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Titles included in this collection are listed in the volumes published by the Comell University Press in the series The Literature of the Agricultural Sciences, 1991-1996, Wallace C. Olsen, series editor. RURAL SOCIOLOGY jTt^^ THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., Limited LONDON ■ BOMBAY • CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA. Ltd. TORONTO RURAL SOCIOLOGY BY JOHN MORRIS GILLETTE, Ph.D. PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY IN THE UNIVEHSITY OF NORTH DAKOTA Author of "Constructive Rural Sociology," "Vocational Education," "The Family and Society," etc. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1922 All rightt reserved PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES Of AMEBICA 0-' COPTSIOHT, 1922, By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyp«d. Published August, 1922. TO MY WIFE AND DAUGHTER PREFACE My previous work on rural sociology was published in 1913, and its distribution was widened year by year. But it was a pioneer work, with obvious defects. Realizing that ultimately I should be faced with the necessity of preparing a thorough re- vision, I made a new study of the rural situation with a view to writing an entirely new work in this field. The present volume is the result. In the preparation of this volume I have sought to make it factual, representative, comprehensive, interpretive, and sug- gestive of improvement, where advisable. I have preferred to keep closely to the facts rather than to make easy and sweeping statements. Indeed, my chief aim has been to make clear the actual conditions of rural life. While the work embraces the whole field of rural sociology, it seeks to give a picture of the rural situation in the United States by reference to the several sections of the country. Thus it will be found representative of the nation as a whole, and also of most sections of the country. Although I have carefully avoided generalizations and theories where there were no facts to warrant such interpretation, I have attempted to draw conclusions, and make inductions wherever the concrete facts permitted. I have not found it possible to suggest improvement in farm life at all points, but wherever remedies could appropriately be given, they have been presented. It may be that I have been over-modest in refraining from all dogmatic statements. It will be noted that the book is divided into parts, and these parts into chapters. It is true that there is a great amount of overlapping of the material from one part to another ; and that certain sections might as well have been placed in one part as in another. However, the division into parts should be useful, as it represents a rather natural subdivision of the material. The bibliographies appended to the various chapters are in- tended to be suggestive, rather than entirely comprehensive. No reference has been made to a large amount of equally good viii PREFACE material; but the lists represent the books and articles which have aided me in the preparation of this work, and which I be- lieve will be of value to others. I take this occasion to thank writers and investigators whose material I have used in constructing this volume; and also the publishers of The Annals, the American Journal of Sociology, and the Quarterly Journal of the University of North Dakota, for large use of material which I had previously published in their columns. J. M. GILLETTE Grand Forks, N. D., June, 1922. CONTENTS PART I. RURAL SOCIETY AND RURAL SOCIOLOGY CHAPTER PAGE I RuEAL Sociology as a Science 3 Development of the subject, 3. Purpose and scope of rural sociology, 6. Relation of rural sociology to general sociology, 6. Main tasks of rural sociology as an applied science, 8. Relation of rural sociology to other rural disciplines, 10. Methods of instruc- tion, 11. The title, rural sociology, 14. Topics for discussion, 15. References, 15. II Society and Rural Life 16 The nature of society, 16. Rural life as a phase of society, 21. Rural life problems as social prob- lems, 23. Topics for discussion, 26. PART II. THE NATURE OF RURAL SOCIETY III The Development of Rural Society ... 29 Rural society and evolution, 29. Origin of rural so- ciety, 30. Stages of development, 33. Study ques- tions and topics, 39. References, 40. IV Distinctive Character of Rural Society . . 41 Rural society like society in general, 41. Character of the population, 42. Economic distinctions, 44. Domesticity, 47. Culture and recreation, 48. The rural mind, 50. Social organization, 52. Topics for discussion, 53. References, 54. V Types of Rural Communities 55 Importance and task of distinguishing types, 55. Meaning of types, 59. Traits common to types of communities, 60. General types, 62. Topics for discussion, 75. References, 76. PART III. CONDITIONS AND MOVE- MENTS OF THE RURAL POPULATION VI Characteristics and Movements in the Rural Population 79 Increase in rural population, 79. Rural migration and rural depopulation, 88. Age distribution, 99. ix CONTENTS Sex distribution and marriage, 100. Nationality and race, 101. Topics for discussion, 103. Refer- ences, 104. VII Backward and Anti-Social Classes .... 105 Poverty and pauperism, 106. Insanity and epi- lepsy, 108. The feeble-minded, 115. Anti-social classes, 119. Topics for discussion, 128. Refer- ences, 129. VIII Rural Health and Sanitation 131 Basis of interest in rural health, 131. Rural versus ■i.ij,Tural health conservation, 134. Rural health de- ficiencies, 142. Rural health improvement, 147. Topics for discussion, 161. References, 162. PART IV. ECONOMIC CONDITIONS AND PROBLEMS _ IX Physical Conditions and Agricultural Society 167 General influences of physical environment, 167. Physical conditions in the United States and agri- culture, 168. Physical environment and rural so- ciety, 171. Topics for discussion, 173. Refer- ences, 173. X Agricultural Production 175 ' Importance of agricultural production, 175. Increas- ing production, 182. Directions of improvement, 186. Business side of increasing production, 191. Topics for discussion, 194. References, 195. XI National Welfare and a National Land Policy 197 Reasons for a comprehensive land policy, 197. Used and usable land in the United States, 201. A Na- tional forest policy, 205. Conservation of water- power and mineral resources, 210. Some historic and proposed land policies, 211. A modern policy for agricultural land settlements, 215. Topics for discussion, 220. References, 220. XII Farmers and Economic Action : Marketing and Cooperation 223 Marketing functions essential, 225. Defects of the farm marketing system, 229. Improvement of the marketing system, 244. Cooperation and coopera- tive marketing, 250. Topics for discussion, 254. References, 254. CONTENTS xi CHAPTEH PAGE XIII Farm Management 257 Its nature and significance, 257. Principles and il- lustrations of farm management, 260. Topics for discussion, 272. References, 272. XIV The Tenant System of Farming 274 The spread of tenancy, 274. Social significance of farm tenancy, 278. Causes of tenancy in the United States, 285. Suggestive and preventive, 290. Topics for discussion, 294. References, 294. XV Agricultural Labor 297 Nature of the problem, 297. Extent and sources of farm labor, 298. Regular labor, 303. Seasonal la- bor, 310. Child labor, 319. Topics for discussion, and research, 320. References, 321. XVI Rural Communication 323 Significance of communication, 323. Defects of the road system in the United States, 326. Economic and social benefits of improved communication, 330. Improvement of the communicating system, 334. Topics for discussion, 339. References, 340. XVII Farmers and Political Action 343 Backwardness of farmers in governmental matters, 343. Agrarian movements, 346. Legitimacy of farmers' political organizations, 355. Farmers and county government, 359. Topics for discussion, 361. References, 362. PART V. RURAL INSTITUTIONS XVIII Farm Women and the Home 367 The home as a social institution, 367. Unique po- sition of the rural home, 369. The rural woman's work and conditions, 371. Some things being done to better conditions of farm women, 382. The home as a social center for children, 390. Home plan- ning, 394. Topics for discussion, 398. References, 398. XIX The Rural School and Rural Education . . 401 Value and function of education, 401. Rural school conditions, 404. Rural school improvement, 414. Topics for discussion, 433. References, 434. XX The Rural Church 438 Historical import of religion, 438. Conditions re- flected by the rural church, 439. Causes of "de- xu CONTENTS cadence," 442. The church's stake in the rural prob- lem, 447. What the church may do to succeed, 449. Y. M. C. A., 454. Topics for discussion, 454. Ref- erences, 455. PART VI. TOWN AND COUNTRY XXI Declining Villages of America 459 Decline in village population, 460. Causes of de- cline, 469. Conditions in villages, 474. Directions of improvement, 479. Topics for discussion, 483. References, 483. XXII Relations op Town and Country .... 