MOVIE

The March of Time: Post-War Farms

1944 · 16 min · Documentary

Postwar Farms (MARCH OF TIME) will interest not only farmers but also those numerous urbanites who wonder wistfully how they might make out on five acres and a prayer. General answer: there is a chance for small farmers, through rural electrification and cooperatives, but not too gay or sure a one. Few or none of the returning soldiers who look forward to farming can be absorbed on the land; and the small farmer at best is threatened by the expanding immensity of 20th-century big-business farming. Most impressive—and to many, most depressing—shots in the film show the implacable march of incredibly proficient machines across vast acreages of California and New Jersey, with human beings assuming a relationship to the soil almost as impersonal as work in great factories, or in the bull pens of great companies.