California; Commission on Land Credits
Published: 2015-06-29
Total Pages: 126
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Excerpt from Report of the Commission on Land Colonization and Rural Credits of the State of California, November 29, 1916 The legislature of California, in 1915, passed a law providing for a commission to "Investigate and consider the question of land colonization, and the various forms of land banks, cooperative credit unions, and other rural credit systems adopted or proposed in this country or elsewhere, with especial view to the needs of the rural communities of this state." In accordance with this measure the following report has been prepared. Within the last five years questions of land tenure and land settlement have assumed a hitherto unthought of importance in the United States. The causes for this are the disappearance of free, fertile public land; the rising prices of privately-owned farm lands; the increase in tenant farming and a clearer recognition of its dangers; and the increasing attractions of city life which threaten the social impairment of rural communities by causing young people to leave the farms. Some of the most enlightened nations of the world have gone far toward solving the problems created by such undesirable conditions by the adoption of new attitudes on the part of the government towards land ownership and land settlement. In such countries the state has taken an active part in subdividing large estates and in creating conditions which will enable farm laborers and farmers of small capital to own their homes. They have adopted this policy because experience has shown that nonresident ownership and tenant farming are politically dangerous and socially undesirable; that ignorant and nomadic farm labor is bad; and that the balance between the growth of city and country can be maintained only through creating rural conditions which will make the farm as attractive as the office or factory for men and women of character and intelligence. The state of California has had no state land settlement policy. The subdivision of land for settlers, the character of settlers sought, and the kind of agriculture created, as well as the conditions of purchase, have all been left to unregulated private enterprise. There has been no public control over the selection of colonists to insure that they would be effective agents in rural development. There has been no public scrutiny of soil and conditions of purchase to render it certain that colonists would find an opportunity here rather than a temptation. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
