Page:A History of the Pacific Northwest.djvu/308



Meanwhile, earnest men are seeking remedies which may, if possible, conserve the lands for the use of actual homemakers, in unit areas suited to the needs of a family under the varying economies of grazing, wheat growing, general farming, irrigation farming, orcharding, etc. It should be possible, in view of the experience of other countries, to induce monopolistic concerns to sell their surplus land, at reasonable and yet profitable rates, to those who actually need them for the support of homes. If a plan of procedure could be found which would release for agricultural purposes such parts of the great cattle ranches as could be profitably cultivated either with irrigation or by dry farming methods, and which would at least prevent the bonanza wheat farms from growing bigger than a given maximum acreage, a beginning toward reform would be made. In order to be thoroughgoing it must fix the acreage of the normal holding for each type of farm. The normal holding would have to be made general by the exercise of the law making and taxing powers of the state and in extreme cases through the use of the state's reserved power of eminent domain. Of course, the "normal farm "would require to be reestablished from time to time as population became denser and cultivation more intensive.

In order to limit speculation in farm lands, it has been suggested that a state land "exchange "be created for the purpose of listing, at a central office, all farm lands which are for sale or exchange, and for classifying such lands according to definite and logical