"
"Talking of business," said the professor, turning to the manufacturer,
who had been quietly smoking, "why don't some of you capitalists take hold
of farming here in the East, and make a business of it as they do in the
West?"
"Thank you," said the other; "if you mean me, I would rather not invest."
He was silent a moment, and then he went on, as if the notion were
beginning to win upon him: "It may come to something like that, though. If
it does, the natural course, I should think, would he through the
railroads. It would he a very easy matter for them to buy up all the good
farms along their lines and put tenants on them, and run them in their own
interest. Really, it isn't a bad scheme. The waste in the present method
is enormous, and there is no reason why the roads should not own the
farms, as they are beginning to own the mines. They could manage them
better than the small farmers do in every way. I wonder the thing hasn't
occurred to some smart railroad man."
We all laughed a little, perceiving the semi-ironical spirit of his talk;
but the Altrurian must have taken it in dead earnest: "But, in that case,
the number of people thrown out of work would be very great, wouldn't it?
And what would become of them?"
"Well, they would have whatever their farms brought to make a new start
with somewhere else; and, besides, that question of what would become of
people thrown out of work by a given improvement is something that capital
cannot consider.
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