have made the human type 
 impossible by limiting forever the development of 
 the animal kingdom to the brute type subject to the 
 domination of the strongest brute species. A rule of 
 life which is contrary to human reason, which neces- 
 sitates the stifling of man's noblest sentiments, love, 
 sympathy, and pity, and which, if carried to its 
 logical conclusion, would result in man's retrogression 
 to lowest barbarism. 
 
 " All men are created free and equal," reads the 
 American Declaration of Independence; whereas the 
 real truth is that all men are created intellectually 
 unequal. Nor can they be born free and into con- 
 ditions materially equal until the Earth's natural re- 
 sources are recognized as communal factors by man 
 and are equally accessible to all. 
 
 Wars must inevitably cease when the truth of this 
 fact becomes thoroughly established in the minds of
 
 212 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 men, and is recognized as the dominating principle 
 in life, a principle leading to true civilization, and to 
 the peace and material and spiritual welfare of the 
 human race. For, since communal rights, like char- 
 ity, begin at home, no one acknowledging the rights 
 of his fellow-man to his share of the Earth's natural 
 resources, could engage in war or advocate it without 
 relinquishing his own communal rights. 
 
 The history of the world shows that man's life 
 cannot be regulated by man-made laws, but only by 
 the fundamental principle of equality. 
 
 ' The growth of wealth, and with it the concep- 
 tion of private property, brought on certain very 
 definite new forms of life; it destroyed the ancient 
 system of society based upon the gens, that is, a so- 
 ciety of equals founded upon blood-relationship, and 
 introduced a society of classes founded upon differ- 
 ences of material possessions; it destroyed the ancient 
 system of mother-right and inheritance through the 
 female line, and turned the woman into the property 
 of man; it brought with it private ownership of land, 
 and so created a class of landless aliens, and a whole 
 system of rent, mortgage, interest, etc.; it introduced 
 slavery, serfdom, and wage-labor, which are only 
 various forms of the dominance of one class over an-
 
 TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE 213 
 
 other; and to rivet these authorities it created the 
 State and the policeman." * 
 
 History shows that individual ownership of land 
 and the Earth's natural resources resulted from the 
 seizure of the communal lands by ambitious chieftains 
 or primitive conquerors who, in order to legalize or 
 make their possession secure, distributed them in turn 
 to those who served them. But all this was in direct 
 opposition to the laws of Nature, which never de- 
 signed that the land, wood, minerals, and waters of 
 the Earth should become merchandise and be monop- 
 olized and exploited by the individual for greedy 
 commercial purposes. 
 
 The Earth is man's and the fullness thereof. It 
 cannot be too often repeated that every human being 
 born into this Earth-life is as much entitled by natural 
 law to enough arable land and wood and water and 
 minerals to supply himself with the necessities of life 
 as he is to the sunlight and the air he breathes. 
 
 This free portion of the Earth's natural resources 
 will not only provide the individual with a livelihood, 
 but will also make him independent of commercial 
 competition if he wishes to remain aloof from it. 
 
 It will assure him freedom, permitting him to think 
 
 * " Ancient Society": Lewis H. Morgan.
 
 2i 4 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 and act, and go and come at will without hindrance 
 or restraint. It will render the question of a liveli- 
 hood purely one of simple and natural effort de- 
 manded by Nature to sustain life within the body. 
 It will fix the responsibility of individual develop- 
 ment upon the individual himself. 
 
 This is the basic principle of Nature's economy 
 upon which worlds and celestial systems are formed 
 and sustained the fundamental principle upon which 
 a lasting condition of human economy may be based, 
 creating a natural source of nourishment for all living 
 things in conformity with the universal law of life 
 " live and let live ! " 
 
 Man's undisputed right to the soil beneath his feet 
 and the Earth's natural resources is an inalienable and 
 eternal one. 
 
 It is as essential and as much a part of himself and 
 the sphere he inhabits in the Universe as the skin with 
 which his body is clothed, and should come before 
 all forms of government and other human schemes 
 and institutions. 
 
 Man can no more escape from the truth of this 
 argument than he can escape from or transcend the 
 laws of gravitation. 
 
 These facts remain established and beyond dispute: 
 There is enough land for the nourishment of every
 
 TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE 215 
 
 inhabitant and for the normal increase in population 
 of the planet Earth, and all forms of government and 
 human institutions which deprive man of his portion 
 of the Earth's resources are merely schemes devised 
 by the few to rob the many. They are as unscien- 
 tific as they are unnatural, and have not the slightest 
 claim or foundation for their further continuance.
 
 XXIV 
 
 THE TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE 
 
 ALL that has thus far been said concerning govern- 
 ment and the distribution of the Earth's natural 
 resources, those things which must serve as an indis- 
 pensable basis for the untrammeled and free develop- 
 ment of man, will in themselves merely prepare the 
 way for the realization of Democracy's ideal. That 
 condition which must inevitably bring forth a race of 
 free-born men who will laugh at man-made laws and 
 institutions, and will govern themselves as much as 
 possible in their own persons and as little as possible 
 by deputy; a condition in which the individual will 
 be privileged to live in great measure independent of 
 governments and of most human institutions. 
 
 So long as the individual respects the life and 
 property of his neighbor, refrains from monopolizing 
 the Earth's natural resources, and preserves and hus- 
 bands them, his life shall be what he ivishes it to be, 
 not what others wish to make it. 
 
 The social revolution which is now clearly dis- 
 
 216
 
 TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE 217 
 
 cernible on the horizon has for its aim nothing less 
 than the enfranchisement of the human race. Not 
 imaginary freedom, but actual freedom. A condi- 
 tion which cannot be attained through the preserva- 
 tion of present institutions or by the creation of new 
 ones, but only, so far as possible, through their elim- 
 ination. 
 
 Life as it appears to the majority of men to-day 
 is merely the conception of life entertained by the 
 city man who naiVely imagines that all things should 
 be arranged to meet the requirements of his limited 
 artificial existence, while in reality, there is no more 
 reason why a person should not be a nomad, if he 
 wishes to be one, than he should be a merchant, a 
 farmer, or a philosopher. 
 
 Once and for all let it be understood that the ques- 
 tion of human or natural economy is not one of cap- 
 ital and labor, of capital and income, of commercial 
 production and demand, or of the distribution of 
 wealth resulting from them, but solely one relating to 
 that part of a man's life which is concerned with get- 
 ting a living. 
 
 Since it has been shown that the area of arable land 
 on the Earth's surface is more than ample to support 
 the human race, allowing for a normal increase in 
 population, the paramount issue confronting man to-
 
 218 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 day is not one of governments and schemes of reform, 
 which are merely incidentals in human development, 
 but the prolongation of the habitableness of this 
 planet through the preservation and proper distribu- 
 tion of its natural resources. 
 
 Nature compels both man and animal to exert 
 themselves for the supplying of their material wants. 
 If they refuse to do so, they perish which is as it 
 should be. Beyond this point in existence man may 
 enjoy as much or as little freedom as he likes. It 
 lies entirely with himself. 
 
 If he wishes to maintain and perpetuate that con- 
 dition which is conducive to the greatest freedom of 
 action and thought, it is only necessary that men (a), 
 preserve and hold in common the Earth's natural 
 resources; (b), adopt a rational educational system 
 which shall include instruction in agriculture and all 
 that pertains to husbandry, the industrial arts, and the 
 rudiments of natural science; (c), and lastly, keep 
 the land well stocked with wild animal life for the 
 consumption of the individual while enjoying life in 
 the open. 
 
 The few simple communal laws and institutions 
 requisite for the maintenance of such conditions will 
 weigh feather-light upon man. 
 
 The more institutions we possess, the more we must
 
 TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE 219 
 
 toil and slave away our lives to maintain them; for 
 which reason the least governed People are the best 
 governed People. 
 
 This beautiful Earth the Garden of Eden lies 
 spread out about us. Liberty and happiness, life's 
 greatest prize, are ours to enjoy to the full if we 
 wish it. This is the rational exposition of the Golden 
 Age on Earth all that it offered man during the 
 childhood of the race, all that it can offer him when 
 the manhood of the race is attained. 
 
 The Golden Age, the City Beautiful, Utopia, or 
 the Ideal State, as conceived by various political econ- 
 omists, statesmen, and poets, will not bear analysis, 
 for if any one of these could be translated into reality 
 the liberty of mankind would be the price paid for a 
 Golden Age of Bondage. 
 
 Nothing can compensate man for the loss of lib- 
 erty. Trace back the stream of civilization until it 
 is lost in the dim obscurity of an irrevocable past, 
 and the one assurance ever forthcoming concerning 
 the secret of human happiness in all times and for 
 all men has ever been liberty. 
 
 Owing to the folly of allowing individuals to own 
 and control the Earth's natural resources, man to-day 
 occupies the painful position of a modern Atlas. He 
 bears the burden of the Earth upon his shoulders,
 
 220 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 whereas the proper function of the Earth is to bear 
 him. And yet, notwithstanding the terrible retribu- 
 tion which Nature has brought upon him in conse- 
 quence of his violation of her laws, men still continue 
 to bring children into the world regardless of the 
 fact that present civilization denies the individual's 
 right to existence unless he pays a toll for that 
 privilege. 
 
 It is indeed astonishing that man should deliber- 
 ately perpetuate the slavery of his race by failing to 
 recognize the fact that he is born into the Earth-life 
 for the purpose of spiritual development, not that 
 he might conform to human schemes and inventions 
 of materialistic tendencies. 
 
 Civilization as it is conceived and practiced by 
 man to-day spells slavery; it is an institution fit 
 only for barbarians, not for savages or civilized 
 men. 
 
 Had his Satanic Majesty, the Devil, meditated 
 for a thousand years on how he might best vex and 
 afflict mankind, he could not have devised a better 
 or more successful scheme than that human institu- 
 tion known as modern civilization. 
 
 The North American Indian, before his contact 
 with the White Man, held the Golden Age with its 
 untold possibilities in the palm of his hand, but was
 
 TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE 221 
 
 quite as ignorant of the fact as were the first dis- 
 coverers of the American Continents. 
 
 Ask yourself which is the better, the more rational 
 earthly condition: One of continual war and oppres- 
 sion, of disease, degeneracy, suffering, and want; one 
 in which the Public is ever at the mercy of ignorant, 
 unscrupulous individuals who, by means of the 
 monopolization of the Earth's natural resources, 
 seize the reins of government, make and alter the 
 laws of the land to suit their own convenience, and 
 under the protection of these same laws and imagi- 
 nary rights, govern by might? Or, one in which 
 the individual has no control over the natural re- 
 sources of the Earth or his fellow-beings; a country 
 where every man is welcome to his rightful share of 
 these resources enough to supply his wants enough 
 for the supreme development of his ideals? A 
 country where there is an abundance of life's neces- 
 sities for all, where wild animal life abounds, and 
 where the waters teem with fish and are free of con- 
 tamination? A country where life is long, where 
 there are few crimes, few prisons or asylums or other 
 institutions, and few taxes? A country where honor 
 prevails and men are beholden unto God alone; 
 where men are free to go and come at will; where 
 they may work as much or as little as they please;
 
 222 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 where there is no drudgery except what is self- 
 imposed; where the simple material necessities of life 
 are within the reach of all, and men may devote the 
 greater part of their days to the development of their 
 minds and bodies, making of them the sacred shrines 
 and temples which the Supreme Being intended them 
 to be? 
 
 This is no idle fancy, no chimerical dream. It 
 is the actual and normal earthly condition which 
 Nature intended man should inherit through the 
 process of his evolutionary development on Earth. 
 
 Indeed, it is the actual condition which the Amer- 
 ican Continents originally offered Europeans who, 
 instead of availing themselves of its advantages, con- 
 tinued to follow in the footsteps of their degenerate 
 forefathers. 
 
 The North American Indian not only held the 
 land, forests, waters, and minerals in common, but 
 the wild animals as well. Every Indian was welcome 
 to enjoy his rightful share of them but no more. 
 He was not even permitted to slaughter game pro- 
 miscuously or for pleasure. 
 
 A common law existed among all the tribes which 
 permitted the punishment of any such offenders. For 
 a first transgression of the law, the offender's entire 
 personal effects were either destroyed or taken from
 
 TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE 223 
 
 him; for a repetition of the same offense, the death 
 penalty was promptly meted out to him. This, of 
 course, before the coming of the enlightened White 
 Man, who was not slow to instruct his red brother 
 in the art of wasting Nature's bounties. 
 
 By restricting the individual to his rightful share 
 of natural necessities there was ever an abundance 
 for all. Only thus was it possible for the individual 
 to maintain his freedom, or for the planet to nourish 
 him properly. 
 
 Trace this thought to its logical conclusion, and 
 we must inevitably arrive at the only sane deduction : 
 That only a fool would erect a larger house than 
 was necessary for his comfort, or slave away his life, 
 year in and year out, to maintain superfluous institu- 
 tions ; that only a fool would waste his time cultivat- 
 ing a larger area of land than sufficed to yield him a 
 living; that only a fool would destroy the natural 
 food supply of the land, the wild animals, or devote 
 his time to rearing more domesticated animals than 
 were necessary to supply his needs, especially when 
 the latter, if shared in common, will thrive and mul- 
 tiply equally well if permitted to run free. 
 
 We may adopt the same maxim for ourselves, but 
 place a more enlightened interpretation upon it, 
 namely he who is satisfied with enough works least,
 
 224 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 and, therefore, has the greatest amount of freedom 
 to devote to his spiritual development. 
 
 Naturally the mere suggestion that the poor, un- 
 tutored savage led a saner existence than does his 
 white successor will be greeted with derision by the 
 world, and especially those economists who pass their 
 days within four walls, inventing and dreaming of 
 complicated governments and other institutions. 
 
 We know, however, whereof we speak. This is 
 not at all a question of what you would like or 
 what I would like, but the exact exposition of things 
 as they are. We are viewing both sides of the 
 mirror. The tribunal before which we now stand is 
 open to the savage as well as the civilized man. 
 
 The application of the fundamental principle of 
 natural economy set forth in these pages is not de- 
 pendent upon theory, but upon the observance of the 
 divine law prevailing throughout the sphere which 
 we inhabit. 
 
 Search history from the days of Soldene of Egypt 
 to those of the present, and we will not find a single 
 theory or philosophy of life which does not conflict 
 with this law. 
 
 Indeed, what has thus far been said concerning 
 government should be regarded merely as a means 
 to an end to bridge over that transitory period which
 
 TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE 225 
 
 must intervene until the state of true Democracy has 
 been attained. But when we have crossed that gulf 
 and entered into the land of promise, living in accord- 
 ance with Nature's divine economic law, we too can 
 easily afford to dispense with our little man-made 
 theories of government. 
 
 Not until then, until man has reached the goal of 
 true civilization, recognizing the right of his fellow- 
 man to his share of the Earth's natural resources, 
 shall man be in a position to govern himself by the 
 simple communal laws of the clan. 
 
 We may scoff at the idea, but our arrogance of 
 thought and extravagances and excesses of our daily 
 lives cannot conceal from us the fact that complicated 
 institutions are merely imaginary necessities, not the 
 basic necessities of life required for the free and 
 natural development of man. 
 
 In spite of that wonderful edifice, Civilization, to 
 which we refer with so much pride, every stone of 
 which represents a human soul, disease and misery 
 are on the increase, and the struggle for life becomes 
 ever more difficult. 
 
 What, of paramount importance, has this civiliza- 
 tion really given us? Has it lifted us any nearer 
 the stars? Can we really say that we are more 
 accurately informed concerning the why and where-
 
 226 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 fore of existence, or of life after death, than is the 
 savage? 
 
 On the contrary, universal unrest and the wish not 
 to live is permeating all races subject to the influences 
 of modern civilization. The idea that life is a 
 thing to be endured is fast supplanting the natural 
 desire to live which was so intense in early civiliza- 
 tions. 
 
 What then, after all is said and done, do our in- 
 stitutions, our literary, scientific, and artistic achieve- 
 ments amount to if they deprive us of our liberty- 
 entail the everlasting misery of the human race by 
 making slaves of men? 
 
