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WHO PAYS YOUR TAXES?

number of dogs. They lessen the amount of work, andfinally they so crowd the cities as to make moral andphysical health impossible for the worker.

Since only labor and land are necessary for work, andboth are present, we must look for the reason why one isnot applied to the other. To begin with land : it is notthat the earth is not big enough. It is calculated thatEurope has a population of but one to every seven acres;North and South America , one to eighty acres; and evenAsia, but one man to about thirteen acres . 1 It is not thatthe earth is all used, but that, in addition to the neces-sary rent, or to the interest on its cost, agricultural landwill not ordinarily yield any taxes whatever and leavethe worker more than a bare living. Nor is the fieldalluring to labor. At the best, the life of a farmer is anunattractive one. There is no eight-hour day for him.His work is from sun to sun, and his wife’s work is pro-verbially never done. His situation is isolated. He islargely cut off from society; and it is not possible, at theaverage wages of a farm laborer—not over twenty dollarsa month and his own board during eight months of theyear—that he should support even a small family andmake any saving at all. This it is that leads to the over-crowding of cities. This it is that brings a continuousstream of the most energetic into our great centresof population; and this stream, notwithstanding all our

1 The whole population of the globe could go into the State of Texas , andhave less than ten to the acre.