Now the common answer to any plea for reclamation is
that it is a superfluity to multiply farms, when farming does not pay and land already under cultivation is relapsing to prairie. The answer is that good land pays well even at the present moment, when husbandry is at a lower ebb than ever before in the world's history. Let me give an example. I have often reported the sale of valueless acres. There is the other side of the medal. There is a farm of 300 acres on land reclaimed years ago by the Dukes of Bedford. The owner and farmer was offered the sum of 1100 an acre, or 130,000 in all ; and he refused the offer. By the end of this year he will have sold off the grass part of his little farm no less than 11,000 worth of cattle. I do not suggest that he would not have made a good financial bargain by selling, nor does he ; but the land is reckoned worth a very high price ; and the man who farms it has made enough money out of farming to set up sons in fanning ; and the sons are themselves making money. Good land of a certain sort is always worth a good price.
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