 Is this the end, the culmination of human develop- 
 ment? Have all our strivings, sufferings, longings, 
 and yearnings, our triumphs and our failures been 
 for naught ? Must we then disregard our inventions, 
 our literary, artistic, and scientific attainments, our 
 customs and modes of everyday life? By no means. 
 Nothing could be more absurd on the part of man 
 than to attempt to limit the manifold manifestations 
 of the human intellect. Man shall invent and create 
 to his heart's content; but he should do so alon^ 
 rational lines. He should not be permitted forcibly 
 to subject his fellow to the results of his investiga- 
 tions.
 
 TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE 227 
 
 We have merely confounded mechanics with ethics; 
 have mistaken mechanical laws for natural laws; have 
 conformed our lives to artificial instead of natural 
 conditions. 
 
 " All real and wholesome enjoyments possible to 
 man," says Ruskin, " have been just as possible to him 
 since first he was made of the earth as they are now : 
 and they are possible to him chiefly in peace. 
 
 ' To watch the corn grow and the blossoms set; to 
 draw hard breath over plowshare and spade; to read, 
 to think, to love, to pray; these are the things to 
 make men happy; they have always had the power of 
 doing these they never will have the power to do 
 more." 
 
 Mechanical progress is not ethical progress. All 
 branches of science, art, and mechanics which do not 
 tend to increase happiness or alleviate the suffering 
 of the world, or which cause the destruction of life, 
 are at once useless and unworthy of a civilized people. 
 
 Most of the preventives of disease in use through- 
 out the world to-day are of little value. They do 
 not prevent, but only temporarily arrest the spread 
 of disease, whereas the observance of strict sanita- 
 tion and the leading of a simple and natural life on
 
 228 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 the part of man effectually destroys or eradicates the 
 germs of disease which is the end to be attained.* 
 
 In the same ratio that modern medical and hygienic 
 science progresses, disease increases throughout the 
 world; nor will science ever triumph over the latter 
 so long as men maintain their present modes of life 
 and imperfect sanitary conditions; poisoning the air 
 with fumes of minerals and unnecessary clouds of 
 smoke, contaminating the waters with refuse matter, 
 and passing the greater portion of their lives shut up 
 in houses, breathing the foul, congested atmosphere 
 of large cities. 
 
 Many of our modern inventions, such as the tele- 
 graph, telephone, and some others, are valuable; but 
 the advantages derived from most of them are very 
 much overrated. Take, for example, the railroads. 
 
 They are, undoubtedly, indispensable to the times, 
 since it is important that both persons and certain 
 commodities should be transported from one place to 
 another as speedily as possible. But, apart from this 
 advantage, railroads have done little to benefit or 
 increase the happiness of mankind. 
 
 Before railroads came into use the highroads of 
 
 * This was the condition of the North American Indian and 
 many nomadic tribes of Africa and Asia before their contact with 
 Europeans and degenerate civilizations of the East. Hereditary 
 diseases were practically unknown to them.
 
 TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE 229 
 
 Europe and America were lined with prosperous, 
 self-sustaining communities. Whereas to-day the 
 greater number of these communities no longer exist, 
 or are in a condition of stagnation ; the railroads hav- 
 ing in effect depopulated the country by transferring 
 both its wealth and population to their terminals 
 the large cities. 
 
 The depopulation of villages throughout England 
 and Continental Europe affords a striking example of 
 the disastrous effects railroads have had upon them. 
 The railroads destroyed the great freighting and 
 coaching industries which were carried forward over 
 the country at large. 
 
 Neither are railroads essential to the settlement 
 of countries. The whole of Europe was settled be- 
 fore railroads were invented. Mexico and the great 
 unknown regions of the North and West, both in the 
 United States and Canada, were pioneered and colo- 
 nized without them. It is quite true that, after 
 their advent, railroads aided in the work of coloniz- 
 ing young countries, but history shows that they were 
 not absolutely essential; the work would have gone 
 forward without them just the same. 
 
 Some idea may be formed of the great freighting 
 industry carried on during the pioneer-days of the 
 West in the United States when it is stated that the
 
 230 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 floating population of the Great Plains and Rocky 
 Mountains during that period averaged anywhere 
 from 250,000 to 500,000. 
 
 " The firms engaged in this business," says Mr. 
 Randall Parrish, " were many, and their employees 
 an army. From Fort Smith, Independence, Kansas 
 City, St. Joseph, Atchison, Council Bluffs, and other 
 less known points of departure, the great wagon 
 streams swept forth into the Plains, their aggregate 
 number beyond any possible estimate of to-day. 
 
 " The greatest firm in the trade, that of Russel, 
 Majors, and Wadell, at one time employed 6,250 
 huge wagons, and 75,000 oxen." As regards staging 
 and passenger transportation : " From Placerville, 
 Cal., to Atchison, which in the regular run required 
 seventeen days, the distance being 1,913 miles, a trip 
 was made by Holladay in twelve days and two hours. 
 When one considers the lonely, dangerous country 
 through which this long road ran, the isolated sta- 
 tions, the expense of equipment, the difficulty of 
 transporting supplies, the rates charged for overland 
 travel were comparatively low. 
 
 " The old Butterfield fare of one hundred dollars 
 for 2,759 miles almost, if not quite, equals present 
 railroad rates. ... In 1859, counting the Panama
 
 TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE 231 
 
 steamer, there were six established mail routes to 
 California." * 
 
 A historian of this era, in referring to Mr. Holla- 
 day, says: 
 
 " No other man anywhere has owned and managed 
 a transportation system at once so vast and so diffi- 
 cult. He had sixteen first-class passenger steamers 
 plying the Pacific from San Francisco to Oregon, 
 Panama, Japan, China. At the height of his over- 
 land business he operated nearly 5,000 miles of daily 
 mail-stages, with about 500 coaches and express 
 wagons, 500 freight wagons, 5,000 horses and mules, 
 and a host of oxen." 
 
 Concerning the Pony Express, mail was carried be- 
 tween St. Joseph, Mo., and Sacramento, Cal., a 
 distance of nearly two thousand miles, in nine days 
 and less. The news of Lincoln's inaugural " was 
 borne from rider to rider to the Coast in the marvel- 
 ous space of but seven days and seventeen hours. . . . 
 It was a Pony Express rider who made the most won- 
 derful straight-away ride ever made by man. . . . 
 The rider was Francis Xavier Aubrey, and he rode 
 on a bet that he could cover the distance between 
 
 * " The Great Plains."
 
 232 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 Santa Fe and Independence (800 miles) in eight 
 days. . . . He made it in five days and thirteen 
 hours." 
 
 Modern civilization, the product of the human 
 mind, is without question a marvel of human ingenu- 
 ity, but regarded as a whole, it is a colossal expression 
 of wasted effort. 
 
 We struggle, toil, and worry at the price of health 
 and happiness and the grandeur of life in order that 
 we may some day become rich or famous. We usu- 
 ally fail in our endeavors, and even if we succeed, 
 success and riches are comparatively worthless be- 
 cause they come too late. We are too old to enjoy 
 them. We have wasted our youth in years of toil 
 only to realize how valueless they are as instruments 
 of happiness when we possess them. 
 
 The only real justification for modern civilization 
 would be that it make mankind happy; but since it 
 does not, it is a failure. 
 
 Nor is this civilization the fulfillment of human 
 destiny. It is merely the culminating outgrowth of 
 the artificial conditions prevailing throughout the 
 world, sustained and upheld by individuals whom 
 society permits to hold the balance of power. 
 
 Again, present civilization as a whole serves no
 
 TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE 233 
 
 useful purpose. It is merely a tremendous force of 
 misdirected human energy that makes slaves of men ; 
 its institutions and inventions being the fetters that 
 bind them. Independent action on the part of the 
 individual can hardly longer be said to exist; we are 
 all slaves to one another from the millionaire to the 
 day-laborer. 
 
 We pass the greater portion of our lives shut off 
 from the pure air and light of heaven in stuffy offices, 
 miserable, dingy garrets, filthy workshops, and the 
 unhealthy, smoke-tainted atmosphere of huge, hide- 
 ous cities merely to maintain those soul-killing insti- 
 tutions which we so highly prize. 
 
 It is so easy to accustom ourselves to the common- 
 place by calling it the practical. But let a man be 
 the faithful servant of some corporation, or the un- 
 tiring member or director of some colossal profit- 
 making enterprise for twenty or thirty years without 
 so much as taking a single holiday, and when he dies, 
 he is eulogized by the press and the community, and 
 his life of stunted growth and wasted opportunity is 
 held up to our youth as one to imitate. We are daily 
 so accustomed to hearing this drivel that we no longer 
 recognize the cheapness of it. 
 
 What can a race of men, begotten under such con- 
 ditions, know of freedom and happiness, whose days
 
 234 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 are filled with ever increasing cares and worries 
 who shrink from the light of the sun who tremble 
 at the thought of the morrow ? What can they know 
 of the great, divine message of life of the Universe? 
 
 What, we may well ask, is the good to be derived 
 from large cities and most of our inventions and 
 institutions if they do not make us happier? 
 
 From a point of ingenuity, they are marvelous cre- 
 ations of the human intellect, but at what a price 
 are we forced to maintain them ! Spiritually, they 
 do not advance the race; neither do they insure per- 
 sonal safety. Statistics show that the annual de- 
 struction of life caused by our machines and inven- 
 tions exceeds that of any battle or campaign of 
 ancient or modern times. 
 
 Many of our institutions, scientific discoveries, and 
 inventions do unquestionably tend to enlarge our men- 
 tal vision if classed as mechanical and scientific dis- 
 coveries solely, but become distinctly harmful when 
 used for material ends, since they make life more 
 complicated and difficult to live. 
 
 An invention or machine is good if used for a good 
 purpose to accomplish the end for which it was cre- 
 ated, but is harmful to man if he uses it for the 
 accumulation of wealth to the exclusion of everything 
 else. And yet we foolishly imagine that there is
 
 TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE 235 
 
 nothing greater conceived of in Heaven and Earth 
 than this institution of men, present civilization, with 
 its shallow, artificial ordinances, its playthings, toys, 
 and baubles called inventions which enslave us to such 
 an extent that we no longer have time in which to 
 think or live. 
 
 * These boasted arts," as Emerson says, " are of 
 very recent origin. They are local conveniences, but 
 do not really add to our stature. The greatest men 
 of the world have managed not to want them. New- 
 ton was a great man, without telegraph, or gas, or 
 steam-coach, or rubber shoes, or lucifer matches, or 
 ether for his pain; so was Shakespeare, and Alfred, 
 and Scipio, and Socrates. 
 
 ' These are local conveniences, but how easy to 
 go to parts of the world where not only all these 
 arts are wanting, but where they are despised. The 
 Arabian Sheikhs, the most dignified people on the 
 planet, do not want them; yet have as much self- 
 respect as the English, and are easily able to impress 
 the Frenchman or the American who visits them with 
 the respect due to a brave and sufficient man." 
 
 These things are merely the froth of civilization; 
 their importance and significance are purely imagi-
 
 236 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 nary. To assume that they are essential to the in- 
 tellectual and spiritual development of man is childish. 
 
 Compare the thoughts of Plato with those of 
 Spencer, Nietzsche, and Haeckel, products as they 
 are of this age of gas and electricity, artificial heat- 
 ing, railroads, telegraph, telephone, explosives, and 
 innumerable other inventions and scientific discoveries. 
 Then ask yourself whether or not these thinkers, with 
 the advantage of the accumulated knowledge of past 
 ages in their favor, are Plato's superiors? 
 
 Turn on our lights, and set all our mechanical de- 
 vices in motion, and add thereto the scientific dis- 
 coveries of the past century, and what do we behold? 
 Spencer and Nietzsche and Haeckel still seated at 
 the feet of Plato, and the hands of the human race 
 outstretched toward the grandest figure on the stage 
 of human destiny the Christ, who knew nothing of 
 these trifles, and before whose conception of life all 
 things pale into insignificance.
 
 XXV 
 
 THE TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE 
 
 "1T7HAT, then, is culture progress? Is it ma- 
 terial prosperity, the accumulation of wealth, 
 or is it the broadening of the mental and spiritual 
 horizon of the human race? 
 
 A drama by .^Eschylus or Shakespeare, an opera 
 by Wagner or Verdi, a chant of Pergolese, a 
 Beethoven symphony, a painting or statue are expres- 
 sions of true civilization; but the shriek of the steam- 
 whistle or other discordant noises are the distinct 
 marks of barbarity. 
 
 Legitimate trade and industry spell civilization; a 
 stock-exchange, barbarism. Cities are a good thing 
 within reason, but, as Bernard Shaw says, " The 
 imagination cannot conceive of a viler criminal than 
 he who should build another London like the present 
 one, nor a greater benefactor than he who should 
 destroy it." 
 
 The great dam at Assuan in Egypt, and the Sho- 
 shone dam in Wyoming, through means of which 
 
 237
 
 238 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 thousands of acres of waste land are reclaimed, stand 
 for civilization ; the neglect of the land for vandalism. 
 
 A reasonable portion of a country converted into 
 orchards and fields of grain, is more useful than an 
 entire land of unbroken steppes. But cultivate the 
 entire surface of a land and fence it off into sections, 
 and what have we? Nothing but a damned checker- 
 board; a condition fit only for slaves a race of men 
 of petty aspirations who live close to the earth. 
 
 Cultivated fruits and flowers are more useful to 
 man for certain purposes than their primitive types; 
 a vineyard is more beautiful than a barren, rocky 
 hillside. The practice of scientific methods of for- 
 estry produce a more useful forest than the primeval 
 forest itself. 
 
 An explosive used for blasting purposes is good; 
 but it is bad if used for the destruction of life. 
 
 To maintain intact the natural beauties of the 
 Earth aids civilization; to destroy or deface them for 
 commercial purposes is barbarism, as is illustrated by 
 the present gradual destruction of Niagara Falls, a 
 desecration which could only be tolerated by a race 
 of peddlers. 
 
 " Horses and carriages, as means of locomotion," 
 says Tolstoy, " houses and clothes as means of shel-
 
 TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE 239 
 
 ter, good food as means of maintaining the strength 
 of one's organism, are all very useful. But as soon as 
 people begin to regard the possession of such means 
 as ends in themselves, believing it to be good to 
 have as many horses, houses, clothes, and foods as 
 possible then these things become not only not use- 
 ful but distinctly harmful." 
 
 The accumulation of such things to excess is the 
 mark, not of refinement or culture, but of vulgarity; 
 it is a sign not of progress, but of retrogression. 
 
 " It is for man to tame the chaos, to scatter the 
 seeds of science and song, that climate, corn, animals, 
 men may be milder, and the germs of love and bene- 
 fit may be multiplied. As long as our civilization is 
 essentially one of property, fences, of exclusiveness, it 
 will be mocked by delusions. Our riches will leave 
 us sick; there will be bitterness in our laughter, and 
 our wine will burn our mouths. Only that good 
 profits which we can taste with all doors open and 
 which serves all men." 
 
 Our superfluous possessions stand betwen us and 
 God. We are smothered by them, as the Roman 
 maiden was choked by the golden bracelets for which
 
 2 4 o MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 she betrayed the city. " Men, not walls, not empty 
 ships, are the city," said Nicias to his army. Ma- 
 terial prosperity, culture, and learning count for little 
 if a nation fails to develop that spiritual quality 
 which transcends all other possessions. 
 
 " ' Iceland,' said William Morris, ' is the Greece 
 of the North.' It produced in the twelfth and thir- 
 teenth centuries a literature unparalleled after Rome 
 before the golden age of England and France, in 
 character drawing, in passionate dramatic power, in 
 severe, noble simplicity, in grim humor. 
 
 " All characters of the Sagas live and move to- 
 day. . . . The Icelander of to-day knows them by 
 heart. It is as if every Englishman, from pauper to 
 king, knew Shakespeare's historical plays and could 
 retell them more or less in his own words. . . . 
 It has preserved the language almost untouched by 
 time and foreign intercourse. 
 
 u Nowhere is the contrast between man and his 
 surroundings so glaring as in Iceland. Buried in 
 snow and darkness, deprived of every comfort, liv- 
 ing on rancid butter and dried fish, drinking sour 
 whey and milk, dressed like servants, seeking in a 
 little boat his food, yet a cultured mind, possessing an 
 intimate knowledge not only of the history of his
 
 TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE 241 
 
 own country, but of Greece and Rome; a poet fond 
 of throwing off satires, intellectually and morally 
 the equal of his European guests, considering himself 
 your equal and refusing to be ordered about by a rich 
 Englishman, owner of several square miles of land 
 and hundreds of sheep, with a pedigree going back 
 farther than that of his visitor; a jack-of-all-trades, a 
 blacksmith in his smithy, boat-builder and carpenter, 
 an artist in filigree work, a carver in wood, an eager 
 reader in books, he has universal education up to the 
 degree to which it is useful for a man. 
 
