It follows, therefore, that without any inercase of the land under cultivation our peasants could effect a twofold or a threefold increase in their harvests, simply by abandoning antiquated methods in favour of up-to-date ways of cultivating the soil.
113. The Union of manufacturing Industry with Agriculture.
The development of the towns which has been the outcome of the divorce of manufacturing industry from agriculture and of the predominant role assumed by manufacturing industry in the economic process of social life as a whole, has, in the later phases of capitalism, become a monstrous growth. The best energies of village life have systematically passed from the village to the town. Not merely has the urban population grown faster than the rural population, but town has positively grown at the expense of country. In many capitalist lands there has been an absolute decline in the rural population. Some of the towns, on the other hand, have swelled to fantastic proportions. The consequences have been disastrous both to town and country. Among the ill effects, may be mentioned: the depopulation of the villages and their relapse into primitive conditions; the separation of rural life from urban culture; a severance of the