485 Town growth and country "decline," 486. Antago- nisms between town and country, 489. Basis of co- operation between town and country, 493. Topics for discussion, 496. References, 496. PART VII. SOME SPECIAL FEATURES OF RURAL PROGRESS XXIII Rural Progress . . 501 The nature of progress, 501. How rural progress is to be attained, 505. Limitations to rural progress, 511. Topics for discussion, 513. References, 514. XXIV Developing a Resident Rural Leadership . The meaning of leadership, 516. Potential leader- ship in the open country, 519. Where leaders are produced, 520. Migration of leaders to cities, 524. Training for rural leadership, 525. Topics for dis- cussion, 527. References, 527. XXV XXVI Community Building . . Responsibility for initiating community building, 548. Principles of community organization, 552. Methods of promoting community building, 554. Community centers, 558. Topics for discussion, 560. References, 560. Subject Index Authors' Index 515 Mitigating Rural Isolation 529 Causes of rural isolation, 530. Significance and ef- fect of isolation, 534. Questionable remedies, 538. Valid suggestions, 541. Topics for discussion, 544. 54(5 563 569 PART I EURAL SOCIOLOGY AND RUEAL SOCIETY RURAL SOCIOLOGY CHAPTER I RURAL SOCIOLOGY AS A SCIENCE ^ Development of the subject. — Practically all subjects which we regard as sciences or systematic treatises have been, in their origin, more or less connected with some great societal movement of their age or with some particular intellectual ferment. Rural sociology is no exception to the rule, for it is the product of the demands and insight of this generation. In speaking of its development it will be necessary to speak of the formation of the subject and of the influences causing its formation. 1. Every science or discipline is somebody's organized ideas about the field of facts the subject treats, the knowledge so organized being the product of many minds. It is needful that the facts shall come to attention and be collected and studied before the organization can be made. The term rural sociology has been used loosely to include all kinds of attempts to study and understand rural life. However the subject is rapidly un- dergoing organization and is developing into a fairly well de- fined discipline. The phenomena of agricultural communities have become better known by systematizers and the lines of organization better worked out and more clearly defined. Con- sequently the future of rural sociology as a science looks bright. At the present time rural sociology is widely taught in our educational institutions. A few years ago it was taught in 64 per cent of the 48 agricultural colleges, 45 per cent of the separate state universities, 32 per cent of the 91 normal schools, 9 per cent of the 301 other colleges and universities, or 21 per ' Considerable portions of this chapter are taken from a paper read by the writer before the American Sociological Society in 1916. The entire paper entitled "The Scope and Methods of Instruction in Bural Sociology" is to be found in the Publications of that society, Vol. XI : 163-180. 3 4 RURAL SOCIOLOGY cent of the total 460 institutions studied by the investigator relative to the teaching of the subject.^ In 1920-21 it was taught in 140 colleges and universities, 90 normal schools^ and 30 theological seminaries. This is a creditable showing for a new subject to make in a short time. It represents only the academic interest of the field of rural society. The larger in- terest deserves attention. 2. The influences which have called attention to rural life affairs and thus forced the development of rural social sciences in general and of rural sociology in particular are so numerous that only the leading ones can be mentioned. This brief treat- ment makes no attempt to indicate the historic order of their appearance. Long ago, marketing conditions attracted the attention of farmers, and in their organizations the control of markets and of rates of transportation was seriously discussed. In fact some of the great agrarian movements in this country, such as the Grange, Alliance, Union, Society of Equity, Gleaners, Non- partisan League, and others, have been directly or intimately connected with problems of farm marketing. While primarily an economic matter, marketing touches vitally so many social interests of rural communities that it thereby becomes of so- ciological importance. The production of agricultural goods likewise forced itself into conspicuous notice sometime ago. The rapid growth of population in the United States and the relative decrease in per capita exports of farm products caused an alarm in some quar- ters. This reduction appeared to threaten national commercial interests and to menace the domestic food supply. Consequently the deterioration of the soil and the improvement of methods of agricultural production were widely discussed, not only by agricultural experts but by publicists. Farm production, like marketing, is more than an economic affair, involving as it does the various interests of national and local society. In quite different directions other large problems of coun- try communities came into view. With the growth of pro- gressive educational discussion the schools of rural districts * Sanderson, Dwight, ' ' The Teaching of Rural Soeiology, ' ' American Journal of Sociology, 22:434. 'Letter from W. J. Campbell, Young Men's Christian Association Col- lege, Springfield, Mass. RURAL SOCIOLOGY AS A SCIENCE 5 were laid on the public dissection table. Their shortcomings were revealed and the little country school became anathema to many instead of an object of veneration. Similarly the country church was convicted of sin and "ministerial vivisec- tion" and other heinous practices were brought before the bar of judgment. Rural church decadence and overlapping were pointed to as symptoms of community inefficiency. The Census reports on "rural depopulation" contributed their stimulus to popular agitation. Backward neighborhoods, the condition of farm women, the drift to the city, the farm boy and girl, and many other subjects received a hearing. The Report of the Country Life Commission in 1909 greatly in- tensified interest in rural affairs and vastly widened discussion. Newspapers, periodicals, books, national gatherings of many kinds, farmers' meetings and institutes, extension and Chau- tauqua lecturers, preachers, teachers, agricultural specialists and workers, all became agents in pointing to rural deficiencies and expounding rural improvement. The "rural problem" be- came an epidemic. Curiously enough, multitudes of articles from city people, many of whom had never been on a farm but who believed they knew how to cure the evils of farm life, went into print. Out of this national ferment, rural sociology and other sub- jects concerned with farm life were born. The truth embodied in President Ide Wheeler's admonition to an agricultural asso- ciation gained recognition: "Our business ultimately is a so- ciological business. Considerations of soil technology but scratch the surface. What we are busied with here is trying to find out how to adjust the soil to the use of families," and, he might have added, to communities.^ Courses of instruction on rural sociology appeared in insti- tutions of learning during the emergence of social conscious- ness of rural society and became a contributing influence to its formation. The University of Chicago offered rural sociology for the first time as a college discipline in the scholastic year 1894-5; the University of Michigan in 1902-3; Rhode Island College and Cornell University in 1904-5; the University of Missouri and Massachusetts College in 1906-7 ; the University of North Dakota in 1908-9. Since 1908-9, educational institu- 'ISaudersou, loc. cit., 434. 6 RURAL SOCIOLOGY tions have entered the field rapidly, attaining the number and proportion previously reported.