 " There are no schools in Iceland, yet every child 
 at 12 can read, according to parish statistics. In no 
 country in Europe are so many books printed and 
 sold in proportion to the population. 
 
 " A population of only 76,000 scattered in many 
 hamlets, has twelve printing presses, the earliest being 
 established as far back as 1530; about 100 books 
 annually, 14 newspapers, and 8 periodicals are pro- 
 duced to satisfy the literary needs of this little nation. 
 Yet this literary people still live in a pastoral Homeric 
 civilization, which is a modern lesson of the health- 
 fulness of human life lived in close contact with the 
 free, wild life of Nature, such as would have de- 
 lighted the heart of Rousseau or Thoreau." * 
 
 *" Iceland; Its History and Inhabitants": Jon Stcfansson, Ph.D.
 
 242 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 This does not picture the ideal existence, but it 
 will serve to illustrate the fact that the supporters 
 of modern civilization have no grounds whatever 
 upon which to base their claims. 
 
 It proves that a civilized community is quite capa- 
 ble of transmitting its attainments to its offspring 
 without the maintenance of those institutions which 
 we consider so indispensable to the civilizing process. 
 That, if civilization means the perpetuation of these 
 institutions, it is a delusion. That the man or woman 
 who cannot, without the aid of schools or other in- 
 stitutions, instruct his or her children in all that is 
 necessary to meet the demands of life, is an uncivil- 
 ized person, and shows the folly of maintaining in- 
 stitutions which do not really civilize us which can 
 never civilize us. 
 
 Even Captain Roald Amundsen, in " The North- 
 west Passage," " records the melancholy conviction 
 that the Eskimo, living absolutely isolated from civili- 
 zation of any kind, are undoubtedly the happiest, 
 healthiest, most honorable, and most contented peo- 
 ple." 
 
 It requires but little imagination to see how easy 
 men can make life for themselves, if they hold the 
 Earth's natural resources in common, and how few 
 institutions they are actually dependent upon for their
 
 TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE 243 
 
 happiness. As every man under such circumstances 
 will stand on his own feet, he may be anything he 
 likes, from a scientist to a nomad, without disturbing 
 the life of his neighbor. Then, and then only, will 
 he be in a position to enjoy the largest measure of 
 freedom possible to man. 
 
 The reason why the truly civilized man rebels 
 against present institutions is, because they are forci- 
 bly saddled upon him, and he is obliged to bear the 
 burden of that which does not benefit, but which, 
 instead, makes a slave of him. 
 
 This fact is clearly illustrated by Tolstoy in his 
 masterly criticism of modern science set forth in his 
 discussion of Edward Carpenter's essay on the same 
 subject. 
 
 Carpenter proves that neither Astronomy, nor 
 Physics, nor Chemistry, nor Biology, nor Sociology 
 gives us a true knowledge of actual facts, but that all 
 the " laws " discovered by these sciences are only 
 generalizations, which have but an approximate value 
 as laws. 
 
 " Each science," he says, " has been (as far as 
 possible) reduced to its lowest terms. Ethics has 
 been made a question of utility and inherited ex- 
 perience. Political Economy has been exhausted of
 
 244 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 all conceptions of justice between man and man, of 
 charity, affection, and the instinct of solidarity; and 
 has been founded on its lowest discoverable factor, 
 namely, self-interest. Biology has been denuded of 
 the force of personality in plants, animals, and men ; 
 the ' self ' here has been set aside, and the attempt 
 made to reduce the science to a question of chemical 
 and cellular affinities, protoplasm, and the laws of 
 osmose. 
 
 " Chemical affinities, again, and all the won- 
 derful phenomena of Physics are emptied down 
 into a flight of atoms; and the flight of atoms 
 (and of astronomic orbs as well) is reduced to 
 the laws of dynamics." " It is supposed that to 
 reduce higher questions to terms of lower ones 
 will explain the higher. But this explanation is 
 never attained, and what happens is that, descending 
 lower and lower in its investigations, from the most 
 essential questions to those of less essential, science at 
 last reaches a domain quite foreign to man, and only 
 adjacent to him, to which domain it confines its at- 
 tention, leaving without any solution all questions 
 most important to man. 
 
 " But without settling beforehand the question 
 whether the method of the experimental sciences can 
 or cannot achieve a solution of the problems of life
 
 TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE 245 
 
 most important for humanity, the activity itself of 
 the experimental sciences, considered in relation to the 
 eternal and most legitimate demands of humanity, 
 impresses one by its fallacy. 
 
 " Men must live. And in order to live they must 
 know how to live. All men always well or ill- 
 have learnt this, and in accordance with their knowl- 
 edge, have lived and progressed. And this knowledge 
 of how men should live was always, since the times 
 of Moses, Solon, Confucius, considered a science 
 the very science of sciences; and it is only in our time 
 that it has begun to be regarded that the science 
 of how to live is not a science at all, but that true 
 science is only experimental science, beginning with 
 Mathematics and ending with Sociology. And a 
 strange misunderstanding arises. 
 
 " A simple and sensible workingman according to 
 the old sense and common sense as well supposes 
 that if there are men studying all their life, and who 
 think for him in return for being fed and provided 
 for by him, then these men are probably engaged in 
 studying what is needful for man, and he expects 
 from science that it will solve for him those questions 
 on which depend his welfare and that of all men. 
 . . . And what does our science reply? It tri- 
 umphantly announces how many millions of miles the
 
 246 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 Sun is from the Earth, how many millions of undula- 
 lations of ether per second are produced by light, and 
 how many undulations of atmosphere by sound; it 
 tells of the chemical composition of the Milky Way; 
 it tells of a new element, Helium : of micro-organisms 
 and their excrements, of the points in the hand where 
 electricity concentrates, of X-rays, and so on. 
 
 4 But all this is not at all what I am in need of 
 knowing,' says the simple, sensible man. 4 I want 
 to know how to live.' ' I don't care what you are in 
 need of knowing,' replies Science, 4 what you ask for 
 refers to Sociology. But before answering these ques- 
 tions of Sociology we must settle questions of 
 Zoology, Botany, Physiology in short, Biology. 
 And in order to settle these questions it is first neces- 
 sary to solve questions of Physics, of Chemistry . . .' 
 And men, chiefly those who sit on the backs of others, 
 and who can, therefore, conveniently wait, are satis- 
 fied by such answers, and continue sitting and yawn- 
 ing, awaiting what was promised. But the simple 
 and sensible workingman, he on whose back the men 
 studying science are sitting, the great mass of people, 
 humanity at large, cannot be satisfied with such re- 
 plies, and naturally asks in wonder, 4 But when will 
 this be? We cannot wait. You yourselves say that 
 you will find out all this after several generations.
 
 TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE 247 
 
 But we live, we are alive to-day and to-morrow we 
 die, and, therefore, we must know how we are to 
 live the life we are in now. Teach us, then.' 
 
 " ' The stupid and ignorant man ! ' answers Sci- 
 ence ; ' he does not understand that what science serves 
 is not utility but science. 
 
 " ' Science studies everything,' and men of science 
 ' have invented for themselves a theory of science 
 for science's sake,' according to which science studies 
 not what is necessary to men, but everything. And all 
 those sciences whose object is to make life better and 
 happier religion, moral and social sciences are not 
 regarded as sciences by the reigning science. . . . 
 Our method is the only true one, ours the only true 
 science. . . . One part of it, that which should 
 study the means of making human life good and 
 happy, is occupied in justifying the existing bad order 
 of life, and the other is absorbed with the solution 
 of questions of idle curiosity. 
 
 ' How idle curiosity? ' I hear exclaimed by voices 
 indignant at such blasphemy. ' How about steam, 
 electricity, telephones, and all our technical improve- 
 ments? Not to speak of their scientific importance, 
 observe the practical results they have achieved. 
 Man has conquered Nature, subjected its forces to 
 himself. . . .' 'But,' replies the simple and sen-
 
 2 4 8 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 sible man, ' all the practical results of man's victory 
 over Nature from long ago up to the present, are 
 applied to manufactures injurious to the people; to 
 means for exterminating man, to increasing luxury, 
 dissoluteness; and, therefore, man's victory over Na- 
 ture has not increased the welfare of men, but, on the 
 contrary, made their condition worse.' ' 
 
 Thus the exact relation which the mass of human- 
 ity and science and our innumerable institutions bear 
 to one another becomes obvious. 
 
 The civilized man has no objection to the indi- 
 vidual's investigation of any and everything so long 
 as the latter does so on his own account, and not on 
 his, the civilized man's back, who knows that he can 
 exist quite comfortably without these investigations. 
 The civilized man's indifference to them means not 
 the abolition of all things, but merely the relegation 
 of science and our institutions to their proper spheres 
 of action the same as in the case of the individual. 
 
 When Christ said: "Consider the lilies of the 
 field," and " take no thought of the morrow," he 
 knew exactly what he was talking about in spite of 
 all modern assurances to the contrary. 
 
 The civilized man has no quarrel with the world; 
 he merely refuses to allow his rights to be encroached
 
 TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE 249 
 
 upon. " A sufficient quantity of the Earth's natural 
 resources are at your disposal to insure your exist- 
 ence, freedom, and development," says the civilized 
 man. " Pursue your investigations within your own 
 sphere, but do not insist upon dragging me against 
 my will under their influence. 
 
 " I am the product of past centuries of human 
 travail, and stand above my institutions my art, my 
 science, my philosophy, and my religion. I welcome 
 all forms of real progress, but bear in mind that I am 
 the ideal of which the race has dreamed, and I prefer 
 to choose my own methods of climbing toward the 
 stars." 
 
 Science and our institutions, like the individual 
 man, must stand of themselves or fall. The civilized 
 man, the true representative of the race and the per- 
 fect product of past human development, has at last 
 arrived, and he sees things as they are; not as semi- 
 civilized men are trying to make them appear. 
 
 He is fully cognizant of his divine rights and mis- 
 sion, those things which have made him what he is, 
 and which alone hold out hope to future humanity. 
 And he will no more surrender his liberty and birth- 
 right to science, art, philosophy, and man-made re- 
 ligions, than he will to anarchism, socialism, plu- 
 tocracy, or corrupt democracy.
 
 250 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 A cycle of human development has drawn to its 
 close. Humanity now stands knocking at the portals 
 of human destiny; they must open shortly. Which 
 will it choose a life of freedom, conducive to the 
 supreme development of man, all that the Earth has 
 to offer, or a continuance of the slavery and drudgery 
 bequeathed to it by past generations of semi-civilized 
 men ; a condition in which individuals or classes rule, 
 not the community, and ignorance and never-ending 
 misery necessarily prevail? 
 
 This is the turning-point in every civilization the 
 problem that confronts every nation at some stage 
 or other in its development. Society must either leap 
 forward with renewed strides toward a higher life, 
 or sink back into the barbarous conditions of a more 
 primitive state. 
 
 Political differences being no longer matters of 
 principle, but merely a question of the price set upon 
 them by plutocracy and the demigods in power, 
 it is plain that the present social organization 
 cannot endure because of its corrupt moral founda- 
 tion. 
 
 A people whose chief interest is that of material 
 gain, invariably cheapens its outlook upon life, and 
 sows the seeds of future revolutions. " The poor 
 and powerless of the present may become the wealthy
 
 TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE 251 
 
 and strong of the future, and vice versa. Perpetual 
 disturbance is their doom." 
 
 It seems incredible that the majority of the hun- 
 dreds of millions of men inhabiting this planet should 
 any longer allow themselves to be subjected to the 
 suffering and inconvenience occasioned by the cupidity 
 of ignorant, unscrupulous individuals representing 
 the minority, who are able to maintain themselves in 
 power through their purely imaginary right of con- 
 trol over land. 
 
 " It is somewhat surprising," says Sir Oliver 
 Lodge, " that it is quite legal and ordinary for a 
 person to be able to sell a portion of England for 
 his own behoof. It does not seem to be reasonable, 
 in any high sense, that a bit of the country itself 
 should belong absolutely to some individual, so that 
 he has the right to cut down trees on it, to dig up 
 the minerals in it, to sell either it or its coal, to lay 
 it waste and desolate as a deer forest, or a cinder- 
 heap, if it so pleases him, and to levy a tax on build- 
 ing enterprise; to do, in fact, what he likes with his 
 own, and live elsewhere on the proceeds in idleness 
 and luxury . . . that is the system under which we 
 have grown up, and are absolutely accustomed to. 
 . . I do not think that matters of such vital im-
 
 252 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 portance should be left to the caprice of an individual, 
 nor that any abuse of his rights should be permis- 
 sible." 
 
 Again, says the Right Honorable Chief Justice 
 Longfield 
 
 " Property in land differs from property in any 
 commodity produced by human labor. The product 
 of labor naturally belongs to the laborer who pro- 
 duced it. But the same argument does not apply to 
 land, which ... is the gift of the Creator to Man- 
 kind. Every argument used to give an ethical 
 foundation for the exclusive right of property in 
 land has a latent fallacy ... a state of law under 
 which a country would exist not for its people, but 
 for a mere handful of them, ought to be instantly 
 and absolutely set aside." 
 
 It is idle longer to temporize with sophistries. 
 The great First Cause, the necessity of Creation, is 
 the dominant law of life. The peace and wel- 
 fare of the community lie in the common unity 
 of individuals and classes, not in their estrange- 
 ment and separation, for what wrecks one, wrecks 
 all.
 
 TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE 253 
 
 The disastrous effects of class-dominance every- 
 where apparent throughout the world to-day prove 
 conclusively that the over-civilization of man is quite 
 as disastrous to the further progress of an intellectu- 
 ally developed race of men as a complete state of sav- 
 agery would be were it forced upon them. But why 
 these privileged classes? Why should the interests 
 and welfare of any class of society be suppressed 
 to please the whim or suit the convenience of an- 
 other? 
 
 The fact that a certain class of individuals desire 
 certain conditions that are distasteful to others is no 
 reason why the rest of the community should accept 
 them be forced to live according to others' ideas 
 of life. 
 
 Think of men, intelligent beings, inhabiting a 
 globe in space of but limited area, from which there 
 is no escape, and with no precise or accurate knowl- 
 edge of the why and wherefore of their existence, 
 from whence they came or whither they are going, 
 permitting individuals to buy and sell the surface of 
 the planet Earth, the ground beneath their feet, to 
 destroy forests, to control mineral deposits and water- 
 courses ! 
 
 Think of the absurdity and idiocy of allowing 
 individuals living in New York, London, or Paris,
 
 254 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 to control the destinies of people living thousands of 
 miles distant in Africa, India, China, California, or 
 Canada! 
 
 The Earth was not especially created for groups 
 of individuals for financiers, soldiers, merchants, 
 farmers, mechanics, artists, scientists, or nomads, or 
 any other conceivable class of men, but for the human 
 race to enjoy in common, regardless of racial or class 
 distinction, in order that the individual, man, might 
 develop freely and naturally. 
 
 The Earth was not created in order that men might 
 inclose or fence off greater or lesser portions of its 
 surface to suit the individual's whim, hindering the 
 free development of the race. It was intended 
 that it should be free for man to roam over 
 from Pole to Pole, from the rising to the setting 
 Sun, independent of human institutions and inven- 
 tions created by individuals solely for pecuniary 
 ends. 
 
 Tragic and pathetic as man's present situation is, 
 it nevertheless borders on the ridiculous. For think 
 of a race of sentient, intelligent beings situated as 
 man is in the Universe, and possessing a vast amount 
 of scientific knowledge and data concerning this Uni- 
 verse, quietly sanctioning an individual's right to talk 
 of his land, his forests, his minerals, his waters, while
 
 TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE 255 
 
 knowing full well that it would be quite as na'ive, 
 absurd, and irrational for him to sanction the indi- 
 vidual's right to talk of his Sun, his Moon and Stars, 
 his Heaven and Hell, his Universe, as something ex- 
 clusively his own.
 
