MAKE THE WILD LANDS FRUITFUL
Williams, Albert L.
Make the Wild Lands Fruitful A Plan of Co-operative Land Buying to Develop a State's Agricultural and Human Resources By ALBERT L. WILLIAMS What policy should govern an enlightened progressive...
...Be that as it may, the expense of selling, whatever it be, is a charge upon the profits...
...This is a direct solution of the problem of agricultural credits which has been made a part of each political platform adopted or proposed to be adopted by national parties this year...
...The light thus let in on individual affairs can not fail to have a marked, and I believe salutary effect, upon the personal habits of the colonists...
...that is very old and common...
...The manager is the original colonist, he invites the others to join him...
...But if one can not accept the writer's optimism, let him follow no further than the limit of his imagination...
...Private owners will contribute the land on terms that will be satisfactory...
...Instead of stockholders we have colonists, not a few big ones that control and a lot of little ones that don't count, but each adult residing upon a tract the equivalent of any other...
...All that is strictly necessary is state supervision to give public confidence in the undertaking...
...The state performs for them the one service they can not render themselves...
...The following article is written by one who has given much study to this subject, from the point of view of serving both the individual and the community interests...
...Public discussion is taking up this problem of how best to aid and encourage farm settlement...
...Owning and holding for common use so much that goes to make up the town site, I believe they should decline to part title to any portion of it...
...turn all of the profit into an endowment of the colony that produced it...
...It is then up to the colonists to invest the fund in the manner that will yield the greatest revenue, which is the same as saying, in the manner that will subserve the largest public interest...
...In foreign countries the unsecured paper of Credit Unions is given the lowest interest rate, such as is paid by one bank to another...
...Not to be invested in securities, but in property,—the things most needed by the majority of the colonists and rented to them at a commercial profit...
...Such an organized community can and should provide every social and economic facility which the individual can not...
...Terms as liberal as these have been given by private land owners in this state to selling agents in whom they had confidence, and my plan is to ask of the state no more than a prudent individual might find to his advantage...
...Should a colonist sell, he receives his share of the communal benefits in the enhanced value of his land, and the purchaser becomes by virtue of residence a beneficiary of the fund...
...The plan can even be tried without a dollar of the state's money...
...For an organized', community concious neighborhood, such as is here proposed, no law is necessary to afford potential ability to get all the money needed, if they understand the simple methods worked out in foreign countries...
...The sole function of the latter should be to wield a veto power should an unexpected emergency arise...
...Under direction of the College of Agriculture the colony must own and operate a demonstration farm where all the special problems that have a bearing upon their locality and conditions shall be worked out...
...But listen...
...Make the Wild Lands Fruitful A Plan of Co-operative Land Buying to Develop a State's Agricultural and Human Resources By ALBERT L. WILLIAMS What policy should govern an enlightened progressive commonwealth in developing untouched agricultural lands...
...But in all cases the initiative must be taken by the colonists' association after their minds have been prepared and the way pointed out by the colony manager and the experts of the state and University...
...And one of the peculiar advantages of our organization is the ready means of imparting such ideas to our people...
...but, to be safe, figure it at a third, or $125,000 on a 25,000 acre tract...
...The utmost safeguard to insure square dealing and sound methods must be thrown around the colony, and the chief instrumentality for attaining that end is publicity...
...Co-operation That Is Voluntary WHILE this is a co-operative colony, the co-operation is voluntary...
...How this plan would work out in all cases is difficult to determine in advance...
...The manager, under the advice of the state board, and later of the colonist body, is to ask all he can get, demanding say $2.50 per acre down and a like amount each year with interest at 6 per cent...
...Nor, on the other hand, are there any conditions or "strings" attached to the title...
...The advanced pupils in the public school should make up statements from our books and be thoroughly drilled in colony finances...
...it is but the vendee's share of the social value he has helped to create...
...Let all individual colonists join a joint obligation with the communal fund as collateral and borrow the money they need in the open market...
...Every dollar, in or out is not only a public record but is forced upon the attention both of the colonists and the state board...
...Plans For Effective Administration OUR ADMINISTRATIVE organization is an effective one...
...of the estimated selling price as profit...
...With proper leadership it would seem that this plan should test the utmost limit of human co-operation...
...There need be no long spun out terms of payment such as foreign countries have given when they intervened in real estate...
...Every form of co-operative enterprise that has anywhere been found useful or beneficial should be promoted...
...It will increase in value enough during the time it is on the market to pay administration expenses, interest and taxes for that period, leaving a clean 50 per cent...