^ Purpose and scope of rural sociology. — If by sociology is always meant a rigidly scientific attempt to account for group phenomena, and if, further, the attempt must be dissociated from utilitarian motives, then the title "rural sociology" is in- competent to express the scientific import of sociological studies of rural communities. But, for the same reasons, there are few treatises which may be called sociologies, and the newer works bearing that name are especially ineligible because they deal so largely with the solution of practical problems. If to treat rural life quite largely as a set of problems to be solved is unscientific, rural sociology at present cannot qualify for the scientific class. It arose out of a growing demand for the appli- cation of rational intelligence to the conditions obtaining in country districts, and its initial spirit and motive was thereby necessarily rendered practical and utilitarian. The great busi- ness of rural sociology is, and perhaps ever will be, the attain- ment of a sympathetic understanding of the life of farming communities and the application to them of rational principles of social endeavor. But general sociology, at its best, is but a wrought-out structure of intellectual problems, and if rural sociology pursues its mission of understanding and solving in a rational manner the issues of rural life, it will become scien- tific, but will differ essentially from sociology in general by reason of its more restricted and immediate sphere. Its first i imperative is to understand rural communities in terms of their I conditions. Its next imperative is to formulate right ways of y action. We may think of rural sociology as that branch of sociology which systematically studies rural communities to discover their conditions and tendencies, and to formulate prin- ciples of progress. Relation of rural sociology to general sociology. — Since it falls within the general sociological field, rural sociology must sustain a somewhat definite relation to the former discipline. Historically, of course, it is obviously subsequent to general sociology since it is embryonic, while general sociology is attain- ing its adulthood. 1. However it cannot be regarded as a derivative of general ' Sanderson, loc. cit., 443. RURAL SOCIOLOGY AS A SCIENCE 7 sociology, in the sense that any particular or peculiar part has been extracted from that subject and formed into a new disci- pline. Nor has the general subject furnished the facts or the situation out of which rural sociology has been formed. Only in this sense may rural sociology be regarded as a derivative of general sociology: the way of viewing society and the gen- eral community principles developed in general sociology are being applied to the organization of the subject by men who have been trained in the larger subject. 2. Rural sociology presupposes general sociology, since it assumes a knowledge of the nature of society and of its inner processes. This knowledge has been developed by general sociology, by a study of the life of primitive groups, of present national and functional groupG, and of social evolution in gen- eral. One who has gained this knowledge possesses a means of interpreting community conditions which is indispensable for an adequate appreciation of rural neighborhoods. If the stu- dent of rural conditions has been unable to equip himself with this broader vision and deeper insight he may yet receive great benefit from the study of rural sociology. We may say, then, that rural sociology depends on general sociology for its wider point of view, its method of approach to social situations, and its grasp of guiding principles for organization and interpre- tation of facts. But this does not signify that rural sociology is not an inde- pendent discipline — independent in the sense that it is a dis- tinct scientific subject. It is quite as independent of general sociology as the latter is of it, for general sociology is dependent on rural sociology for some of its material and content. The rural social sciences, by means of investigations and findings in rural society, are adding to the sum of human knowledge — knowledge which general sociology or general economics had not possessed previously. Inasmuch as general sociology is forced to rebuild and reorganize itself on the basis of new material and insight consequent to the study of the rural and other social fields, it is dependent on the special social sciences. Con- sequently, it at least presupposes the knowledge which rural sociology yields and is in that far dependent upon it. 3. Rural sociology is an applied science, while general so- ciology is a theoretical science. An applied science has more 8 RURAL SOCIOLOGY immediate regard to the application of principles and methods than has a general science. General science seeks to establish wide generalizations, principles of rational procedure, laws of phenomena — factors which may serve as a foundation for prac- tical art and control. It does not concern itself greatly with the art and control situation. Applied science, on the other hand, while it involves generalization and law, has an impor- tant interest in their application to concrete situations. It is deeply concerned with art and control results. However, it is not art, application, or control; but it develops principles and organizes its facts with a view to execution, leaving it to admin- istrators and organizers to get practical results. In this sense, rural sociology is an applied science relative to general sociology. It is an application of the principles and methods of approach of that science to the collection and or- ganization of the material gained by a study of rural conditions. The field of rural sociology is represented as that of a series or set of problems. But every science, general or applied, is constituted of a series of intellectual problems. Rural sociology is quite as much a series of intellectual constructs and problems as is general sociology; but in that it assumes the truths and principles of the latter and gives more attention to formulating programs of betterment, its intellectual problems bear a stronger resemblance to practical solutions and reforms than do those of general sociology. This is the only justification for calling it an applied science. Main tasks of rural sociology as an applied science. — Rural sociology deals with rural society exclusively; and it must do this scientifically. We have passed through the rhetorical and preachment stages of treating rural life problems. Rhetoric, oratory, and preachment are, no doubt, still demanded in the practical work of arousing agricultural inhabitants and citizens at large to an appreciation of the country life situation and of stimulating them to appropriate action. This is assumed. But antecedent to doing this practical educational work lies the im- perative scientific task of establishing competent and valid knowledge relative to rural society. The more scientific knowl- edge in general becomes, the more adequate and efficient will the educational process 'be. Whether speaker, writer, or teacher, the practical educational propagandist and worker must have RURAL SOCIOLOGY AS A SCIENCE 9 the assurance that his facts are accurate and that his illumi- nating and guiding principles are true. So much being taken for granted, there are several successive steps for rural sociology to take in the execution of its scientific and practical aim. Without undue expansion, these tasks may be considered as investigation, organization and interpretation of data, and the formulation of improvements wherever re- quired. 1. Like other sciences, rural sociology must find or ascertain the essential facts which lie within its domain. In order to gar- ner these facts it will be necessary to conduct investigations into the conditions obtaining in non-urban communities. This does not imply that the rural sociologist must conduct a per- sonal investigation in all rural neighborhoods, or in a great number, or possibly in even one of them. It is quite likely that, if properly equipped by previous study, the scientist who thoroughly investigates rural life through all available pub- lished sources of information will be able to speak more authori- tatively on rural society than will the one who has made one or more local studies but who is without wide reading. Investiga- tion may consist of observation of rural phenomena, of local surveys and studies, and of the collection and study of what has been published on rural society. 2. With the essential facts in hand, rural sociology will pro- ceed to organize the data into a body of knowledge, accurately representative of rural society and its conditions. Pacts are so much rubbish until played upon and given significance by in- telligence. A study of the facts brings a comprehension of the conditions they represent. The facts will be related to each other and assembled into groups according to their significance. Thus related they may represent rural conditions relative to crop production, health, education, the home, and other sub- jects. So ordered and arranged, they speak of what is, and furnish a foundation for interpretation. A science which stops short of interpretation of its data is destined to be neither very interesting nor very useful. Science must interpret, if it is to have significance for life ; and signifi- cance arises when objects and conditions are shown to be re- lated causally. When we know why the one crop system per- sists in some regions and what it means for the family and 10 RURAL SOCIOLOGY community in dollars and social advantages, we have an in- terpretation. Or, when we have learned why consolidated schools show a larger relative attendance than do one-room schools, we have set a valuation on those types of schools. In- terpretation is a process of placing a valuation on things, proc- esses, and conditions; and one of the greatest services rural sociology can perform consists in pronouncing upon the ade- quacy or inadequacy of rural processes and institutions. 