 XXVI 
 
 THE TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE 
 
 TT is not necessary to become nomads and live in 
 tents in order to secure the greatest things in life 
 liberty and happiness. 
 
 ' The first man was a gardener, we are told. Cer- 
 tain it is that the first men were tillers of the soil, 
 after they ceased to be wandering warriors. That is 
 where we get our love of Nature; that is why we 
 build parks and have flowers clambering about our 
 premises; that is why we are strangely at peace when 
 we get out into the mountains and lose ourselves 
 among the fragrant woods; that is why we loathe 
 at times the smell of paint that is on civilization and 
 long for the perfume of the life that is close to the 
 green leaves and the wild flowers." 
 
 Wandering warriors, the vision of the Red Man 
 beneath the cedar tree, the flight of wild fowl 
 
 in the spring and autumn, the laughter of children 
 
 356
 
 TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE 257 
 
 and humming of wild bees the wind-tossed ocean, 
 the broad expanse of Heaven and Earth what latent 
 memories, what emotions do they arouse within us ! 
 The migratory habit the desire to roam afield is 
 strong within us, for it is natural. 
 
 It will not do to fence or inclose the entire surface 
 of the Earth, preventing the free movements of the 
 individual; sedentary habits, if indulged in too long, 
 are death to man. He must be free to develop 
 naturally like any other creature; otherwise he suffers 
 the loss of his primal instincts as do domesticated 
 animals. 
 
 He becomes subject to every form of disease and 
 degeneracy, and lacking his original capability of 
 sustaining himself from natural sources, he is com- 
 pelled to nourish himself by artificial means. His 
 life, like his methods of self-support and his environ- 
 ment, becomes thoroughly artificial. 
 
 " I would not have every man nor every part of a 
 man cultivated," says Thoreau, " any more than I 
 would have every acre of earth cultivated, part will 
 be tillage, but the greater part will be meadow and 
 forest. ... In Wildness is the preservation of the 
 world. Every tree sends its fibers forth in search of 
 the Wild. The cities import it at any price. Men
 
 258 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 plow and sail for it. From the forest and the wilder- 
 ness come the tonics and barks which brace mankind. 
 " Our ancestors were savages. The story of 
 Romulus and Remus being suckled by a wolf is not a 
 meaningless fable. The founders of every state which 
 has arisen to eminence have drawn their nourishment 
 and vigor from a similar wild source. It is because 
 the children of the Empire were not suckled by the 
 wolf that they were conquered and displaced by the 
 children of the northern forests who were. I be- 
 lieve in the forest, and in the meadow, and in the 
 night in which the corn grows. We require an in- 
 fusion of hemlock-spruce or arbor-vitae in our tea." 
 
 " Man," says Alexander von Humboldt, " is a 
 product of soil and climate, and is brother to rocks, 
 trees, and animals. The finest flowers grow where 
 there are the finest birds, and man separated from 
 birds, beasts, and flowers could not possibly survive." 
 
 The grand, enduring epics of a people originate 
 among its mountains and forests, its fields and 
 streams, not in its cultivated areas of land. 
 
 The hot-house rose, the crow of the barn-yard cock, 
 or the patient plodding of the domesticated ox are 
 indeed subjects for eulogy, but those grand flights 
 of imagination which lift a nation to the supreme
 
 TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE 259 
 
 heights in art and science, and which alone survive 
 when its material forces pass away, have ever found 
 their origin in the flight of the eagle and the bounding 
 of deer; in the breath of wild flowers, in the voices 
 of the winds and waters, and in the soft shining 
 of the stars. 
 
 Nothing, we repeat, can compensate man for the 
 loss of liberty. We should open our souls to the 
 influence of every wind that blows. We must come 
 in touch with Nature to develop naturally physic- 
 ally and spiritually. We must come in direct con- 
 tact with the soil from time to time; its magnetic 
 currents are essential to supply the waste of the chem- 
 ical elements of the body occasioned by dwelling too 
 long in houses and cities, where walls and pavements 
 cut man off from the life-giving, magnetic influence 
 of the Earth and the pure air of heaven. 
 
 This is quite as essential to the higher development 
 or civilization of mankind as are the rudiments of 
 true culture to the further advancement of the savage. 
 
 Such a state can only be attained by freeing the land 
 by creating and maintaining a free as well as a cul- 
 tivated zone the normal condition of the natural 
 man. Man's return to Nature does not mean the 
 idiotic things that most people assert. It does not 
 mean the stripping of one's clothes from one's back
 
 26o MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 and running naked, but merely the simple conform- 
 ance on the part of man to those laws which were 
 ordained from the beginning for his natural develop- 
 ment, and which are as much in force to-day as they 
 were then. 
 
 By the natural man is not meant the savage, the 
 farmer, or the mentally half-developed nomad, but 
 man in his fullness. The man whose intellectual and 
 spiritual development to-day are the product of the 
 direct influences of the religions, arts, sciences, and 
 philosophies of the past. But since these religions, 
 arts, sciences, and philosophies have practically 
 reached the limits of their usefulness as instruments 
 of instruction for the further advancement of man- 
 kind as a whole, it becomes necessary for man to 
 recognize and free himself from these limitations if 
 his psychical unfoldment is to continue along natural 
 lines, and to create that state or condition which will 
 permit the further development of human knowledge 
 without making himself subservient to that condition. 
 
 We are returning to first principles or Nature, not 
 for the realization of material ends and aims, but 
 with a more distinct idea of the purpose of man's 
 sojourn on Earth and of his relationship to God and 
 the Universe. And it is high time for humanity to 
 free itself from the superstitious, hypnotic influences
 
 TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE 261 
 
 of these arts, sciences, and philosophies which have 
 served their purpose as instruments for the advance- 
 ment of the race as a whole. 
 
 The human mind is still so stupefied by the in- 
 fluences, tendencies, and prejudices of the past that 
 it is only half awake. We think, live, and act as did 
 our ancestors, and like them still permit ourselves to 
 be ruled through the power of organized violence, 
 called law, or the immoral persuasion of unscrupulous 
 individuals, and the superstitions of outworn institu- 
 tions established by those who have lived before us. 
 
 " The skeleton hand of the past," says Ibsen, 
 " throttles the throat of the present. We not only 
 live in dead men's houses and read dead men's books 
 and enjoy dead men's fortunes, but we believe in 
 the religions and conventions which dead men in- 
 vented, and we inherit the diseases that dead men have 
 bequeathed to us. Government, municipal and demo- 
 cratic, is a legacy from the past. The relation of the 
 sexes and of parents and children are based upon 
 outworn creeds. We do not follow our own rules 
 of morality, and those rules are the product of a pre- 
 scientific and semi-savage period." 
 
 Are the majority of men incapable of grasping 
 this truth, of realizing that the greatest crime a man
 
 262 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 can commit to-day is to leave as a legacy to his 
 children our present social conditions which as we 
 know full well can only be maintained by deceit, 
 subterfuge, force, and violence, and which in the end 
 must make rogues of men ? 
 
 The fact that our ancestors bequeathed these con- 
 ditions to us is no reason why we should continue to 
 uphold them bequeath them to our children. Our 
 lives are no more a part of their lives than our times 
 are a part of their times. Nor will coming genera- 
 tions of men be any more capable of accepting our 
 threadbare conceptions of life, and enduring the de- 
 basing influences of present conditions than we would 
 be of returning to the social conditions of the Middle 
 Ages. 
 
 Under existing conditions, the success of one 
 means the ruin of another. It cannot be other- 
 wise. 
 
 This ancient conception of creation's purpose, that 
 the Earth was intended for a toy, that it and its re- 
 sources might be seized and controlled by individuals 
 while the rest of humanity went begging, is still held 
 by the majority of men. And just so long as we con- 
 tinue in this belief, and fail to assert our incontestable 
 right and title to all things which our bountiful 
 Mother Earth holds in store for us, just so long must
 
 TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE 263 
 
 the human race continue to be crushed and broken 
 on the wheel of life. 
 
 Why then a continuance of this agonized, fruitless 
 struggle, whose soulless, purposeless aims must ever 
 fall short of all sane attainment? 
 
 Shall the famous lines of Campanella with which 
 he stigmatized humanity forever stand a witness to 
 our stupidity: 
 
 " The people is a beast of muddy brain 
 That knows not its own strength, and therefore 
 
 stands 
 
 Loaded with wood and stone ; the powerless hands 
 Of a mere child guide it with bit and rein; 
 One kick would be enough to break the chain; 
 But the beast fears, and what the child demands 
 It does; nor its own terror understands, 
 Confused and stupefied by bugbears vain. 
 Most wonderful ! with its own hand it ties 
 And gags itself gives itself death and war 
 For pence doled out by kings from its own store. 
 Its own are all things between Earth and Heaven; 
 But this it knows not; and if one arise 
 To tell this truth, it kills him unforgiven." 
 
 Perhaps, after we have eaten grass with Nebuch- 
 adnezzar and the ox a while longer, and our ideals of
 
 264 MAN'S BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 life begin to rise above our longings for cheap beer 
 and tobacco, we shall arise and reclaim our birthright ! 
 Man is the maker of his own destiny. The Uni- 
 verse is his. It is his heritage, and contains no secret 
 which he shall not grasp. 
 
 u No man," said Canon Farrar, " can pass into 
 eternity for he is already in it. The dead are no 
 more in eternity now than they always were, or than 
 every one of us is at this moment. 
 
 " We may ignore the things eternal; shut our eyes 
 hard to them; live as though they had no existence 
 nevertheless, eternity is around us here, now at this 
 moment, at all moments; and it will have been around 
 us every day of our ignorant, sinful, selfish lives. Its 
 stars are ever over our heads, while we are so diligent 
 in the dust of our worldliness, or in the tainted stream 
 of our desires. The dull brute globe moves through 
 its ether and knows it not; even so our souls are 
 bathed in eternity and are never conscious of it." 
 
 There is no escape from life's eternal May; like 
 eternity it is measureless, timeless, nameless. Then 
 why not live to-day as we would live to-morrow? 
 
 Verily, the way of the transgressor is hard, for 
 Nature invariably avenges herself on him who vio-
 
 TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE 265 
 
 lates her laws. Of the cup of bitterness which man 
 has prepared for himself, and which is now held to 
 his lips, he shall drink. Ay, he shall not only drink 
 of it once, but twice and thrice over even to the dregs 
 until he is again willing to return unto his Mother, 
 the Earth, the birthright which She bestowed upon 
 him in the beginning. The sacred birthright which 
 She lent him for use only, but which he has seized 
 and bartered away for that miserable mess of pottage, 
 individual ownership and control of Her natural 
 resources.
 
 EPILOGUE 
 
 CHILDREN of Earth, you have been robbed of 
 your Birthright through the iniquities of your 
 Fathers, who like yourselves were not without sin. 
 But in order that the sins of the Fathers may not 
 again be visited upon the Sons, see that you follow 
 not in their footsteps. 
 
 Children of Earth, you have been robbed of your 
 birthright; reclaim it!
 
 APPENDIX 
 INDEX TO APPENDIX 
 
 PAGE 
 
 1. Domestic Consumption of Flour per capita. . . . 267 
 
 2. Estimate of per capita Consumption of Wheat 
 
 in Certain Countries 268 
 
 3. The per capita Annual Consumption of Wheat 
 
 in the United Kingdom 270 
 
 4. Small Farms from One to Twenty Acres 270 
 
 5. Yields of Wheat per Acre -..,.. 271 
 
 6. Yields of Corn per Acre 273 
 
 7. Yields of Potatoes per Acre 277 
 
 8. Examples in Dry Farming with and without Ir- 
 
 rigation in the Semi-arid Regions of the 
 United States 281 
 
 9. Raising Dates in the Sahara Desert 284 
 
 10. List of what a One- Acre Farm contains in 
 
 the Sacramento Valley, California 285 
 
 11. List of Products raised by Mr. Vincent, Brighton, 
 
 England, on Half an Acre of Land 286 
 
 12. Information Concerning the raising of Game, 
 
 Also Information Concerning Fish- and Bee- 
 Culture, the rearing of Squabs, Drug-plants, 
 and other Novel and Profitable Uses of Land 288 
 
 13. History of "The Twenty- Acre Farm" 301 
 
 APPENDIX No. i 
 
 "The census [Twelfth Census of the United States, 
 1900, Vol. VI. Agr. Part II, p. 32] estimates the domestic 
 
 367
 
 268 APPENDIX 
 
 consumption of flour to be equal to 5.31 bushels of wheat per 
 capita in 1900, as compared with 5.29 bushels in 1890. As 
 it takes 4.77 bushels of wheat to make a barrel of flour, this 
 is i.i barrels of flour per inhabitant. About 1.4 bushels per 
 acre, or about 1 1 per cent, of the normal crop, is estimated 
 to be required for seed. This makes the total requirement, 
 aside from its use as food for domestic animals and such 
 secondary uses as breakfast foods, 6.29 bushels per inhabitant, 
 or about 475 million for the United States in 1900. . . . 
 For the five years ending in 1902, the production of wheat 
 in Europe has been 4.1 bushels per capita. The net import 
 of wheat has been something less than one bushel per 
 capita. This does not, however, represent Europe's total 
 bread requirement, as large quantities of rye bread are used 
 by the inhabitants of several European countries." ' 
 
 " Yield per acre. . . . The two countries which 
 produce the most wheat have the smallest yield per acre. 
 The average yield of wheat in bushels per acre, 1894-1900: 
 
 ' United Kingdom 31.8 
 
 Germany 26.0 
 
 France 19.4 
 
 Hungary 17.1 
 
 Austria 16.4 
 
 United States 13.4 
 
 Russia 9.0 " 
 
 APPENDIX No. 2 
 
 " An estimate of the per capita consumption of wheat in 
 certain countries was presented to the British Royal Com- 
 
 " The Cereals in America": Thomas F. Hunt. 1905. p. 126.
 
 APPENDIX 269 
 
 mission on Supply of Food and Raw Material in Time of 
 War, by Mr. W. S. Patterson of the Liverpool Corn 
 Trade Association. The estimate and remarks prefacing it 
 are as follows : * 'It is possible to make a fairly accurate 
 estimate of the per capita consumption of wheat in the 
 United Kingdom because by far the largest proportion of 
 the whole comes from abroad and can be exactly ascertained. 
 This remark would also apply to Belgium, Holland, and 
 possibly one or two minor countries. . . . The quantity 
 used for reseeding, which varies somewhat in different coun- 
 tries and must to some extent be estimated, and also any 
 small quantity used for farm-seeding or sizing for manu- 
 factures, must be deducted. Taking all these things into 
 consideration, and after consulting the figures for a few 
 years past, I beg to submit the following estimates for food 
 consumption per capita in bushels of 60 pounds: 
 
 I. In Importing Countries II. In Exporting Countries 
 
 Bu. Bu. 
 
 United Kingdom 5.6 United States 4.7 
 
 Germany 3.2 Canada 5.5 
 
 Belgium 7.2 Russia 2.6 
 
 France 7.8 Balkan Provinces . . 4.3 
 
 Holland 3.9 India 0.7 
 
 Italy 4.4 Australia 5.5 
 
 Spain 5.3 Argentina 4.0 ' ' 
 
 Portugal 2.5 
 
 Sweden 2. 
 
 Greece 3.3 
 
 Austria-Hungary , 3.6 
 
 Switzerland 5.7 
 
 * Crop Reporter, September, 1905.
 
 270 APPENDIX 
 
 APPENDIX No. 3 
 
 A more recent report shows Mr. Blatchford's figures to 
 be somewhat in error. According to Thomas F. Hunt, the 
 average yield of wheat in bushels per acre from 1894-1900 
 for the United Kingdom was 31.8 bushels. According to 
 the Crop Reporter, Washington, D. C., September, 1905, 
 the per capita annual consumption of wheat in the United 
 Kingdom is 5.6 bushels. Allowing 6 bushels for the per 
 capita consumption of wheat, the 40,000,000 inhabitants 
 would consume annually 240,000,000 bushels of wheat. At 
 31.8 bushels the acre, 8,000,000 acres would produce 254,- 
 400,000 bushels of wheat. This gives 240,000,000 bushels 
 required for the annual consumption of the United King- 
 dom, also allows 11,200,000 bushels annually for reseeding, 
 and still leaves 3,200,000 bushels over and above require- 
 ments. 
 