...Community Service and Community Education This opens the greatest of schools for adults, a popular forum where all public and private needs will be discussed, where latent talents will burst into bloom, natural leadership be developed and wit and dullard alike be blessed...
...Should results meet the writer's most sanguine expectations it would not have the effect of booming adjacent land...
...At the end of each month the books are balanced, expenses paid, funds are set aside for future obligations, and the balance or profit is charged to the communal fund...
...In the beginning everything will depend upon the character and personality of the manager, but with the growth of the colony, whose hired man he becomes, and the development of their own leadership, his services will become less vital, and in time perhaps superfluous...
...There at that point, wherever it be, the plan is a success...
...The total capital of Wisconsin's cooperative creameries is but $253,205 in the entire state, and the capital of her most celebrated co-operative marketing concern, the Sparta Fruit Growers Association, is but $6,000...
...There are millions of acres of tillable land lying unoccupied, wait-ing for the hand of the farmer to transform them into productive fields...
...Our colony, with its supervision, its accurate methods and publicity, affords a credit basis unsurpassed...
...It is a money-making proposition...
...sell for all it will fetch...
...The terms of the bulk sale by the state to the colony should be in the nature of a selling contract with the colony manager, requiring from him something like a dollar per acre down on each acre sold, together with any taxes paid by the state during the interval preceding sale, and interest on same, and a dollar per acre per year thereafter, together with interest from date computed at whatever rate the state pays, and added to the principal of each sale...
...Not meeting once a year to elect directors and pass formal resolutions, but every week to discuss every side of every question, big or little...
...The plan possesses the advantages of requiring no revolutionary legislation, nor is it necessary to go into it in a big way...
...Not to be paid back in dividends, nor spent as an expense fund, but to be carefully invested under such rules as will safeguard the principle while giving the utmost range to its usefulness...
...We shall have ample book assets due the communal fund in the form of contracts receivable...
...In the beginning the communal funds will come in very slowly, but this condition can be met by the organization of a Credit Union...
...Start one colony and try it out, if the results justify, start more...
...Ample reservations of land surrounding the store site must be made to provide for a future village, the demonstration farm orchard and all the social needs of the future...
...It may be that he would have to resort to advertising or the employment of agents, or it may be that the mere announcement would suffice...
...The agreement covering this trusteeship is contained in the primal contract of bulk sale, made by the state with the colony manager as representative of the future colony...
...It is presented here in the belief that it will contribute something of value to public discussion.—-Editor's Note...
...Act upon the theory of a co-operative purchase by colonists yet to be...
...this is new...
...It must run its own store and creamery, own all the larger and more expensive tools, maintain its own warehouses and packing houses for assembling, storing, preparing and marketing its produce...
...the manager to be ex-officio a member of all committees...
...It needs no special favor and should cost the state not one dollar...
...They should be encouraged to keep farm accounts and to submit them for comparison and audit...
...Legally the state holds the funds in trust, and disburses them upon warrant of the colonists' association approved by the supervising board...
...Let us call this the bulk sale to distinguish it from the individual sales of farm parcels...
...It would be the co-operative plan that would be boomed, with the result that other land owners would find their readiest market through the state colonies...
...Let all who go to make up the village community rent from the colony on renewable term leases, with a reappraisal of rental every five years...
...By its purpose must the venture be judged, and I hope to suggest a co-operative colony plan which, if made the objective, would justify a state excursion into this realm of business...
...The enhanced value is not an unearned increment...
...FROM VARIOUS DIRECTIONS comes the suggestion that Wisconsin acquire all the wild lands within her borders...
...Control of the Communal Funds THE CONTROL, of this communal fund should rest in a double house, the popular branch being the colonists themselves, with a state appointed board as a senate...
...The neglected insect and disease-breeding farm orchards should give way to a community-owned, expert-managed orchard for Make the Wild Lands Fruitful home supply and, if conditions are favorable, for commercial purposes as well...
...What then may we expect from a communal capital of at least $125,000 coupled with our communal organization...
...Good agricultural land in northern Wisconsin is selling at an average of $15 per acre in farm parcels, and the same land when for sale in bulk can be had for half that price...
...Colonists buy their land without the scratch of a pen to show that there is a benefit concealed in the purchase price...
...In Wisconsin this is becoming a live question...
...on deferred payments...
...As a matter of business morals the colony must pay its way...
...Let the state acquire the land as cheaply as possible and...
...When the association grows to unwieldy size, standing committees will be elected covering every chapter of communal life, and every colonist will be attached to those committees for which their special interest or natural aptitude may fit them...
...she turns over to their representative, the colony manager whom she selects for them, a tract of land at exact cost...
Vol. 4 • July 1912 • No. 28