3. Quite naturally and logically the mind passes from assess- ing values to asking, "What shall or should be done?" For in multitudes of cases to set a value on life conditions is to dis- cover deficiencies. Since interpretation involves comparing the actual with the ideal — the what is with what might or should be — scarcely ever is there a condition found which is so perfect that the thought of some improvement in it does not arise. This is the final step for any applied science; consequently, it is an ultimate step for rural sociology. As a writer, a teacher, or a student of the subject we can go no further. But we may cease to be a writer, teacher, or student, and become an organ- izer and administrator of rural affairs. Therefore rural so- ciology is not a reform of rural life; it can only hope to serve as a foundation and point of departure of such reform. Relation of rural sociology to other social disciplines. — It is fitting that attention be given to the relation of rural sociology to other disciplines devoted to considerations of agricultural communities. Rural economics, rural education, rural religion, rural recreation, etc., are subjects which have been given much attention and developed into more or less distinct disciplines. Without raising the question of the relative value of these de- veloping fields, it is safe to say there is slight, and should be no, interference between them and rural sociology. It is the ofSce of each discipline to select and correlate its content ac- cording to its dominating motive. The purpose set gives to each undertaking its scope and task. Whereas all lines of in- vestigation may consider pretty much the same data, however, since the dominating purposes in the premises are characteristi- cally divergent, there is small reason for conflict or interference. The rural sociologist may consider geographical conditions, but not as the geographer would consider and array them. The former selects only those geographical facts useful to his pur- RURAL SOCIOLOGY AS A SCIENCE 11 pose, accepts the conclusions of geographers relative to them, and seeks to discover their bearing in shaping and determining rural communities and societal affairs. Rural sociology may consider the economic conditions and relations of rural life, but the treatment should be syncopated. It accepts the findings of the economist, and it has no economic investigative function, nor any direct interest in the details of production, marketing, and credits, as such. But it does have an imperative duty to ascertain the bearing of these matters on rural welfare in its various phases and to arrive at an evaluation of them as agencies in the determination of vital conditions. The office of rural sociology should be clearly conceived and demarked. That office, it is seen, cannot be exercised by any other discipline when there is a clear judgment of the appro- priate division of labor between the various rural disciplines and of their interrelations. The ideal rural sociology will eval- uate geographic conditions, economic factors, the school, the church, and the various other important agencies. It will pro- nounce on the worth of social factors in view of what they should accomplish, suggest modifications in behalf of social effi- ciency, and propose the establishment of needed but lacking devices. It will seek to determine what is normal life for rural communities and to measure all factors by their contributive value thereto. Its function, after the facts are known, is in- terpretative, evaluating, and synthetic. Methods of Instruction. — It is not intended that a considera- tion of the methods of instruction pertinent to rural sociology shall involve a discussion of pedagogical principles and the various forms of class presentation. That knowledge of psychol- ogy and of the human mind essential to the best presentation of a given material to the intellectual apprehension of students will be presupposed. Our point of departure in discussing this portion of the sub- ject may be taken from the question : Is there anything in the nature of rural sociology to differentiate its methods of instruc- tion from those of the older social science disciplines? There is little to indicate that the methods of instruction applicable to rural sociology are distinguished from those em- ployed in the other applied social sciences. Is it possible to mention one method employed by rural sociology or conceived 12 RURAL SOCIOLOGY as being pertinent, which has not been used in the work of in- struction relative to charities, criminologyj sociology of urban communities, and so on ? Since nothing new in method suggests itself, we are forced to conclude that rural sociology employs and should employ the available methods developed in the other applied fields of social science. To make the discussion of this phase of the subject somewhat more complete, let me sketch the more important methods of instruction found profitable in this field. First, I do not doubt that the presentation of the outline and principles of rural sociology as a whole and of the various problems of rural society will, and should, proceed according to the long-used methods of text or lectures, or a discreet use of both. Whether text or lecture or both will be employed will depend on the outlook of the instructor, the time he has to accomplish the work, and the availability of profitable texts. Personally, in this as in other subjects, I believe that students receive the greatest value from the use of a text as the basis of discussion, supplemented by lectures on the part of the instructor. I am inclined to think that the exclusive employment of the lecture system is one of the distinct curses of collegiate education. Perhaps I am biased by my seven years' experience as a student in graduate work in various institutions of the United States. I am assuming that along with the class instruction will go a due amount of collateral reading. But that reading should be carefully selected by the instructor. There is much material in the literature of rural life that is empty. I conceive that mis- cellaneous references would prove a waste of the student 's time. I also assume that a large amount of free discussion will occur during the class hour. My experience with students inclines me to think that they receive the largest profit from this free but well-directed discussion. I have been surprised to learn that my most alert graduate students believe that they get the most out of our work when the course of instruction is given in an in- formal manner. -Next in importance to the text and lecture work, I would place the study of rural surveys. Our guesses as to conditions in rural life have run far ahead of the findings of surveys, so that when the surveys have come we have been prepared in a measure against the shock of their revelations. It is not because of their RURAL SOCIOLOGY AS A SCIENCE 13 discoveries of new things that they are to be highly rated, but be- cause of their confirmatory character and their vivid portrayal of the actuality in many little neighborhoods. The student can visualize the small community. His mind can grasp its outline and details. To him it is something that stands for rural life. This big outline which the instructor has presented is over- whelming and remote. But here in this survey is the reality; here is another such reality; here another. Through these con- crete expressions of the rural neighborhood, the student is able to grasp the significance and fill in the outlines of the larger aspects of rural life. Much of the instruction in law schools is given by way of the case method : The student is given his case. From a study of it he makes his findings, including the essential facts in the case, the principles of law involved, and the decision based on those principles. In a true sense the survey is representative of a case, and using surveys as a part of instruction is using the case method. Each community surveyed is on trial. The survey presents the facts as evidence in the case. The interpretation of the facts is based on principles of the social sciences. The con- clusions represent the decision. The study of surveys enables the student to comprehend rural communities as such, to know the principles of interpretation involved, and to conceive devices whereby the deficiencies of rural life may be rectified. The question of the employment of field