 APPENDIX No. 4 
 United States * 
 
 Farms under 3 acres 41,882 
 
 Farms of 3 acres and under 226,564 
 
 " " 10 " " " 407,012 
 
 England 
 
 Farms above I acre and not exceeding 5. . 87,055 
 " 5 " " " " 20.. 108,145 
 
 France 
 
 Farms less than 2.47 acres 2,235,405 
 
 " of 2.47-12.35 " 1,829,259 
 
 Germany 
 
 Farms less than 2.47 acres 2,529,132 
 
 " of 2.47-12.35 " 1,723,553 
 
 * Statistics for 1892 and 1895. Number of small farms in the 
 United States is steadily increasing.
 
 APPENDIX 271 
 
 APPENDIX No. 5 
 
 WHEAT 
 
 Northeast Sub-Experiment Station of the University of 
 Minnesota : 
 
 1898. White Russian 61 bushels per acre. 
 
 1899. " " 54.6 " " " 
 
 Michigan Board of Agriculture. Upper Peninsula, Sub- 
 station, 1 90 1 - 1 902 : * 
 
 Fall Wheat Dawson 41 bushels per acre. 
 
 Agriculture Experiment Station, Stillwater, Okla.f Vari- 
 ety, Fulcaster 1901 : 
 
 Early Plowing 43.6 bushels per acre. 
 
 Medium " 38.2 " " " 
 
 Late " ... 40.2 " " " 
 
 Wheat 1879 % 
 
 Producer Locality Variety Yield per Acre 
 
 Bushels 
 
 C. H. Daun Warsaw, N. Y. Clawson 46 
 
 N. W. Dean Madison, Wis. Red Winter ... 45 
 
 A. E. Blout Fort Collins, Ool. Australian 59 
 
 John McClellan Minneapolis, Minn. Red Winter ... 61^ 
 Ed. Short Salina, Kan. " " ... 56 
 
 E. L. Russel Tecumseh, Mich. Deihl 42^ 
 
 Geo. Lester Raisen, Mich. " 47 
 
 James Penrose Coatsville, Pa. Fultz 54 
 
 James H. Hess Columbus, Ohio " 46^ 
 
 W. H. Colcord St. Joseph, Mo. Clawson 49 
 
 R. Johnson E. Groveland, N. Y. Clawson & Wicks 60 
 
 *L. M. Geisraar, Superintendent, Special Bulletin No. 2O. 
 
 f Bulletin No. 65, June, 1905. Table 3, p. 13. 
 
 $" Wheat Culture": D. S. Curtis, 1888; 4th Edition, 1890.
 
 272 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 (1) Pullman, Wash:* 
 
 Plat No. 14. Planted Nov. 20-21, 1894 Theiss, 57.5 
 
 bushels per acre. 
 Plat No. 20. Planted Nov. 20-21, 1894 White Track, 
 
 57.1 bushels per acre. 
 
 (2) igoi.f Spring Wheat 
 
 Sown 
 
 Ripe 
 
 Yield per Acre 
 Bushels 
 
 Red Fife May 2 Aug. 27 48 
 
 Preston "4 " 16 45 
 
 Huron "4 "22 45 
 
 1904-t 
 
 Red Fife Apr. 29 Sept. 5 39 
 
 Preston "28 Aug. 26 38 
 
 (3) The Experimental Farm at Brandon, Manitoba, 
 Canada: $ 
 
 Variety Yield per Acre 
 
 Bushels 
 
 Red Velvet Chaff 40 
 
 Turkey Red 39 
 
 Abundance 39 
 
 American Banner 38 
 
 Karkov 38 
 
 Imperial Amber 37 
 
 Red Chief 36 
 
 The yield per acre is expressed in bushels of sixty 
 pounds. 
 
 * Fifth Annual Report of the Washington State Agricultural Ex- 
 periment Station, June 30, 1895. Pullman, Wash. W. J. Spillman, 
 Agriculturist. 
 
 t " Experimental Farms Report": William Saunders, Director. 
 Ottawa, Canada, December i, 1904. 
 
 " Experimentalist ": Charles E. Saunders.
 
 APPENDIX 273 
 
 Macaroni Wheat * 
 
 Variety Yield per Acre Weight per measured 
 
 bushel after cleaning 
 Roumanian ............... 39 bus. 63 Ibs. 
 
 Velvet Don ........ ....... 36 " 63^2 " 
 
 Goose ................... 35 " 
 
 Spring Wheat 1904 f 
 
 Varieties Yield per Acre Weight per bushel 
 
 Monarch .............. 50 bus. 20 Ibs. 63^2 Ibs. 
 
 Advance .............. 49 " 45 " 59 " 
 
 White Russian ......... 48 " 50 " 60^ " 
 
 Power's Fife [Minn. 149] 48 " 40 " 63^ " 
 
 McKendry's [Minn. 188] 45 " 30 " 62^ " 
 
 Minnesota No. 163 ..... 45 " 20 " 62 l / 2 " 
 
 Australia No. 19 ........ 44 " 20 " 62 " 
 
 Red Fife .............. 43 " 5 " 62^ " 
 
 Laurel ........... ..... 42 " 50 " 62 " 
 
 Wellman's Fife ........ 42 " 50 " 62^ " 
 
 Stanley ............... 42 " 25 " 64 " 
 
 Benton ............... 42 " 15 " 63 " 
 
 Clyde ................. 41 " 50 " 62 " 
 
 Australia No. 9 ........ 41 " 40 " 63^ " 
 
 Huron, Old Land ...... 42 " 47 " 63 " 
 
 APPENDIX No. 6 
 CORN 
 
 " In 1902 the high protein plat produced 74.6 and 86.4 
 bushels per acre. 
 
 * " Experimental Farms Reports." Report of Mr. Angus Mackay, 
 Superintendent. 
 f Experimental Farm, Indian Head, N.W.T., Canada, 1905.
 
 274 APPENDIX 
 
 " In 1904 rows 22 and 21 produced 79.2 and 96.4 bushels 
 per acre." * 
 
 " In 1889 Zachariah Jordan Drake, in Marlborough Co., 
 South Carolina, grew 255 bushels of shelled corn from one 
 acre. 
 
 " Drake's crop was harvested November 25 before several 
 reputable witnesses. 
 
 " It gave 254 bushels, 49 Ibs. of shelled corn at 56 Ibs. to 
 the bushel." f 
 
 " Let us follow the progeny of a high yielding and Grand 
 Champion mother ear into the second or third generation. 
 
 " In the spring of 1901 in connection with several thou- 
 sand other ears of corn, all gathered and selected with the 
 utmost care, a certain ear, whose record number shows as 
 No. 12 a., yielded at the rate of 64 bushels per acre. That 
 year being an exceedingly dry year, the yield of 64 bushels 
 was considered quite large when we took into account the 
 average yield under field conditions for that year. 
 
 " Following the high standard and rigid selection in the 
 seed, only two ears were found which could qualify as good 
 or better than the mother ear. 
 
 'These two ears were given the numbers 24 and 120 of 
 this particular variety of corn and they were planted in in- 
 dividual rows, not side by side, but along with other pedigreed 
 ears of high merit, in two separate fields. Both of these 
 ears proved to be the Grand Champions of their breeding 
 block; yielding 91 and 90 bushels respectively, and from each 
 of these, seed was selected. 
 
 " From ear 24 we have five ears whose yield the following 
 
 * C. J. Hopkins, L. H. Smith, E. M. East. Illinois Station. Bul- 
 letin No. 100. 
 f'The Book of Corn," Orange Judd Publishing Company, 1903.
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 275 
 
 year was respectively 123, 93, 118, 117, and 137 bushels 
 per acre; and from No. 120, five ears yielding 133, 117, 144, 
 126, and 132 bushels per acre." * 
 
 FUNKS YELLOW DENT 
 Strain No. 140. Protein 
 
 1902 
 
 1903 
 
 1904 
 
 
 "*:Ear No. 237.. J 
 
 **Ear No. 388, yield 100 bu. 
 
 
 <? yield 131 bu. j 
 
 TT Ear No. 309, yield 117 bu. 
 
 
 M 
 
 . Ear No. 307, yield 117 bu. 
 
 
 Ear No. 210. . ^ 
 
 ; Ear No. 370, yield 125 bu. 
 
 
 yield 97 bu. 
 
 . Ear No. 316, yield 115 bu. 
 
 Ear No. 140 
 
 
 k Ear No. 380, yield 121 bu. 
 
 yield in bu. 
 
 
 
 
 H 
 
 Ear No. 392, yield 139 bu. 
 
 Av. protein, 12%. 
 
 5 
 
 Ear No. 387, yield no bu. 
 
 
 4-* 
 
 .S Ear No. 326, yield 119 bu. 
 
 
 &, 
 
 Ear No. 314, yield 123 bu. 
 
 
 ^ Ear No. 125.. 
 
 8 Ear No. 310, yield 117 bu. 
 
 
 <; yield 145 bu. 
 
 ^Ear No. 322, yield 123 bu. 
 
 
 
 So Ear No. 330, yield 115 bu. 
 
 
 
 g Ear No. 318, yield 122 bu. 
 
 
 
 Ear No. 328, yield 120 bu. 
 
 
 
 <; Ear No. 333, yield 113 bu. 
 
 This strain yielded 108 bu. in 1904, and the seed we sell from this 
 strain averages 11.87$ in protein. 
 
 1902 
 
 Strain No. 119. Oil 
 1903 
 
 Ear No. 119 j 
 
 yield 145 bu. ( 
 
 Ear No. 221. . 
 yield 133 bu. 
 
 1904 
 
 ^ No. 322, yield 101 bu. 
 ^-t^ Ear No. 0328, yield 118 bu. 
 '3 '"Ear No. 336, yield 119 bu. 
 
 Ear No. 331, yield 116 bu. 
 
 Ear No. 342, yield no bu. 
 
 This strain yielded 103 bu. in 1904, and the seed we sell from this 
 strain averages 5.16$ in oil. 
 
 * Address delivered before the Congress of Experiment Stations 
 and Colleges of Agriculture on Commercial Corn Breeding at the 
 Louisiana Purchase Exposition, October 8, 1904, by E. D. Funk.
 
 276 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 'v Ear No. 205. . 
 _ o yield 122 bu. 
 
 '5 &. 
 
 Strain No. 205. Oil 
 
 1903 1904 
 
 ;Ear No 376, yield 119 bu. 
 Ear No. 351, yield 132 bu. 
 ' Ear No. 323, yield 126 bu. 
 Ear No. 304, yield 121 bu. 
 Ear No. 314, yield 114 bu. 
 Ear No. 320, yield 121 bu. 
 Ear No. 307, yield 1 14 bu. 
 rd Ear No. 326, yield 121 bu. 
 Ear No. 317, yield 117 bu. 
 S;Ear No. 340, yield 116 bu. 
 2 Ear No. 337, yield 115 bu. 
 Ear No. 378, yield 114 bu. 
 <; Ear No. 339, yield 115 bu. 
 This strain averaged 118 bushels in yield in 1904, and the seed 
 we sell from this strain averages 5.20$ in oil. 
 BOONE CO. SPECIAL 
 Strain No. 135. Protein 
 1902 1903 1904 
 
 ^ TT^ TM ( ^ Ear No - 320, yield roo bu. 
 
 ^ Slid 88 bu ' 1 * Ear No ' 3" y ield 97 bu. 
 jo yxeld K bu. | <o Ear No 3lfi> yjeld 96 bu 
 
 cS at 
 
 Ear No. 135. . . 
 yield 114 bu. 
 
 : Ear No. P3I2, yield n6bu. 
 Ear No 318, yield 99 bu. 
 No ' PS**! yield 99 bu. 
 
 Ear No. 227 
 yield 101 bt 
 
 i r^ . - _ 
 
 Ear No 371, yield in bu. 
 This strain averaged 101 bushels in 1904, and the seed we sell 
 from this strain averages 12.03?* in protein. 
 
 Strain No. 103. Oil 
 1902 1903 1904 
 
 ' Ear No. 320, yield no bu. 
 Ear No. 335, yield 105 bu. 
 Ear No. 325, yield 102 bu. 
 
 Ear No. 328, yield 100 bu. 
 
 ~ Ear No. 308, yield 105 bu. 
 5 Ear No. 305, yield 101 bu. 
 
 _ Ear No. 304, yield 120 bu. 
 g Ear No. 351, yield 120 bu. 
 <; Ear No. 0312, yield 102 bu. 
 
 This strain averaged 107 bushels in yield in 1904, and the seed we 
 sell from this strain averages 5.20$ in oil. 
 
 
 o, Ear No. 207 . 
 
 \ 
 
 J " 
 
 
 ui yield 144 bu. 
 
 i- 
 
 
 Ear No. 225. 
 
 j 
 
 Ear No. 103 
 
 yield 117 bu. 
 
 1 
 
 yield 91 bu. 
 Analyzed 5.95^ 
 
 ~ Ear No. 234. 
 
 3 yield 126 bu. 
 
 o> J 
 
 i? 
 
 ID 
 
 in oil. 
 
 bo 
 rt 
 
 b 
 
 Ear No. 201 . . 
 yield 133 bu.
 
 APPENDIX 277 
 
 GOLD STANDARD LEAKING 
 Strain No. 201. Protein 
 
 1903 1904 
 
 ff Ear No. 313, yield 117 bu. 
 o'-^ o ^ Ear No. 326, yield 117 bu. 
 
 &; Ear No. 201. . J eu<g Ear No. 380, yield 113 bu. 
 .; ' yield 94 bu. j > Ear No. 355, yield 112 bu. 
 I <5 M <J M Ear No. 365, yield 112 bu. 
 
 Ear No. 370, yield 105 bu. 
 
 This strain averaged 112 bushels in yield in 1904, and the seed 
 we sell from this strain averages 11.33$ in protein.* 
 
 Ordinary corn contains about 10.20 per cent, protein and 
 4.30 per cent. oil. 
 
 APPENDIX No. 7 
 POTATOES 
 
 While the average crop of potatoes throughout the State 
 of New York during 1897 was on ly 5 to 65 bushels per 
 acre, the yield at the Cornell University Experiment Station 
 was over 300 bushels per acre. 
 
 " The yield was not obtained by the liberal use of fertilizer 
 or manure. . . . The soil, instead of being naturally more 
 fertile than ordinary soils, has been found by analysis to 
 be carrying only about one-half the total amount of plant 
 food carried by the average soil. 
 
 " The satisfactory results obtained can only be ascribed 
 to the culture and treatment given . . . while the yield 
 was fair, yet it was in no way remarkable and was not in 
 excess of what should be realized by every potato raiser should 
 the proper method be practiced." f 
 
 * Corn Chart, issued by Funk Brothers Seed Company, 1905. 
 Bloomington, 111. 
 
 t Bulletin 140, November, 1897. Cornell University Agricultural 
 Experiment Station.
 
 278 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 "The following figures indicate the yield of potatoes 
 planted late as compared with those planted early for two 
 years: * 
 
 1903 
 
 1904 
 
 
 Date 
 Planted 
 
 Date 
 Dug 
 
 Total 
 yield 
 per acre 
 Bushels 
 
 Date 
 Planted 
 
 Date 
 Dug 
 
 Total 
 yield 
 per acre 
 Bushels 
 
 Doe's Pride .... 
 Doe's Pride 
 
 May 7 
 Tulv 7 
 
 Oct.20 
 
 Oct. 20 
 
 326.46 
 IQ1.O6 
 
 May 12 
 Tulv 12 
 
 Sept. 28 
 Sept.28 
 
 439-59 
 101.18 
 
 Green Mountain 
 
 May 7 
 
 Oct. 20 
 
 411.66 
 
 
 
 
 Green Mountain 
 
 July 6 
 
 Oct. 20 
 
 187.87 
 
 
 
 
 " In 1895, an unusually good year, the yield of the plat 
 No. 22 was 415 bushels per acre." f 
 
 " Regular area yielded at the rate of 200 bushels per 
 acre, while the special area [fertilized and worked level], 
 yielded 390 bushels per acre; a gain of 190 bushels per acre in 
 favor of superior treatment." J 
 
 " Potatoes with three cultivations, hilled, yielded 252 
 bushels per acre, while those with nine cultivations, level, 
 yielded 311 bushels per acre." 
 
