abandonment to the mortgagee of vast areas in New York, Connecticut,
New Hampshire, Maine, and to some extent in New Jersey. These are
now largely resold.

Declining fertility and exorbitant and oppressive transportation
charges have helped to keep these lands out of use, and some still
lie idle and neglected, to excite the wonder of the social and
economic student. To use the abandoned lands of the East, equal
rates on agricultural products is a basic necessity.

The first step, now well under way, is railroad control by the
Government. Equal access to transportation is as essential as equal
access to land, for transportation is indeed an attribute of land.

Extending the inquiry westward, the coal and oil areas of
Pennsylvania and Ohio are all controlled by a few hands. The
original fertility of the farming areas of these states, together
with the fact that they have been producing for only about a
century, has enabled them to hold their own until recently, but now
only the best located tracts are in maximum production, and this can
he maintained only by the most advanced agricultural science. In
spite of greater advantages, the crowded cities and deserted country
districts are beginning to repeat in the fertile alluvial valleys of
the interior, the tragic story of the East.

In the Mississippi valley, conditions seem better. Values of farming
lands are increasing rapidly; the farms are rich and growing richer;
food products are cheap and abundant; certain staples are produced
in enormous quantities and sent to feed the cities of the East and
the industrial population of Europe. The railroads transport these