work by the student as a part of the instruction in rural sociology is worthy of dis- cussion. On the one hand, the making of investigations and the carrying on of survey work have the merit of putting the student in touch with living situations and of stimulating in him a high degree of interest. On the other hand, investigations and sur- veys are difScult to make, they require maturity, they involve a large investment of time, and the field of effort is likely to be far removed from the institution where the instruction takes place. As a matter of fact, there are relatively few institutions in the United States which extensively and seriously employ their students, as a part of the course of instruction, in investi- gative and survey work. For both theoretical and practical reasons — and by practical reasons I mean my own experience — I will say there are two classes of students with whom the survey and investigative work 14 RURAL SOCIOLOGY may be used to advantage ; namely, graduate students, and those, mature students in various institutions who will live in country regions. The former are competent to do the work and the latter should have a training to execute tasks which they are likely to be called on to perform. For other classes of students, whether or not these forms of field work will be undertaken as a part of instruction in rural sociology should be decided upon the de- termination of the question: Will the interest in the subject on the part of the student that such work provokes be sufficient to remunerate him for his great expenditure of time? The title, "Rural Sociology." — In the vernacular, it has been said of rural sociology, "There ain't no such animal." It is asserted that there is but one sociology, and that is the general science of sociology. Without assigning too much importance to the discussion of whether or not the title "rural sociology" is a misnomer, let us consider it briefly. It appears likely that publicists and instructors in our higher institutions of learning have adopted the title to denote a socio- logical approach to the study of rural affairs. I apprehend that in their minds the title appeared to be a valid descriptive phrase of a much-needed division of labor. The situation was not dissimilar to that among primitive peoples when persons are denoted initially by descriptive names. A few years ago, while making an investigation among the Dakota Sioux Indians, I discovered that the Indians referred to me as "the man in gray," because of the color of my clothes. An acquaintance was known as "The Elk," his stature and physique suggesting running ability. The government storekeeper was dubbed "whang leather," his skin having the appearance of parchment. Prac- tically every male Indian bore a descriptive name. There was Black Bull, Sitting Bull, Blue Jacket, White Eagle, Shoot Holy, Little Soldier, and so on. We remember Spencer's treatment of the origin of names and the emphasis he places on descriptive beginnings. All this suggests that rural social study is only in its primitive stage, and that in its maturity it may possibly adopt a title which is more formal and less descriptive than that of rural sociology. However, according to usage governing names, the title "rural sociology" is supported by an extended sanction. In the field of psychology, besides general psychology, there is comparative RURAL SOCIOLOGY AS A SCIENCE 1', psychology, abnormal psychology, experimental psychologj', phys- iological psychology. Well-known works testify to their usage. The various kinds of history are denominated as ancient, me- diaeval, modern, Grecian, Roman, German, French, English, etc., ad infinitum. Chemistry is designated as organic, inor- ganic, applied, theoretical, agricultural, analytical, metallurgi- cal, pharmaceutical, physical, and sanitary chemistry. The va- riations in biology are alluded to as structural, systematic, plant, and animal biology. Similar findings appear relative to other domains of study. These facts indicate nothing more than that conventional usage sanctions such titles as general sociology, applied sociology, rural sociology, criminal sociology, inductive sociology, and other descriptive titles. It proves nothing rela- tive to the scientific accuracy of such appellations. But it gives those who desire to employ such titles the gratifying sense of traveling in a large and good eompaiiy. TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION 1. What general sciences are there in your institution? 2. What applied sciences! 3. What appears to be the relation between them? 4. Which is likely to develop earliest, a general science or the applied sciences? 5. What was the case in the field of sociology? 6. In order that the majority of those in the schools might have an opportunity to study rural sociology, in what educational grades would it have to be taught? 7. Would it be feasible or advisable? 8. Would the study of rural sociology be of any great benefit to rural teachers? to farmers? Why? 9. What probably was the descriptive origin of your name? 10. What descriptive names of localities in your state do you know? REFERENCES BuTTEEFiELD, Kenvon L. — " Eural Sociology as a College Discipline," Country Life Number, American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1912: 12-18. Gillette, John M. — Constructive Rural Sociology, Chap. I. Scope and Method of Instruction in Sural Sociology, Publications of American Sociological Society, 1917, XI: 163-180. Phelan, John — Readings in Mural Sociology, Chap. XX; "The Field of Rural Sociology"; The Macmillan Company, 1920. Sanderson, D wight — "The Teaching of Rural Sociology; Particularly in the Land Grant Colleges, ' ' American Journal of Sociology, 22 : 433-460. VooT, Paul L. — Introduction to Sociology, Chap. I; Appleton, 1917. CHAPTER II SOCIETY AND KURAL LIFE Were we all philosophers or social scientists, we would not need this chapter, for we would already be in possession of the significance of its ideas. But few have the full knowledge of any of the specialists mentioned and, as a consequence, there are many relationships we must have explained. One of the subjects needing explanation is the relation between society and rural life. Such an explanation will make a good introduction to the larger study which follows because it will help us get a larger conception of human life and of rural life and of how closely they are bound up with the rest of the world. THE NATURE OP SOCIETY Meaning of the term "society." — There are many individuals who have a very vague idea of the meaning of the term "so- ciety." Yet it is an old word, having been in use more or less since the times of Plato and Aristotle. However, its meaning has become more definite and more widely understood in recent years. At least a new science has grown up about the word, the science of sociology, which is devoted to the study of society. Sociologists inform us that by society is meant some kind and degree of association between individuals. A half dozen per- sons asleep in one place would not constitute a society, but let them awake and begin to converse and society would exist. Wherever there is a group of intercommunicating, interacting individuals there is a society. Kinds of society. — We get a still clearer idea of what society is when we discuss some of the various kinds of society there are. Of course the great divisions are human and animal so- ciety. We are justified in saying there are animal societies, not merely because animals go in groups but because within many such groups the individuals really communicate with one an- other and engage in some cooperative effort. Within the human 16 SOCIETY AND RURAL LIFE 17 division of society there are numerous kinds and varieties. To enumerate and discuss all of them is not necessary to our pur- pose. It will be sufficient to mention some of them in order that the fuller idea of society may appear. Gangs, cliques, elubs, orders, fraternities, associations, societies, organizations, churches, parties, sects, cities, states, nations, are names used to express some of the usual forms of human society. And when, further, we reflect over the fact that there are many varieties of parties, sects, churches, clubs, organizations, and so on we perceive that the larger society, of which all the kinds and varieties are interrelated and interacting subdivisions, is a most comprehensive and complicated structure. Each of us is a member of the larger society and also of several or many of the subsocieties. Some distinctive ideas involved in society. — We will be able to understand this structure called society all the better by noting some of the ideas or principles involved in it. a. Interdependence of function. — Society is based on the principle of interchange of function or service. This is readily seen in the case of one of the simplest