_Abandoned farms._—The most disturbing feature of this readjustment is the desertion of some farms in the rougher parts of New England and the drier parts of the West. These lands will find a profitable use in the woodlots through the East, and in grazing ranges through the West, with slight permanent loss. They are not signs of poverty, but of a developing thrift, just as the abandoned country woolen mills tell the story of immense growth in the factory methods. While individuals seeking profit in sale or rent of their farms may suffer in any such shrinkage of local values, it must not be forgotten that the total of rural welfare is not necessarily diminished. Land values, aside from improvements, are everywhere evidence of limitations to welfare in some special direction. If human enterprise and invention and thrift lessen such limitations, the world is better off. The great mass of farmers, who think more of their homes than of property, will suffer little from lower prices of land unless such low prices result from a general lack of thrift and of adaptation to new circumstances. While the changes in price which affect reduction of rent values do require readjustment of plans and methods, the farmer who keeps in touch with the world’s work will not suffer, but gain, in the general advancement. In many instances, the low condition of farm property is due to unthrifty neglect of farmers in whole neighborhoods. Bad roads, short schools, weak fences and poor stock are as often a cause as an effect of low prices of land. Whole regions in our country suffer in this way from unthrift, whatever the price of farm products or of lands. _Farms in the United States._—These are under conditions best suited to attend the general thrift of the world in every way. Ownership is not complicated in any way with magisterial duties or prestige or entailment, as in England. It is not so distinctly hereditary as to embarrass agriculture by extreme subdivision of farms, as in France and other portions of Europe. It is in no danger of combination into great estates under absentee landlords, as in Ireland. Its laws of transfer and guaranty are growing more and more simple and direct, while protection to homestead rights is strong. Farmers themselves have such responsibility in state and nation as to make their genuine interests felt everywhere, and no system of caste can make them a peasantry, as in most of the Old World. Indeed, the farmer in every region makes his farm; and the enterprising, educated farmer of the next generation in our country will find in himself the forces at work to give value to his land. The speculative movement in land holding will be outgrown when genuine farm homes are more prized for their welfare than for their wealth; but this very welfare will maintain a stable value in lands. PART III. CONSUMPTION OF WEALTH. Chapter XXIII. Wealth Used By Individuals.