greatest conquest of all,--how to divide the surface of
the earth so that it shall yield us its best and mean to us the most, on
the easiest grades, in the most practicable way, that we may utilize
every piece of land to fullest advantage.

This means a new division and perhaps a redistribution of lands in such
a way that the farmer will have his due proportion of hill and of
valley, rather than that one shall have all valley and another all
hard-scrabble on the hill or all waste land in some remote place. It
means that there will be on each holding the proper relation of tilled
land and pasture land and forest land, and that the outlets for the
farmer and his products will be the readiest and the simplest that it is
possible to make. It means that some roads will be abandoned entirely,
as not worth the cost, and society will make a way for farmers living on
impossible farms to move to other lands; and that there will be no "back
roads," for they will be the marks of an undeveloped society. It means
that we shall cease the pretense to bring all lands into farming,
whether they are useful for farming or not; and that in the back country
beyond the last farms there shall be trails that lead far away.

In the farm region itself, much of the old division will pass away,
being uneconomical and non-social. The abandonment of farms is in some
cases a beginning of the process, but it is blind and undirected. Our
educational effort is at present directed toward making the farmer
prosperous on his existing farm, rather than to help him to secure a
farm of proper resources and with proper access. As time goes on, we
must reassemble many of the land divisions, if each man is to have
adequate opportunity to make the most effective application of his
knowledge, the best use of himself, and the greatest possible
contribution to society. It would be well if some of the farms could be
dispossessed of their owners, so that areas might be recombined on a
better basis.

This is no Utopian or socialistic scheme, nor does it imply a forcible
interference with vested rights. It is a plain statement of the
necessities of the situation. Of course it cannot come about quickly or
as a result of direct legislation; but there are various movements that
may start it,--it is, in fact, already started. All the burning rural
problems relate themselves in the end to the division of the land. In
America, we do not suffer from the holding of the land in