forms of society, the fam- ily. The father carries on one kind of work, the mother another kind, and perhaps some of the children contribute their kinds of service. All the kinds of work are necessary to the existence of the family life and all members of the family are dependent on one another for their special gifts to it. Let any kind of work or function cease for long, the family life is crippled thereby. What is true of the family also obtains in a more complicated and expanded manner in the larger societies. In ancient writ- ings it was truly said, "We are all members one of another." b. Interdependence of condition. — The question is often asked: What are the conditions where you have been? The place in question may be Illinois, Massachusetts, California, or some country of Europe. We understand that by the word "condition" is meant the state of things, whether affairs are going well or poorly. Our proposition is that conditions in one portion of society depend upon and in a measure are the out- come of conditions elsewhere. Thus, crop failures in one part of the world influence the price of farm produce in other parts, and hence affect agricultural prosperity; the price of manu- factured goods abroad may induce increased manufacture here 18 RURAL SOCIOLOGY for the purpose of exportation ; agitation in one city or state for a certain measure or reform may cause agitation in other cities and states; one nation bent on war and exploitation may throw many other nations or the whole world into a state of warfare. It may be observed that interdependence of condition is largely the result of interdependence of function. This is especially true in economic matters. c. Growth or evolution, and change. — All of that large group of sciences known as the social sciences teach that society has evolved or grown. The anthropologist tells us of the origin and evolution of man out of the animal state of existence hun- dreds of thousands of years ago. The sociologist shows us how the first simple human societies must have begun, and how these simple societies expanded, compounded with one another, and evolved into larger, better developed societies — and these, in turn, into still greater ones. This process was continued un- til modern national societies resulted, and it is likely that further developments of much the same sort will yet take place. All of this past development has occurred because of changes which were constantly taking place in society somewhere. A change in one part produced a demand for a change in another part; and in some way the whole changing, growing thing moved forward together. Most of the changes were inevitable and be- yond the control of the will of man, but some were caused by man's intelligent, or at least conscious, intervention. Con- ditions in the physical environment have often produced changes in society of the inevitable kind. Floods, famines, pesti- lences, changes of climate, and migration of food animals, have frequently forced human beings to shape their social affairs anew. d. Progress dependent upon foresighted cooperative effort. — Social evolution may take place by a kind of stumbling-along method, just as a child grows without thinking about it. Cer- tainly society may become larger through the unconscious in- crease of population which in turn forces social adjustments of a more or less unconscious sort. But progress demands fore- sighted cooperation. By progress is meant an improvement in the well-being of the masses of people involved in the given society. It demands that a goal shall be established, a plan SOCIETY AND RUEAL LIFE 19 worked out whereby the goal may be attained, and that the members of the society shall cooperate in realizing the desired object. If the goal when set up is not for the common good, if the plan to realize it is inadequate, or if there is not sufficient cooperative effort on the part of the people to make the plan work, the idea of progress is defeated. The establishment of the Northwest Territory and of the Homestead Act by Con- gress, the development of the public school system, and the adoption of a waterworks system by a city may illustrate pro- gressive gains. It is useful to remark that much which is proclaimed as progress is not progress. In political and patriotic addresses we are often told of the great progress of the nation or the state or the city; and we applaud vociferously because we feel com- plimented. "What is alluded to by the speaker may be a real case of progress, but our point is that it is more likely to be a case of quantitative increase. Something has become bigger, and we are told that that means progress. A nation's increase in population is denoted as progress. But unless it can be shown that the masses of the citizens of the nation have their lives improved in some fundamental manner as a consequence of that increase in population, that they are not only happier but better and more efficient citizens as a result of it, the ad- vance is not one of the progressive kind. A great grain crop or a great increase in national wealth may not signify progress: neither may help the masses, and either may be so used as to debase rather than to uplift. A progressive change represents qualitative advance; the realization of mere bigness may rep- resent social degeneration. e. Dependence on physical environment. — Every society of the community sort, such as nations, states, and cities, is re- lated to and has a close dependence on the immediate or remote physical environment. When human life first evolved and so- ciety was in its beginning, as now in the case of small primitive groups, physical nature was very domineering over man. Social structures were not large or powerful enough to ward off any of the blows nature might direct at man. Earthquakes, floods, storms, famines, pestilences, and all the other serious natural occurrences visited their effects immediately. Because there 20 RURAL SOCIOLOGY were no houses, clothing, stoves, lights, or other inventions of offensive and defensive kinds, the first men had to take the direct shocks which the environment might give. Because the idea of laying up food had not arisen, famines were deadly in their effects. And because medicine and surgery were absent, disease and poisonous reptiles and plants were likely to pro- duce fatal results. Only when men grew inventive and society became larger and better organized could the immediate shocks and thrusts of na- ture be mitigated. Then houses, clothing, and even fire, might protect against severities of weather and climate; weapons and tools protect against enemies and assist in securing food; gran- aried food supply carry over a hard winter; the knowledge of properties of plants yield relief from disease and poisons; and many other artificial contrivances and discoveries yield their assistance toward inducing nature to be bountiful or more lenient. In modern society this has gone so far that large sec- tions of people never come in contact with the soil, never directly produce any of the food or other materials they consume, but live in immense structures away from the blasts of storm and travel about in closed vehicles out of harm's way. Further, expert surgery, medicine, and sanitation have rid the civilized world of epidemic pestilences and lessened contagions, and overcome many diseases; philanthropy has protected the de- pendent weak and diseased ; universal communicating and trans- portation systems make seasonal or widespread famines im- possible. It might seem that humanity had almost rid itself of the hardships which the physical environment might visit upon it. This is largely true, but we must see another side of the ques- tion. While the shocks and terrors of nature have been miti- gated, populations have never ceased to be dependent on nature for their food supply and other materials which they need to carry on their existence. All of the foods and clothing, building materials for houses and industrial structures, fuel from forest and mine, and other prime necessities are only obtainable where nature is lavish. Only where these are obtainable in large quantities can extensive wealth be accumulated for realizing the great achievements of society and for carrying on what we call civilization. SOCIETY AND RURAL LIFE 21 RURAL LIFE AS A PHASE OF SOCIETY Rural society and society in general. — If all the parties, sects, churches, gangs, organizations, cities, states, country, and all the rest make up society in general, then the rural communities must be a part or a phase of the greater society. Should we consider that the United States is a society of the national sort, then we must conclude that the country as distinct from city is a phase of that national society. Further, since the United States is a part of the greater world-society, which is consti- tuted of all the parts