You see how little evidence there is in support of the Socialist “law” of concentration. Another contention of Marx and his followers is that concentration will also show itself in the principal industry of humanity--agriculture. Do the facts support this prediction? Certainly, not in England, or in any other country in Europe. But how about the farmers of the United States? Are they being absorbed and enslaved by a few capitalists? Once upon a time there was reason to fear that agriculture was to be concentrated in the “bonanza” farms, but the years have gone and the danger is past, “bonanza” farming having proved a failure. Instead, we now have “intensive” farming--a method of raising crops that calls for smaller, rather than larger, farms. To get a clear view of the agricultural situation in this country, we shall not go back in the records to the date of Marx’s prediction. Such figures would “show him up” in so ridiculous a light that I haven’t the heart to subject his prophesy to this test. Instead, we will simply retrace our steps to 1900, when we find that there were 5,737,372 farms in the United States, the average size being 146.2 acres. In 1910--just ten years later--the number of farms had increased to 6,340,357, and the average holdings had decreased to 138 acres. If you desire to examine more detailed statistics, turn to _The Common Cause_, (July, 1912), and read the evidence that Mr. West has accumulated. “While the so-called law of concentration fails absolutely to work out under these acreage statistics,” he says, “its failure is still more complete when we compare the movement of acreage with the movement of farm values. The average number of acres in the farm came down from 146 in 1900 to 138 in 1910; but farm land (exclusive of buildings), which was valued at $13,100,000,000 in 1900, rose to $28,400,000,000 in 1910, an increase of 117.4 per cent. In other words, the farm wealth of the country more than doubled during the ten-year period while the average size of farm holdings considerably decreased. The conclusion from these figures is, of course, inevitable: not only has there been no concentration of wealth in land but, on the contrary, there has been an astonishingly great and rapid diffusion of wealth.” Even Spargo, who is admittedly a well-informed Socialist, recognizes the weakness of the Marxian theory when applied to agriculture, for he says (“Socialism,” p. 134): “One thing seems certain, namely that farm ownership is not on the decline. It is not being supplanted by tenantry: the small farms are not being absorbed by larger ones.” This is in direct contradiction to the assertions of the majority of Socialist agitators. With voice and pen they are still predicting the downfall of the farmer, and this in spite of the frank admissions of the more fair-minded and informed Socialists that the conditions they describe do not exist.