FARM COLONY. An artificial settlement of unemployed persons on the land. Farm colonies are relatively little known in Great Britain, but they have been in existence in Germany for 45 years and in Holland for over 90 years. It was the Unemployed Workman's Act of 19o5 which created the possibility of such an experiment in Great Britain. A feeling had grown up amongst social and land reformers that the question of the land and the question of the unemployed were closely bound together, and therefore to several classes of the unemployed, especially the unskilled, almost the only resource was work on the land offering at least a chance of productive and useful employment.
There can be no doubt about the numbers of the unemployed or the need for better cultivation of the soil, but the problem is not so easy of solution even though we have waste labour and waste land, for often the waste labour is the wrong kind of labour for agricultural purposes and very frequently the waste land costs too much to bring into cultivation. There are various types of farm and labour colonies some of which are really outside the scope of this article, such as penal colonies for the unemployable. There is for example the colony of Merxplas near Antwerp and two other colonies in Belgium designed to stamp out mendicity. Merxplas alone has 4,500 men, and with the other two colonies at Wortel and Hoogstraten possesses about 3,00o acres of land. There is a similar system in Holland, where there are three Gov ernment colonies which may be described as penal settlements for beggars and tramps.
A farm colony is really designed for the unskilled unemployed. As long ago as 1894 an experiment was made at a farm at Laindon in Essex by the Poplar Board of Guardians assisted by the late Joseph Fels. This followed the experiment in 1893 in connection with the Salvation Army colony at Hadleigh, Essex, which is still in existence, but is now more a training farm for boys who are sent abroad to the overseas Dominions. About 200 boys at a time between the ages of 14 and 19 were in 1928 being trained in this farm colony and at times there were in addition some 70 or 8o unemployed men who are being trained for agricultural work and for emigration. Another farm colony was purchased in 1928 by the Salvation Army in the vicinity of St. Albans. The Hadleigh colony has an area of 3,00o acres. It is four miles from Southend. The land is a stiff clay, rather cold and poor in character. It has however immensely improved in value. About a hundred acres are planted with fruit trees and with it are pasture land, market gar dens and chicken farms. Hadleigh is not a very great loss to the Salvation Army and indirectly it is of immense value in the train ing of boys for overseas work.
In Germany there are something like 3o colonies which were founded under the auspices of the German Labour colony central board for the unskilled unemployed. These colonies were and are run by philanthropy, but subsidised by the provincial governments. The first was started in Oct. i888 on the initiative of Pastor von Bodelschwingh. These farm colonies are run on religious lines but all unemployed men able to work are admitted without distinction of character or religion so long as there is room. The only form of punishment is dismissal; colonists dismissed for bad behaviour cannot be admitted into another colony without the consent of the colony which discharged them. About 5o% are men of good character but in need of training. Perhaps the best German farm colony is that at Lulerheim which has created out of somewhat unpromising material in the shape both of waste land and waste labour a very successful labour colony. The buildings themselves have been constructed in the main by the colonists with a little paid assistance.
Perhaps it is to Holland that we ought to look for the best type of farm colony for the unemployed. The most famous example is that at Frederiksoord situated in Vriesland, north-east of the Zuy der Zee and about 9m. from Steenwyck. It is one of three, the other two being Willemsoord and Wilhelminasoord. These colo nies consist of io,000 acres of heath and sand which have been brought under cultivation by townbred unemployed men, many of them over 4o years of age. They are sent from the town by the Society of Beneficence. Frederiksoord has a population of between 1,000 and 2,000 and the work is chiefly agricultural although it does include dairying, brick making and other trades. These Colo nies receive married men with their families as well as unmarried men and if the man has a wife and children and is accepted in one of these colonies he is usually housed in a separate cottage with a garden and the younger children are sent to a Government school on the colony. A specialty is made of horticulture in which there is excellent tuition and the gardens are a good illustration of what can be done by unskilled labour even on poor soil. There are large farms in connection with the colonies and men serve a probation upon the farms, but where a colonist has demonstrated his ability to learn the industry of agriculture he is given after a probation of two years a free farm of about 7 acres. Two years is the shortest possible period of probation.
It seems safe to say that farm colonies in England will not suc ceed without Government assistance and that side by side with such colonies there should be set up market gardens and rural industries developed upon co-operative lines. In the main, how ever, these colonies should serve as training schools for men who wish to become agriculturalists in such countries as Canada or New Zealand. In that case a loss per head is expected but the reward comes in the creation of the right kind of emigrant for the overseas Dominions. (P. A.) In the United States this phrase is used to indicate a group of farmers living in the same region and co-operating in soma manner. The best examples of such colonies are the groups of settlers on the arid and semi-arid lands of Western States who are banded together for the irrigation of otherwise unproductive land. Individual settlers, with the limited means at their disposal, were unable to build the large canals and irrigation structures necessary. This led to organizations of more or less compact units as water users associations or irrigation districts for financing the construction and operation of irrigation works. Under the costlier Federal and irrigation district developments colonization methods have become more important. The larger the number of people grouped together, the more necessary it is to have arrange ments for marketing and programmes of cultivation. The 35 operating projects under the Bureau of Reclamation, Department of the Interior, have a population of more than 226,969 on 52,552 irrigated farms, and the 258 project cities and towns have an additional population of 676,928.