of the world in communication and inter- action with one another, and since the country is a part of the society of the United States, it follows that the country is a section of the great world social organization. But not only is the country a mere part of the society of the United States and of the world society; it is an organic and intimate portion of the larger structures. It is in close inter- action and interdependence with all other portions of society at large. It gives of its produce to the rest of the world, and receives in turn the various products it needs for its purposes from the world outside itself. It affects political life, and is affected by the influences of other parts of society on its political life. It exerts an influence on the education of the nation, and its educational affairs are in turn affected by the educational transactions of the other parts of the nation. The country is as closely knit into the fabric of the social life at large as is the nervous system of your body or as is the leaf system into the life of the tree. Because of this close and indissoluble connection between the country and the rest of society it follows that it makes a great deal of difference to the people of the country what the rest of the social world thinks and does, just as it is bound to make a great deal of difference to the world at large what the citizenry of the rural communities think and do. All of the transactions of the world and nation must be of interest to inhabitants of rural districts and must be scrutinized by them. In like man- ner, their affairs are of more than local interest; insect pests and a deep hunger for amusement are facts which the people of Boston and other cities should consider. Rural and urban society. — It is a continuation of this same 22 RURAL SOCIOLOGY line of thought to speak of the relation between rural and urban communities. It is strictly true to assert that human society is divisible into just two great kinds: rural and urban. It is to be observed that this statement does not conflict with the previous discussion of the various kinds of society. The state, nation, party, sect, fraternity, club, and other forms of social action spread over and include both country and city. These constituent societies are inclusive of both rural and urban indi- viduals. On the other hand a close dividing line may be drawn between city and country, the urban and the rural. What is in one is not in the other. That part of society which is urban is not rural and vice versa. However, we are to remember that the general nature of the two kinds or portions of society is pretty much the same. In a later chapter we are to discover some of the distinctions between city and country communities so that at this time we need not discuss how the country differs from the city. We are quite sure we could not be so stupid as to fail to denote when we were in town and when in country. It will prove im- portant to consider the fact of interaction and interrelation between the two. If you were to denote on a sheet of paper all the special ways in which the city depends on the country and in like manner all the ways in which the latter depends on the former, the length of the two lists would probably surprise you. Or if you were to write a paper on the flow of ideas, of intellectual influ- ences from one section of society to the other, you would arrive at a very real sense of the close connection between the two. By such considerations we become aware of the close union be- tween urban and rural districts and of the fact that the de- pendence is not all in one direction. Neither portion of society has any ground for scouting the other as an inferior member of society at large, for neither one could survive and maintain its present status and standard of living if the other one were destroyed. It is true that the country is somewhat more inde- pendent in foodstuffs, but foods are but a small part of the standard of living of civilized man. Further, it is noteworthy that the farming people even purchase from urban dealers the larger portion of the food they consume in the manufactured form. And it is to be remembered also that there is a reci- SOCIETY AND RURAL LIFE 23 procity between the two sides of society in other than economic matters. Political, religious, educational, and other kinds of influences and interactions flow in both directions, although probably less equally than in the case of economic currents. Interactions within rural society. — Perhaps we have become impressed with the fact, by the discussion thus far, that rural society is not a different kind of society fundamentally from the greater society but is very much like it. As a consequence of this conclusion, we are bound to infer that what was indicated above as the distinctive ideas involved in society is also to be asserted as true of rural communities. That is, interdependence of function, interdependence of condition, change and evolu- tion, dependence upon the physical environment, and the neces- sity of foresighted cooperation in order to progress, are as much the marks of rural society as of society in general. We are to expect that within any given rural neighborhood individuals will affect individuals, families will influence families, and con- ditions in one place will determine conditions elsewhere in that neighborhood. Likewise, in a larger area embracing several or many neighborhoods of farmers we must expect to find a give and take between neighborhoods and the flow of influences of many kinds from one community to another. RURAL LIFE PROBIjEMS ESSENTIALLY SOCIAL PROBLEMS All that has been said hitherto in this chapter is calculated to prepare us to perceive that what are known as rural problems are necessarily in their very nature social problems. That is, they are social in their ramifications and also in the methods and processes which are requisite if they are to find solution. But to make this important lesson more evident and distinct it will be in place to give some special reasons for the assertion. Chief problem of country life one of socialization. — From almost any angle viewed, the most needed thing in the life of the country people is socialization. This statement recognizes that when measured by the demands of modern satisfying so- ciety rural communities are backward. Are the homes and home life adequate? Are the schools up to date and efficient? Do the young people and the older people find ample and satisfy- ing recreation, amusement, and cultural conditions? Have the 24 RURAL SOCIOLOGY people of the country caught the social point of view and devel- oped the methods and organizations by which it might be real- ized? Such questions as these bring out what is meant by the statement that socialization is the main rural problem. That the country and country life is not satisf j'ing to multi- tudes of people living on the farm is demonstrated in the fact that there is a steady and large flow of population from coun- try to city in the United States and other modern nations. This movement is so extensive in this nation that every year it is sufficient to make a city the size of Minneapolis. We may find that this great .flow away from the farms is a necessary one to keep population adjusted to the demands of a working society, yet many inquiries into the immediate reasons these migrants have for changing their residence indicate that the chief motive for the move is an overweening social hunger. The country does not satisfy their ideals and needs for a larger and fuller social life. A social aspect to all rural problems. — While the question as to how to make rural life truly satisfying is the chief or central rural problem, there are many other rural problems, such as improving the land, increasing crop production, marketing, tenancy, roads, farm organizations, schools, churches, etc. But when we think about these problems in relation to the chief problem we are likely to feel that they all point toward the central one and that if they all were solved the socialization of the country would have been realized in a great measure. If we remember that nearly every object we work for has two or more purposes connected with it, we will be in a posi- tion to see this matter of rural social problems in its right light. Let us say that the farmer desires to improve his land to make money. So he does. That is his immediate purpose and per- haps he sees nothing else in improving his land. But making money is not the great end of life. Money and money-making are only means to the great end; life itself and the best and highest kind of living. Good and complete living for himself and his family is really the great purpose, the only sufficient purpose of land improvement or hog improvement, or of any improvement to make money, on the part of the farmer. Of course the