 Minnesota Experiment Station. North East Farm. Chi- 
 
 * Bulletin 230, June, 1905. Agricultural Experiment Station, Cor- 
 nell University. 
 
 t Bulletin 140. Agricultural Experiment Station, Cornell Uni- 
 versity. 
 
 % G. W. Hamilton, Madison County, New York. 
 
 H. L. Beadle, Washington County, New York.
 
 APPENDIX 279 
 
 cago Division, 1896: 260 bushels per acre; 253.2 bushels per 
 acre; 249.8 bushels per acre. 
 
 Oregon Experiment Station. Willamette Valley, Ore., 
 1896: 396 bushels per acre. 
 
 Michigan, Upper Peninsula, Substation : " Dolsen " rate 
 of yield, 290 bushels per acre.* 
 
 The Country Gentleman for November 2, 1905, reports a 
 yield of sweet potatoes at Norfolk, Va., at the rate of 521 
 bushels per acre. 
 
 1. At Brandon, Manitoba, Canada, yields of forty-nine 
 varieties of potatoes ranged from 291 to 887 bus. 20 Ibs. per 
 acre. Dreer Standard headed the list in productiveness. 
 The twelve varieties standing next varied in yield, from 700 
 to 799 bus. 20 Ibs., per acre.f 
 
 2. At Indian Head, Seedling No. 7, and Vermont Gold 
 Coin, headed the list with yields per acre of 640 bus. 48 Ibs., 
 and 625 bus. 24 Ibs., respectively. 
 
 Twelve Best Yielding Potatoes $ 
 Average Yield for Five Years, 1900-1904 
 
 Name of Variety Average Yield per Acre 
 
 Bus. Lbs. 
 
 Dr. Maercher 496 19 
 
 Late Puritan 485 19 
 
 * L. M. Geismar. Michigan Station. Special Bulletin No. 31. 
 
 t " Experiment Station Record," October, 1906. Vol. XVIII, No. 
 2. United States Department of Agriculture Canada Experimental 
 Farms, Reports, 1905. 
 
 $ Central Experimental Farm. Report of Horticulturist, W. T. 
 Macoun. "Experimental Farms Report" for 1904. Published 
 at Ottawa, Canada, 1905.
 
 280 APPENDIX 
 
 Name of Variety Average Yield per Acre 
 
 Bus. Lbs. 
 
 Burnaby Mammoth 483 34 
 
 Money Maker 482 41 
 
 Carman No. i 459 48 
 
 Dreer's Standard 458 55 
 
 Sabeau's Elephant 454 58 
 
 Canadian Beauty 452 46 
 
 Rural Blush 437 48 
 
 IXL 433 50 
 
 Pearce 433 24 
 
 Clay Rose 432 58 
 
 Test of Varieties * 
 
 Marketable Yield 
 
 Name of Variety Yield per Acre per Acre 
 
 Bus. Lbs. Bus. Lbs. 
 
 Vermont Gold Coin ... 554 24 475 12 
 
 Morgan's Seedling 514 48 413 36 
 
 Carman No. i 501 36 409 12 
 
 Dr. Maercher 501 36 382 48 
 
 Dooley 479 36 409 12 
 
 Additional Varieties. Tested 1904 f 
 
 Name of Variety Total Yield per Acre 
 
 Bus. Lbs. 
 
 Ashleaf Kidney Heber Rawlings . . 545 36 
 
 Dalmeny Beauty 519 12 
 
 White Albino 501 36 
 
 "Experimental Farms Reports," Canada, 1904. 
 
 t " Experimental Farms Reports," Forest, Canada, 1904.
 
 APPENDIX 281 
 
 APPENDIX No. 8 
 
 Examples in Dry Farming* and in Farming with and 
 without Irrigation in the Semi-arid Regions of the 
 United States 
 
 " The Government Crop Reports f show that the aver- 
 age yield of Washington wheat fields has advanced from 
 17.7 bushels per acre in 1892, to 29.1 in 1901. These yields 
 were obtained without irrigation or fertilization. 
 
 Individual yields of wheat from 40 bushels to 50 bushels 
 per acre on i6o-acre farms are common. 
 
 All other cereals do as well. Government statistics show 
 that the average yield per acre for the last ten years of oats 
 was 39.58 bushels; barley, 35.90; potatoes, 124 bushels. 
 
 " Individual yields run as high as 125 bushels of oats, 80 
 bushels of barley, and 300 bushels of potatoes, all without 
 irrigation or fertilization. Corn yields as high as 40 bushels 
 per acre. 
 
 " The man with small means will find here opportunities 
 unequaled in the Pacific Northwest. As an instance of what 
 can be done with a small tract of land, a Mr. Olmstead in 
 1904 sold $2,480 worth of tomatoes and other vegetables 
 from seven acres of Spokane Valley irrigated land. 
 
 " G. Kruger of Cheney, in 1904, sold $6,400 worth of 
 cherries from an eight-acre orchard. Of this amount 60 per 
 cent, was net profit." 
 
 Professor W. M. Jardine, who has been in charge of the 
 
 * The secret of Dry Farming consists in retaining the moisture in 
 the soil by such methods of soil culture as best promote percolation 
 and capillary attraction of moisture. The method is fully described 
 in " Campbell's Soil Culture Manual." 
 
 t Official Circular issued by the Chamber of Commerce at 
 Spokane, Wash., 1906.
 
 282 APPENDIX 
 
 dry land experimental work in Utah since its inception by 
 that State, says : " One of the most successful farmers in 
 the State who is located in a belt receiving thirteen inches 
 [rain], writes that eighty acres which he plowed just after 
 the harvest of the previous crop and kept well cultivated 
 through the fallow season, yielded 40 bushels per acre of 
 wheat last summer." * 
 
 In the March number of The Scientific Farmer, 1906, 
 Mr. C. L. Wilson of Loveland, Col., reports harvesting 
 53 bushels of Red Russian wheat per acre from 25 acres. 
 
 Mr. J. H. McMann of Miles City, Mont., harvested 
 from 20 acres 54 bushels per acre of winter wheat in 1905.! 
 
 In the Durango District in La Plata County, Col., with 
 an annual rainfall of from fifteen to sixteen inches, and 
 probably the richest soil in Colorado, " Oat yields from 
 100 to 1 20 bushels per acre are by no means uncommon, 
 while wheat runs all the way from 40 to 80 and sometimes 
 90 bushels per acre." J 
 
 The Pomeroy Model Farm at Hill City, Graham County, 
 Kan., without irrigation: 
 
 " Four consecutive winter wheat crops have been harvested 
 from this farm, and no year has the yield been less than 40 
 bushels per acre. " 
 
 At Lisbon, N. D., were grown on the grounds of the 
 Soldiers' Home, under the direction of Colonel Mcllvaine, in 
 1897, under the Campbell Method of soil culture, forty-six 
 thousand pounds, or twenty-three tons per acre of sugar-beets. 
 
 On page 63 of " Campbell's Soil Culture Manual," 
 
 * The Scientific Farmer, June, 1906. 
 
 t The Sdentifif Farmer, April, 1906. 
 
 $ The Scientific Farmer, April, 1906. 
 
 " Campbell's Soil Culture Manual," 1905.
 
 APPENDIX 283 
 
 1905, is shown a cut of a cornfield conducted under the 
 Campbell system at Lisbon, N. D., yielding 84 bushels per 
 acre. 
 
 " I have farmed seven years in Nebraska, sixteen in Iowa, 
 five in Missouri, and six in New Mexico. . . . Like 
 everyone else, I supposed that irrigation was a necessity 
 here [New Mexico], . . . but I discovered in 1894, that 
 being the dryest year ever known in New Mexico, that 
 irrigation is not a necessity, as I raised 555 bushels of oats 
 on ten acres of ground with absolutely no irrigation and 
 no rain until the first week in July. Nature having given 
 me a hint, I concluded in 1895 to take my chances in dry 
 farming. Again, as a result, on fourteen acres I harvested 
 3,600 pounds of oats; one variety went 85 bushels to the 
 acre. One acre of Speltz went 83 bushels. . . . " * 
 
 Again, Mr. C. C. Williams, in the June, 1906, number 
 of The Scientific Farmer, tells of barley seven feet high, 
 oat heads thirty inches long, and running 1 10 bushels to the 
 acre; apples weighing 22 ounces each; pears, 19 ounces; 
 peaches, 12 ounces; water melons, 40 pounds; cabbage 
 heads, 42 pounds; grown on Las Vegas Land Grant, New 
 Mexico. " I do not mean to indicate," he continues, " that 
 such yields as these are the average, but I do mean that from 
 65 to 70 bushels of oats; 30 to 50 bushels of corn; 50 to 75 
 bushels of barley; 30 to 45 bushels of wheat; 250 to 300 
 bushels of potatoes, and 16 to 22 tons of sugar-beets per acre 
 can and are being grown in the Territory under irrigation 
 and with very ordinary methods of farming. 
 
 " I also mean, that crops as good, and sometimes better, 
 are being grown to-day in various sections of the Territory, 
 
 * W. H. Comstock, Las Vegas, N. M., The Scientific Farmer, June, 
 1906.
 
 284 APPENDIX 
 
 particularly around Las Vegas, under scientific farming 
 methods without irrigation." 
 
 APPENDIX No. 9 
 Raising Dates in the Sahara Desert 
 
 " In the great desert of northern Africa, stretching across 
 in a belt from southeastern Algeria to the borders of 
 Tripoli, is the region known as the ' Erg.' It is a land 
 of enormous sand hills. . . . Not a leaf nor a blade of 
 grass, not a boulder nor a pebble mars the smoothness of 
 the sand. 
 
 " Never is the least trace of water to be seen on its surface. 
 There are no natural springs, although ground-water is every- 
 where very near the surface in the hollows of the dunes. . . . 
 The soil of the whole Oued Souf region is a fine-grained, 
 light-yellow quartz sand. Yet in the very heart of the Erg, 
 two long days' ride east and west from the nearest habitations, 
 there exists one of the most highly developed agricultural 
 communities in the world. 
 
 ' This is the country known as the Oued Souf, situated 
 in extreme southeastern Algeria. . . . The type of agri- 
 culture practiced in the Oued Souf is not dry-land farming, 
 for it depends upon the ground-water, which in the gar- 
 dens is everywhere near the surface of the soil. 
 
 " It affords us, however, an excellent object lesson of what 
 can be done under the most adverse natural conditions in 
 producing a valuable crop, for throughout northern Africa 
 the Oued Souf is renowned for the large yields of its date 
 orchards and the high quality of their fruit. ... [It was 
 impossible to secure very reliable statements of yields from 
 the natives, but from all that could be learned these must 
 be unusually large in the Souf country.]
 
 APPENDIX 285 
 
 " The clusters of the large Deget Noor are said fre- 
 quently to weigh over 55 pounds each, and to attain some- 
 times 90 pounds. 
 
 " Single trees of this variety, which is one of the largest 
 bearing kinds, sometimes yields as much as 330 pounds in the 
 Oued Souf. 
 
 "It was estimated in 1883 that the date crop from the 
 175,000 palms [of all varieties] in full bearing then existing 
 in the Souf region, was 7,000,000 pounds. This would 
 mean an average yield of 40 pounds per tree, as against an 
 average yield of 28 pounds estimated to have been produced 
 in the Oued Rirh the same year.* 
 
 " A good palm tree in full bearing is valued at from $50 
 to $130, according to the variety to which it belongs." f 
 
 APPENDIX No. 10 
 
 ONE-ACRE FARM IN THE SACRAMENTO VALLEY 
 " Barn and corral space, 75 x 75 feet ; rabbit-hutch, 25 x 
 25 feet ; house and porches, 30 x 30 feet ; two windmill 
 towers, i6x 16 feet each; garden, 46x94 feet; blackberries, 
 16x90 feet; strawberries, 65x90 feet; citrus nursery, 
 90x98 feet; in which there are 2,300 trees budded; one 
 row of dewberries, 100 feet long; 4 apricot trees; 2 oak 
 trees; 3 peach trees; 6 fig trees; 10 locust trees; 30 assorted 
 roses; 20 assorted geraniums; 12 lemon trees, bearing, which 
 are seven years old; lime tree, nine years old and bearing, 
 
 * " Agriculture Without Irrigation in the Sahara Desert ": Thomas 
 H. Kearney. United States Department of Agriculture, Bureau of 
 Plant Industry. Bulletin No. 86, 1905. 
 
 f " These estimates are quoted from Holland [ibid,, p. 324]. The 
 overwhelming importance of the date crop in the Souf region is 
 shown by the fact that the same author states the value of the 
 1883 crop of dates to have been $301,730, while that of all other 
 crops combined was only $20,900 in that year."
 
 286 APPENDIX 
 
 from which were sold last year 160 limes; 8 bearing orange 
 trees; 4 bread-fruit trees; 5 pomegranate trees; one patch of 
 bamboo; 3 lilies; 4 prune trees; 3 blue gum trees; 6 cypress 
 trees; 4 grape vines; I English ivy; 2 honeysuckles; one 
 seed-bed ; one violet bed ; one sage bed ; 2 tomato vines ; 1 3 
 stands of bees." [William E. Smythe, in Maxwell's Talis- 
 man, February, 1904.] 
 
 APPENDIX No. ii 
 
 "The London Daily News reports that in the year 1905, 
 which was not a good year for all crops, on half an acre of 
 land, Mr. Henry Vincent, of Brighton, England, raised the 
 following products : * _ . 
 
 i- S. (1 . 
 
 2,660 cabbages at y 2 d. and id. each . . 9 18 4 $48.68 
 70 bushels spinach at 4d. and 5d. per 
 
 gal 5 6 7 26.14 
 
 950 cauliflowers at id. and i^d. 
 
 each 5 6 8 26.16 
 
 Parsley at id. and 2d. a bunch 4 I 8 19.93 
 
 1,460 lettuces at */ 2 d. and id. each . . 4 I 7 19.91 
 
 660 broccoli at id. and i^d. each . . 3 17 9 19.09 
 
 16 bushels of potatoes 2 18 10 14.50 
 
 bushels Brussels sprouts 2 16 o 13.80 
 
 gallons peas at 6d. per gal. ... 2 13 3 13.11 
 
 1 20 gallons artichokes at 5d. per gal. 2 10 O 12.30 
 
 Flowers 2 9 2 1 2.09 
 
 267 vegetable marrows at I l / 2 d. each. . I 13 9 8.33 
 
 2,976 carrots at eight for id I n o 7.65 
 
 264 bundles radishes at 30 for id. .. i 7 10 6.88 
 
 14 gallons French beans o 18 3 4.56 
 
 12 gallons currants at is. 4d. per gal. o 16 o 4.00 
 
 "Three Acres and Liberty": Bolton Hall.
 
 APPENDIX 287 
 
 s. d. 
 
 95^2 punnets mustard at 2d. each. ... o 15 11 $3.97 
 
 27 pounds mushrooms at 6d. per Ib. o 13 6 3.37 
 
 Rhubarb O n 10 2.97 
 
 948 bushels sprout tops at four for id. o 19 9 4.93 
 
 38 dozen leeks at 6d. per doz. . . o 19 o 4.75 
 
 1,150 plants sold at 6d. per 100 . . . . o 5 9 1.43 
 
 1 1/4 gallons bread beans O 3 9 1.03 
 
 97 bundles sea-kale at 6d 2 8 6 1 1.92 
 
 978 bundles of asparagus-kale at id. 2 I 6 io.ii 
 
 504 beet roots at y^d. and id. each. .204 9.88 
 2,913 gallons gooseberries at is. 4d. 
 
 per gal I 19 9 9.83 
 
 219 bundles mint at 2d. per bundle I 16 o 8.90 
 
 20 bundles sage at 2d. per bundle o 3 4 .83 
 
 One cart-load stones O 2 6 .62 
 
 1 8 bundles of fennel at 2d. per bundle 032 .79 
 
 Thyme O i 6 .37 
 
 68 8 9 $337.i8 
 The year's expenses were as follows: 
 
 s. d. 
 
 Rent for half acre 2 6 8 
 
 Sutton & Sons' Seeds 2 4 o 
 
 Hired labor I 12 o 
 
 Tilley's Seeds o 7 6 
 
 One pair garden boots o 9 6 
 
 One pair trousers o 8 9 
 
 Two new measures o 3 3 
 
 Seven loads manure I 9 o 
 
 9 o 8~$44.26 " 
 
 This leaves a profit of 59-odd pounds, or about $300. Thus 
 this yield is at the rate of $600 per acre.
 
 288 APPENDIX 
 
 APPENDIX No. 12 
 FISH AND GAME 
 
 The successful breeding of fish and game for the market 
 has long been practiced in Europe, and has become an estab- 
 lished industry which is but little known in the United 
 States. 
 
 The demand for fish and game is a constant and increasing 
 one, and the markets can never be sufficiently supplied. 
 
 There is a constant demand for, and large profits to be 
 made in the breeding of such fish as carp, trout, grayling, 
 black-bass, perch, sunfish, pike, pickerel, frogs, minnows, and 
 others. And in such game-birds and animals as pheasants, 
 quail, beaver, mink, otter, marten, muskrat, skunk, raccoon, 
 fox, squirrel, rabbit, hare, wolves, coyotes, bob-cats, buffalo, 
 deer, and elk. 
 
 " Game farming in America is a new feature that has 
 come to stay, and profits will be large for the first people in 
 the business. 
 
 " Wild meat is appetizing and healthful, and people will 
 buy it when obtainable. It was the principal article of food 
 for early settlers, in the East and in the West, and a leading 
 diet for the city and town people at that time. It is con- 
 sidered more easily digested than beef, mutton, or pork. 
 
 " Game farming is recommended and encouraged by the 
 Agricultural Department of the U. S. Government. 
 
 " It costs no more to raise a deer than a mutton sheep, 
 yet it sells at six to ten times as much. It costs no more 
 to raise a buffalo than a cow, and it sells at six to ten times 
 as much and there is about as good profit in raising wapiti 
 or the round-horned elk. 
 
 " Beaver can be grown at $5.00 to $10.00 per head, and
 
 APPENDIX 289 
 
 are marketable at $40.00 to $50.00 each. We have had 
 experience with the rearing and marketing of all of them. 
 
 " If it costs $35.00 to raise a cow that sells at $50.00, 
 there is $15.00 net profit; if it costs $35.00 to raise a buffalo 
 and it sells at from $250.00 to $400.00, there is a profit of 
 $215.00 to $365.00 or as much profit on the lower-priced 
 buffalo as on 14 cows. 
 
 " If a mutton sheep sells at $5.00 and it costs $3.00 to 
 grow it, there is $2.00 each net profit. If a deer sells at 
 $20.00 to $30.00 to the butcher, and it costs $3.00 to grow 
 it, there is $17.00 profit or as much as there is in growing 
 Sy 2 sheep." * 
 
 ELK AND DEER f 
 
 " The wapiti, or Rocky Mountain elk, and the Virginia 
 deer . . . the two native animals best suited for the pro- 
 duction of venison in the United States. At the present 
 time this species [the wapiti] affords a most promising field 
 for ventures in breeding for profit. 
 
 " The elk has been acclimatized in many parts of the 
 world, and shows the same vigor and hardiness wherever it 
 has been transplanted. 
 
 ' The Biological Survey has recently obtained much in- 
 formation from owners of herds. 
 
 " Of about a dozen successful breeders, nearly all are 
 of the opinion that raising elk for market can be made 
 remunerative if present laws as to the sale of the meat are 
 modified. 
 
 * Pamphlet issued by the American Game Association, 1909. 
 
 t " Deer Farming in the United States": D. E. Lantz, Assistant, 
 Biological Survey. U. S. Department of Agriculture; Farmers' 
 Bulletin No. 330, July 29, 1908.
 
 290 APPENDIX 
 
 " One especially important fact has been developed by the 
 reports from breeders. It is that the elk readily adapts itself 
 to almost any environment." 
 
 George W. Russ of Eureka Springs, Ark., says that, " elk 
 meat can be produced in many sections of this country at 
 less cost per pound than beef, mutton, or pork." 
 
 " Thomas Blagden, of Washington, D. C., began raising 
 deer in 1874. After an experience of over a third of a 
 century he is confident that the business can be made profit- 
 able. 
 
 " His stock is vigorous and of the large size characteristic 
 of the Adirondacks and other northern deer. Consequently 
 the animals are in demand for breeding purposes, the bucks 
 bringing $50 each and the does $75. 
 
 " He feeds grain, using corn and a mixture of bran and 
 meal, and during the summer cuts as much wild forage as 
 possible. He finds that the animals prefer the rankest 
 weeds to the choicest grasses. Of the various kinds of 
 hay, they prefer alfalfa. He provides abundant water at 
 all times." 
 
 " John W. Griggs, of Goodell, la., writes that he has been 
 engaged in raising deer for about fourteen years. 
 
 " Until two years ago he sold all his surplus stock for 
 parks, but since then has disposed of about half of it for 
 venison. For park purposes he gets $20 to $30 a head, 
 but they bring fully as much or more when fattened for 
 venison." 
 
 As to management of deer, Mr. Griggs writes: 
 
 " In raising a large herd the park should be divided into
 
 APPENDIX 291 
 
 two or three lots, and one plowed each year and sown to 
 red clover, mustard, rape, and seeds of different kinds of 
 weeds. 
 
 " Bluegrass and timothy are useless. Corn is the prin- 
 cipal grain I feed. I feed it winter and summer. In winter 
 I feed also clover hay, oat straw, and weedy wild hay. 
 Deer when rightly handled are very prolific, and from 50 
 does one can count on 75 fawns." 
 
 Under the date of January 13, 1908, Mr. C. H. Rose- 
 berry, of Stella, Mo., writes as follows: 
 
 " My experience in breeding the common or Virginia deer 
 covers a period of seventeen years. . . . For the last seven 
 years my herd has averaged 70 per cent, increase, all of 
 which I have sold at satisfactory prices. I began selling at 
 $20 per pair of fawns at 4 months of age and $30 per 
 pair of adults. I now get $40 and $60 respectively. 
 
 " I sell almost exclusively for pets and for propagating 
 purposes, although a few surplus bucks have been sold for 
 venison. 
 
 "If we except the goat, I know of no domestic animal 
 common to the farm that requires so little feed and attention 
 as the deer. 
 
 " My herd has a range of only 15 acres, two-thirds of 
 which are set to white clover, bluegrass, and orchard grass. 
 I provide also a small plat of wheat or rye for winter pasture. 
 With the above provision, in this latitude, no feed is re- 
 quired between April 15 and November 15. 
 
 " During the rest of the year a ration of corn, bran, or 
 other mild feed somewhat smaller than that required for 
 sheep, in connection with a stack of clover or pea hay to 
 which they have free access, is sufficient to keep them in
 
 292 APPENDIX 
 
 good condition. Deer eat with relish nearly all of the com- 
 mon coarse weeds, and for clearing land of brush they are, 
 I think, second only to the common goat. 
 
 " Probably the greatest expense connected with the busi- 
 ness of raising deer is the fencing. 
 
 " I have found the business profitable on the lines indi- 
 cated. I believe they could be profitably bred for venison 
 alone certainly with less trouble and expense, since the 
 fawns would be reared by the does, and the trouble and ex- 
 pense of raising by hand would be eliminated." 
 
 Summary 
 
 " The wapiti and the Virginia deer can be raised success- 
 fully and cheaply under many different conditions of food 
 and climate. 
 
 " Instead of hampering breeders by restrictions, as at pres- 
 ent, State laws should be so modified as to encourage the 
 raising of deer, elk, and other animals as a source of profit 
 to the individual and to the State. 
 
 " Safeguards against the destruction and sale of wild 
 deer in place of domesticated deer are not difficult to en- 
 force. For this purpose a system of licensing private parks, 
 and of tagging deer or carcasses sold or shipped, so that they 
 may be easily identified, is recommended. 
 
 " It is believed that with favorable legislation much other- 
 wise waste land in the United States may be utilized for the 
 production of venison so as to yield profitable returns, and 
 also that this excellent and nutritious meat, instead of 
 being denied to 99 per cent, of the population of the country, 
 may become as common and as cheap in our markets as 
 mutton."
 
 APPENDIX 293 
 
 SILVER Fox FARMING * 
 
 " Of all the products derived from wild animals, furs 
 are the most useful and valuable. 
 
 " Many furs, like ivory, whalebone, and other natural 
 commodities, already are so scarce that the demand for them 
 is met largely by the substitution of inferior products. 
 
 " The Biological Survey as yet has not investigated the 
 Alaska blue fox industry, but a study of silver fox raising has 
 been made, in the course of which a number of persons en- 
 gaged in the business were visited and their methods ex- 
 amined. 
 
 " Thus far, the breeding of silver foxes has been carried 
 on chiefly in the State of Maine and in the Canadian Mari- 
 time Provinces New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince 
 Edward Island. It has been undertaken to some extent also 
 in Michigan, Alaska, Labrador, and Newfoundland. 
 
 " The natural habitat of the red, cross, and silver foxes 
 includes the greater part of northern North America, from 
 the central United States northward to and including the 
 border of the treeless tundra. 
 
 " The red phase inhabits nearly all this region, but the 
 silver phase, although known in most parts of it, is very 
 irregularly distributed. In general it is much more common 
 in northern localities than in southern. 
 
 " Foxes require very little space and thrive in inclosures 
 not more than 40 feet square. ... A total space of 5 
 acres is ample for extensive operations, and it is not likely 
 that more than 2 acres will be needed for any except a large 
 and long-established business. 
 
 "Silver Fox Farming": Wilfred H. Osgood, Assistant, Biologi- 
 cal Survey. U. S. Department of Agriculture ; Farmers' Bulletin 
 No. 328, August 8, 1908.
 
 294 APPENDIX 
 
 " A half acre will accommodate about 6 pairs of 
 foxes, which is as many as a beginner should attempt to 
 handle. 
 
 " Wild foxes eat a great variety of food, including mice, 
 rabbits, birds, and insects, such as grasshoppers, crickets, and 
 beetles. At certain seasons large quantities of berries are 
 eaten. Meat, therefore, is only a part of their natural diet. 
 . . . Fresh drinking water, of course, should be supplied 
 regularly. 
 
 " A fair daily allowance for each fox is one-fourth of a 
 pound of meat and a small handful of miscellaneous scraps. 
 One of the most successful breeders feeds a quarter of a 
 pound of meat and a quart of skim milk daily. Another 
 varies the meat diet with a sort of hoecake made of corn- 
 meal and sour milk. 
 
 " The meat used is beef or mutton in the form of butcher's 
 scraps, unsalable parts, and the like, or, most commonly, 
 horse meat procured especially for the purpose. Horse 
 meat is very satisfactory food for foxes and especially com- 
 mends itself on account of its cheapness. 
 
 " When located on the seacoast near fishing settlements, 
 fox raisers supply fish, lobsters, and other sea foods to their 
 foxes at little or no cost and find them satisfactory. The 
 expense of feeding is thus comparatively small. 
 
 " According to an estimate of one of the most experienced 
 fox breeders, who fed butcher's meat and skim milk, the 
 cost of feeding one fox, when everything is purchased, is 
 i cent per day. In actual practice, however, the cost in his 
 case was much less, since he was able to utilize the scraps 
 from his own table and to obtain much other material from 
 his neighbors. 
 
 " The number of young in a litter varies from two to
 
 APPENDIX 295 
 
 eight, the average number born to adult parents being 
 five." 
 
 " Ernest Thompson Seton has an article in Country Life 
 in America for January, 1906, on raising fur-bearing animals 
 for profit. 
 
 " He describes two fox ranches at Dover, Me. They 
 raise twenty to forty silver foxes a year, on a little more than 
 half an acre of land. The silver fox's fur is one of the most 
 valuable on the market and sells at an average of $150 a 
 pelt, that is, $3,000 to $6,000 gross for the year's work. 
 . . . Foxes are not expensive to breed. . . . The capital 
 required is small. 
 
 "Mr. Seton remarks, ' I am satisfied that any man who 
 has made a success of hens can make a success of foxes, with 
 this advantage for the latter: a fox requires no more 
 space or care than a hen, but is worth twenty times as 
 much, and so gives a chance for returns twenty times as 
 large." * 
 
 " Without making extensive estimates of the profits of a 
 well-established fox farm, it may be said simply that every 
 silver fox raised is likely to yield a pelt having a market value 
 of over $100. 
 
 " Even pale skins bring this figure, and darker ones much 
 more. Pure black skins command almost fabulous prices, 
 ranging from $500 to $2,000. It is therefore evident that a 
 moderate income may be derived by raising comparatively 
 few foxes. 
 
 " In 1905, as reported in the Fur Trade Review, the total 
 number of silver fox skins offered [in London] at the two 
 sales was 1,097. 
 
 " This includes all grades from very pale to pure black. 
 
 *" Three Acres and Liberty": Bolton Hall.
 
 296 APPENDIX 
 
 In 1906 the total number was 1,934 skins ... in 1907 
 the total number was 1,909. 
 
 "The highest priced skin realized 440 [$2,140]." 
 
 PHEASANTS * 
 
 " There is no mystery about rearing pheasants and few 
 absolute rules. . . . The following suggestions are de- 
 signed to give a basic knowledge of the bird, its nature and 
 habits, so that the pheasant owner may intelligently apply 
 the data to his own birds, making due allowance for local 
 conditions: 
 
 " The Ground. If free to select, place the pheasant runs 
 on a hillside sloping south or southeast, with buildings ex- 
 tending across the hill and the runs from north to south. 
 The location should be well drained . . . plenty of sun- 
 shine and shade are necessary. Pheasants are not injured 
 by getting wet when it rains, but dry houses and sanitary 
 yards are necessary if good results are to be attained. 
 
 " The House. Any material may be used, but wood is 
 preferable. Each shed for a pen of birds [4 hens and a 
 cock] may be ten feet from front to back, five feet long and 
 sloping from six feet next the run to four feet at the 
 rear. A good roof is necessary. The front of the house 
 facing the run is left open. No floor is laid as earth is 
 better. This should be five inches above the level of the 
 run. 
 
 " If the ground does not furnish natural dust-baths, they 
 should be provided, as they are very necessary to keep the 
 * Addresses of persons engaged in rearing pheasants from whom 
 reliable information can be obtained concerning the industry: J. G. 
 Green, Jr., Columbiana, Ohio; the American Game Association, 
 Denver, Col.; Gene M. Simpson, Corvallis, Ore.; H. W. Myers, 
 Tacoma, Wash.; Wallace Evans, Oak Park, 111.
 
 APPENDIX 297 
 
 birds tree from lice and their plumage in good condi- 
 tion. 
 
 " The Runs. These should contain at least 100 square 
 feet for every pen of birds. It should be constructed of 
 wire netting, of one-inch mesh, three feet wide, sunk 18 
 inches into the ground as a protection against rats, weasels, 
 etc. Do not use boards at the base of the fence. 
 
 " The top may be any height six feet enables a man to 
 work without stooping. The run should be covered with 
 netting. It is well to put a second top of string netting 10 
 inches below the wire as the birds, when frightened, fly into 
 the wire netting and frequently kill themselves. . . . The 
 run should have an entrance at each end. Numerous 
 perches at least 5 inches in width should be furnished in run- 
 way and house. 
 
 " In winter it is well to cover the run two inches deep with 
 straw to keep the birds off the cold ground. Chips and 
 dead limbs are good to put in the runs as they bring bugs, 
 etc., which are excellent food. It is well to plant trees 
 [preferably evergreens] in the runs. 
 
 " No nests are required. Cover, such as cornstocks or 
 brush, laid against the fence afford a retiring place where the 
 birds can lay. This is important, as otherwise eggs are 
 laid anywhere and are more likely to be broken. This also 
 largely prevents egg-eating. The cocks are in this the chief 
 offenders. . . . Egg-eating should give little trouble if 
 the eggs are laid under cover and gathered daily. 
 
 " Treatment. When feeding, enter the run as quietly as 
 possible. Never rush around. It is better to have the same 
 person care for them all the time. Never catch a pheasant 
 by one leg. Their legs are easily broken." Catch them 
 with a hand-net. " Lower it on the bird, pressing it firmly
 
 298 APPENDIX 
 
 to the ground. Then catch it with a hand on each side 
 pressing the wings. 
 
 " Each variety of pheasants should be kept in a separate 
 pen. During the breeding season two or more cocks should 
 never be left in a pen with hens, as they are sure to fight 
 and badly injure or kill each other. Pheasants may be kept 
 in a pen with pigeons or quail, but not with chickens or 
 other common fowl. 
 
 " What to Feed. Pheasants, like any other birds, re- 
 quire certain food elements. Of course the difference in en- 
 vironment makes a difference in food requirements. Be 
 careful to not overfeed, as this produces disease. Pheasants 
 are small feeders; fifty cents is an average cost per year for 
 food. This is about half the cost of food for a chicken. 
 
 " Variety of food is very important. Feed twice a day 
 morning and evening. Feed no more than will be cleaned 
 up. All grain and mash should be placed in tin or enameled 
 dishes, because if thrown on the ground the remainder be- 
 comes sour and breeds disease. 
 
 " Pheasants require an abundance of green food such as 
 grass, clover, roots, cabbage, apples, beets, turnips, etc. . . . 
 Feed a mash three times a week, preferably in the morning. 
 This is made of equal parts of corn meal, bran, and mid- 
 dlings, with the addition of one tablespoonful of beef scraps 
 for each bird. Finely chopped boiled or raw beef may be 
 used instead of the beef scraps. The mash is prepared by 
 adding enough water to make the mixture crumbly, but not 
 sloppy. 
 
 'The grain foods in order of their value are: wheat, 
 kaffir-corn, oats, buckwheat, rice, millet, and canary seed. 
 Indian corn may be used safely in small quantities in cold 
 weather.
 
 APPENDIX 299 
 
 " Fresh, clean water should be furnished every day, and 
 in summer time preferably twice a day. 
 
 " Breeding. The rule should be not over three, and 
 preferably, one hen to a cock. 
 
 " Eggs. Gather every day. Set as soon as possible. If 
 not set at once, place end up in a covered box containing 
 bran. Keep in a dry, cool place, and turn eggs once a day. 
 Never keep an egg over 14 days. 
 
 " Setting. Pheasant hens are not good mothers when in 
 captivity. Any broody hen will do, but a light hen is 
 preferred. Cochin bantams are much used, but ordinary 
 chickens like Plymouth Rocks, produce equally satisfactory 
 results. Be sure the hen is free from lice and disease. 
 
 " Dust the hen thoroughly with some good insect-powder 
 before setting, and thereafter once a week, but not within 
 three days of hatching. Also have a good dust-bath handy, 
 so she can dust herself when she wishes. Feed her once a 
 day, preferably in the morning, placing food and water be- 
 fore the nest and letting her get off herself. Fresh water 
 should be kept before her at all times. 
 
 " The Nest. Make this of a box or part of a barrel, 
 protected from the rain. The sides of the nest should be 
 at least eight inches in height. Make the nest of sod 
 formed into the proper shape. Set as many eggs as can be 
 comfortably covered. Leave the hen alone. 
 
 " The period of incubation varies with the variety from 
 21 to 28 days. The young should be kept with the 
 mother in the nest, 24 hours after the last bird is 
 hatched. 
 
 " The Coops for the Young. These should measure 
 about 2 feet square and 18 inches in front, sloping to 14 
 inches in the back. The runway should be about 4 feet long
 
 300 APPENDIX 
 
 and as wide as the coop, with sides I foot high, made of 
 i/2-inch mesh wire netting or boards. The top of the run 
 should be left open. 
 
 " As soon as the birds learn the call of their foster-mother, 
 give them their liberty. Young birds should not be placed 
 in runs with old birds. Dust-baths should be available. 
 Feed the hen and young separately. 
 
 " Feeding the Young. Do not feed the young birds for 
 24 hours after hatching. Fine grit or clean sand should be 
 furnished as soon as they are removed to the coop. For first 
 three days feed eight times a day, gradually reducing the 
 number until, at the end of three weeks, you are feeding only 
 three times a day. 
 
 ' The ration may be custard, boiled eggs, prepared game- 
 foods. . . . The- custard is made of 10 eggs to each quart 
 of milk, baked dry. To bake without burning, set in a dish 
 containing water and put in the oven. 
 
 ' The boiled eggs should be hard and chopped fine. 
 Eggs and milk with corn-meal or oat-meal [not rolled oats] 
 added until the mixture becomes crumbly is also a good 
 food. 
 
 " Boiled potatoes mashed fine with finely chopped hard- 
 boiled eggs makes a good food. Use two parts of potatoes 
 to one of eggs. 
 
 " Boiled potatoes and boiled meat chopped fine and mixed 
 with a little corn-meal is also good. 
 
 ' The following mixture will be found to be quite a satis- 
 factory ration : I quart of milk, I quart of bone-flour, 2 
 quarts of corn-meal, 2 quarts of wheat middlings, I pint of 
 beef scraps. Mix only what can be fed. 
 
 " Pheasants should be fed all the green food they will eat, 
 such as lettuce, clover, diickweed, etc. ; all green food should
 
 APPENDIX 301 
 
 be chopped fine. Also feed flies, grasshoppers, worms, mag- 
 gots, etc. 
 
 " After the first few days begin to feed small grains such 
 as millet, hemp, and canary seed, and increase the quantity 
 until you have them off the soft food. It is advisable to get 
 them off the soft food as soon as possible. The young 
 should have fresh, clean water all the time. This should be 
 so arranged that the birds cannot get wet." * 
 
 Information concerning the rearing of other wild fowl 
 as well as the addresses of persons engaged in the business 
 can be had from the U. S. Department of Agriculture. 
 Also information regarding fish- and bee-culture, the rearing 
 of squabs, growing mushrooms, flowers, drug-plants, and 
 other novel uses of land. 
 
 APPENDIX No. 13 
 THE TWENTY-ACRE FARM f 
 
 " With the small sum of $275.00 I bought twenty acres of 
 rough land at $12.50 per acre, in Pawnee County, Neb. 
 " Land near by sold from $35.00 to $60.00 per acre. 
 
 * Charles F. Denley, Naturalist. New City, N. Y. 
 
 t " The Twenty- Acre Farm," owned by Mr. Arnold Martin of 
 Dubois, Pawnee County, Neb. With Mr. Martin's present knowl- 
 edge of soil culture and experience in tillage, it would not be an 
 exaggeration to say that he could to-day accomplish practically the 
 same results on one half the amount of land. It must, moreover, be 
 borne in mind that the locality in which Mr. Martin lives is, in 
 many ways, an unfavorable one for success in rational farming, 
 it being a region often subject to many of the atmospherical and 
 other conditions which prevail during the summer months in the 
 semi-arid districts farther west, such as droughts, cloud-bursts, hot 
 blighting winds, and occasional insect scourges.
 
 302 APPENDIX 
 
 " My land was a little over half in timber, brush, and 
 hilly ground ; the remainder in pasture. Two-thirds of the 
 farm has an eastern slope; the rest slopes toward the north. 
 There were no buildings of any kind upon it no well, no 
 fruit trees. 
 
 " I paid $100.00 down; the remainder to be paid in five 
 years or before, at seven per cent, interest. One hundred 
 and seventy-five dollars remained for building and other 
 improvements. 
 
 "People made the remark: 'What is that man going to 
 do on such a piece of land ? ' 
 
 " When I began to clear off the timber and brush during 
 the winter days when nothing else could be done, they 
 changed my name from Martin to Hazelbrush. 
 
 " In my boyhood I learned farming amid the narrow con- 
 fines of the Swiss Alps along the river Rhine. 
 
 " I was raised on a six-acre farm and was always a natu- 
 ral and sincere believer in intensive farming. I could see in 
 the twenty acres a chance for a man with a family who 
 had not a great amount of money, to lead an independent, 
 healthful, and progressive life. 
 
 " I could see a snap and a fortune. I did not care how 
 badly people felt concerning me. 
 
 " The more they talked, the more I exerted myself to 
 make the farm what it is to-day. To make a small farm 
 profitable, one must possess a thorough knowledge of the 
 soil, and plant that which is best adapted to the soil, and 
 robs it least of its fertility. 
 
 " One must also study the home market and everything 
 that is shipped in and sells at a high price; and if one can 
 grow it on one's own farm, it is well to raise it. 
 
 " In 1897 I harvested from 3 acres of timber-land 678
 
 APPENDIX 303 
 
 bushels of potatoes which sold at 50 cents per bushel; the 
 early ones at $1.00 per bushel. I also planted corn be- 
 tween the potato rows, producing a crop of corn on the 
 same land. 
 
 " In 1898 I produced from 5 acres 930 bushels of potatoes 
 which sold at 45 cents a bushel. Part of the money was 
 spent in building an addition to the house and in planting 
 more fruit trees. In 1899 I produced 1,085 bushels of 
 potatoes from 7 acres of land which sold at 35 cents a 
 bushel, and also raised a crop of corn between the rows. 
 
 " That year the mortgage was paid off and from then on, 
 it was like traveling on a level road. 
 
 " I have about 8 acres of north slope on which I have 
 a pear orchard of 750 trees from three to six years old; 
 some having borne the third crop. The first year I planted 
 24 trees. 
 
 " Many men told me that they would blight, and that I 
 would never see any fruit. Last year one tree alone brought 
 me over 3 bushels which I sold at $1.50 the bushel. . . . 
 I had pears from the last day of July to the middle of 
 November. 
 
 " In 1900 I produced 1,260 bushels of potatoes from 
 10 acres which sold at 40 cents a bushel. The high water 
 flooded a part of my potato field, and on the I7th of May 
 I planted corn which yielded 82 bushels per acre. 
 
 " During the last three years I have had no forage crops, 
 so I sowed some clover and alfalfa. 
 
 " I built a shed with a board roof for a stable. I had a 
 few trees bent together and covered with slough grass, but 
 I was not satisfied to have my animals housed that way. 
 
 " In the spring of 1901 I planted 250 pear trees, and 5 
 acres of potatoes. With only three and a half inches of rain-
 
 304 APPENDIX 
 
 fall during the last days of April, I was able, by keeping 
 up cultivation during the long dry period, to harvest 142 
 bushels from each acre. 
 
 "These sold direct from the field at $1.00 per bushel 
 and upwards. Every load would bring from $46.00 to 
 $52.00. It proved what can be done on a small farm during 
 a dry year by keeping the surface of the soil loose, and also, 
 that we have, to a certain extent, control over the elements 
 instead of being slaves to them. 
 
 " The potato crop and the crop of small fruit of 1901 
 brought me $687.00 from 5^/2 acres.* 
 
 " In the winter of 1901-1902 I built a good barn, 18 x 24 
 feet with a stone basement nine feet high. ... I put in 
 the best material I could get. I paid off the fruit-tree bill 
 of $145.00 and bought 450 more pear trees to be planted in 
 the spring of 1902. 
 
 " In 1902 I harvested 1,600 bushels of potatoes from 5 
 acres which sold at 20 cents a bushel; I received $1.60 a 
 bushel for the early ones. 
 
 " The profit of the 1902 crop went to pay for fruit trees, 
 a well, and a windmill, and an irrigation plant to irrigate 
 during dry seasons, but the latter has not proved as profitable 
 as I thought it would. 
 
 " Cultivation is cheaper than irrigation. Store the moist- 
 ure in all seasons by keeping the surface of the soil loose. 
 Plow the potatoes as long as the vines are green ; plow the 
 corn as long as it grows and is making ears. It not only 
 helps the growing corn, but it is also a help for the next 
 year's crop. 
 
 *$3$o to $600 the average annual earnings of the average 
 wage-earner. $687 the earnings of 5^ acres requiring from four 
 and a half to five months' labor.
 
 APPENDIX 305 
 
 " Corn not only needs moisture, but air as well. It will 
 get air if the surface soil is loosened, as a loose surface will 
 hold the moisture and not let it escape. During hot days I 
 found that the corn grew best when the surface was kept 
 loose and the air could enter the roots of the plants together 
 with the moisture and the elements from which the corn- 
 plant is made. 
 
 " Fall plowing also helps conserve the moisture, and the 
 frost will pulverize the soil much cheaper and better than you 
 or I can do it. In the spring of 1903 I set apart 5 acres of 
 good land for corn. 
 
 " In the early spring I disked and harrowed the land 
 twice, and in the latter part of April I took the lister and 
 drill and planted the corn [Reed's Yellow Dent] sixteen 
 inches apart. 
 
 " I had to do some replanting by hand. After every rain, 
 as soon as it was dry enough, I went over the field with a 
 cultivator or weeder. From the i8th of May to June loth, 
 we had a long, rainy, cold spell, unfavorable to corn growth. 
 The corn looked yellow instead of green, and the soil could 
 not be worked for twenty-three days. 
 
 " As soon as it dried off [the corn was about ten inches 
 high], I gave it a deep cultivation with a four-shoal culti- 
 vator, loosening the soil and letting in the air for the roots to 
 grow. I then followed twice with the weeder until the corn 
 was two feet high. After this I used the plane Junior small 
 shovel-plow and kept up shallow cultivation until the 8th 
 of August. 
 
 " We had a dry spell from July 5 to August 6. I went 
 through the corn every week or ten days while it was 
 growing. 
 
 " Fields of corn near by that were not cultivated began
 
 306 APPENDIX 
 
 to suffer; the lower leaves turned yellow, a crust formed on 
 the surface of the soil, and the ground cracked open. The 
 moisture was lost every day which could have been turned 
 into corn had cultivation been kept up. 
 
 " From the I5th to the i8th of September I cut and put 
 the corn into shocks; after it was cured, I husked it and 
 put it in the barn. The fodder was fed to the milk cows; 
 it is one of the best feeds we get on the farm if properly 
 taken care of. 
 
 " In the fall I plowed the ground and top dressed it with 
 manure. The yield was 92 bushels of sound, solid corn to 
 the acre. 
 
 " One square rod of corn with a good stand along the 
 creek, made 73 pounds of corn in the ear. A second square 
 rod, not as good a stand, made 49 pounds to the square rod. 
 Four square rods [about the average stand of the field], 
 made 172 pounds of corn in the ear, or 43 pounds to the 
 square rod, or 92 bushels to the acre. 
 
 " Six rows of the same corn were set apart for an experi- 
 ment. Cultivation was stopped on July 6. The first half of 
 the six rows was irrigated but not cultivated. As soon as 
 the surface of the soil dried off, water was turned on again 
 until rain fell on August 6. 
 
 ' The result was that, at husking time, the corn which was 
 cultivated all summer up to the 8th of August, yielded 92 
 bushels to the acre, while the irrigated plot which was 
 never cultivated after July 6, produced 63 bushels to the 
 acre. 
 
 " The other half of the six rows which was neither culti- 
 vated nor irrigated produced only 26 bushels to the acre ; an 
 average crop which has never paid in the past nor the present, 
 nor will it in the future.
 
 APPENDIX 307 
 
 " In 1903, 680 bushels of potatoes were harvested and 
 sold from 70 cents to $1.00 a bushel. 
 
 " One-half acre of land produced 142 crates of straw- 
 berries, 14 crates of raspberries, and 42 crates of blackberries. 
 . . . About 6 acres of potatoes and small fruits brought 
 $833.00. Where did the money go? 
 
 " It went into a new cook-stove and a sewing-machine. 
 A new road-wagon to haul products to market, another new 
 farm-\vagon and other machinery were needed. The rest 
 of the money was put in the bank, and with the help of the 
 1904 crop, I built a new house. 
 
 " Public sentiment has changed. ' That man makes as 
 much as we do on our large farms,' people remarked. 
 
 " Every display of my farm products at our County Fair 
 has proven the possibilities of what can be done on a twenty- 
 acre farm. 
 
 "A year ago [1904], I exhibited 40 ears of Reed's 
 Yellow Dent corn at the State Fair. The score was 87^; 
 premium, $32.00. The same exhibit was awarded a gold 
 medal at the World's Fair in St. Louis. 
 
 " Another 20 ears of Reed's Yellow Dent corn took a 
 close second at the State Fair. 
 
 " The corn exhibit of ' The Twenty- Acre Farm,' held 
 this winter at the Nebraska Corn Show, scored 90. The 
 same is true of the fruit. 
 
 " A display of seven varieties of pears from an orchard 
 planted three years ago, took first prize at the State Fair at 
 Lincoln, Neb., last autumn, while the combined fruit exhibit 
 of ' The Twenty- Acre Farm ' was awarded a silver medal."
 
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