same statement is true of action and endeavor in cities, but the point especially needs to be made relative to the SOCIETY AND RURAL LIFE 25 country because it is less socialized than city life and should have its attention intelligently directed toward applying im- provements of farming and farming processes as well as of other activities to the betterment of family and neighborhood life. We may safely say, therefore, that all rural problems have their social aspect and that they need to be viewed as phases of the great rural problem; namely, the socialization of agri- cultural processes and of country life. The rural problem a general social problem. — The problem and problems are not matters which the inhabitants of the country districts alone should give attention to but are of pri- mary importance to all the citizens of the nation. For, as has previously been said, the conditions which obtain in rural re- gions are interwoven with those of city and nation at large and determine what the life of the larger national society shall be. Suppose, for illustration, that farming processes and popu- lations should deteriorate during a considerable lapse of time, until the production from agriculture was greatly diminished and the farming population had become decidedly inferior to the people living in urban communities. Can anyone doubt that these developments would affect the national life in a most disastrous manner? Do you think the intelligent portion of the citizens of cities would go about their business and pastimes composedly if they knew what was being wrought out in the agricultural districts? Just as the farmer should be interested in the social conditions in the cities and use his influence and vote for their improvement because city life reacts on country life and upon the life of his nation, so the city dwellers have a very deep and enduring interest in what takes place in country life for the excellent reason that conditions there are bound to react on their business and life. If this line of reasoning seems to place the matter on purely selfish grounds, on the basis of mere self-interest, we are able to argue as forcefully to the same end for altruistic reasons. Whatever we may say and think at times, we know perfectly well that we are all interested in seeing other classes and por- tions of humanity than our own prosper. We are inherently altruistic and desire the best for everyone. Even in the case of our national enemies, we hope that ultimately they may see the truth, reform their national life, and enjoy the blessings of 26 RURAL SOCIOLOGY liberty. Consequently, we are warranted in saying that all intelligent citizens of the nation have not only a profound selfish interest in the problems of rural life but a very deep altruistic desire to have the people of the country enjoy and realize the best that civilization contains. As a matter of fact, there has been a very widespread interest on the part of the public at large in the affairs of country life. The work of The Country Life Commission appointed by Presi- dent Roosevelt, the farm credit legislation under President Wilson's administration, the national agricultural societies of various kinds which have come into existence, the investigations and surveys of rural conditions which have been made, the books and articles in great number on agriculture and agricul- tural life which have been published — not to mention farmers' organizations of various kinds which have recently appeared and the work of farm papers and other long standing agencies which have been active in rural betterment — speak volumes in proof of the existence of a widespread and profound conviction that rural problems deserve the best and most earnest consid- eration of everyone everywhere. TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION 1. Distinguish between a society and societies. 2. Is the family a society? Why? 3. Would a rural neighborhood without school, church, or other institu- tion or organization be a society? 4. In what senses is there a world-society? 5. Was there a world-society during the Great War? 6. Is the rural labor problem of any consequence to a movie actor or a servant girl in New York City? 7. Is it likely that the conditions obtaining in the marketing of fruit or potatoes or corn have any bearing on the rural home or the build- ing of highways? 8. To what extent should a farmer be a philanthropist in his farming undertakings? 9. Is "rural social hunger'' a reality or fk-tion? 10. What concrete relationships can you point out as existing between country and city? 11. Is there a rural problem or rural problems? 12. Can a problem be solved without the ability to state its terms? 13. Is it likely that we know enough about rural affairs to state the terms of the problem or problems? PAET II THE NATURE OF EURAL SOCIETY CHAPTER III THE DEVELOPMENT OF RURAL SOCIETY RURAL SOCIETY AND EVOLUTION One of the ideas which the educated intelligence holds as a fundamental part of its working mental capital is the idea of evolution. After becoming acquainted with the various physi- cal sciences, the no less important historical and social sciences, and the great philosophical systems of the world, it observes that the whole modern system of thought is built upon that conception. As a consequence, evolution comes to be regarded as a universal process, the general method according to which nature, whether in the shapp of mind, matter, systems of nebu- lae or of thought, physical organisms or social systems, unfold themselves. The modern mind is deeply sensible that every- thing is in a state of change, is undergoing a transformation, is in process of development; and it finds it inconceivable that there is anything anywhere which has always been as it is now. It is this conception of evolution which we want now to bring into contact with the idea of rural communities. But someone will say, "Why, what is there about the country to evolve? I see nothing but a few scattered houses. What could be more simple?" Yet, when we come to study the matter, we find the rural society of today quite a different affair from the one of a century ago, and that of a century ago, in turn, was clearly an advance over rural life of the eleventh century — while that of the eleventh century was altogether different from the first agricultural communities. In kinds of dwellings, agricultural implements, methods of culture, modes of regarding and dis- tributing land for use, manner of living, ways of supplying labor, in education, religion, neighborhood life, and many other respects, clearly marked changes are seen to have taken place during the course of general social evolution. In this short chapter we can hope to discuss and portray but 29 30 RURAL SOCIOLOGY a few of the stages and changes which have taken place during the whole existence of rural society. To enter into full details and to follow out all of the interesting developments of the many sides of rural community life would require a large volume. But by a discussion of rural society as it has existed at several widely separate periods of time it will be possible to demonstrate not only that agricultural communities have evolved but to indicate some of the more important gains which have been made. ORIGIN OP RURAL SOCIETY Tbe troublesome question. — At what stage in the evolution of society in general did rural society begin? This is a trouble- some question for two reasons: First, no one knows absolutely at what stage in social development agriculture arose. Second, was all society rural before the rise of cities, or did rural society appear at the time when general society was differentiated into urban and rural? As to the first point, it may be said that our knowledge is definite enough for all practical purposes; that is, it is as good as it would be if it were slightly more exact. With reference to the second point, it would seem to be an affair of opinion. If anyone chooses to refer to all society as rural before the advent of cities, he would not make a grave error and should have the privilege of referring to it in this way. However, should he hold that rural society arose when urb.an society did simply because it is senseless to speak of rural before there was any urban, it must be conceded that he has a defensible position. It really would appear that the original Latin terms rus, the country, and urbs, the city, from which our words ' ' rural ' ' and "urban" descended came into use in Roman life to describe the facts after they had appeared. Before cities arose there could have been no need of the word, rural, although it is con- ceivable that what later came to be known as rural actually existed at that time. Economic stages of social evolution. — We can discern well marked stages of evolution in the economic, political, religious, and other phases of society. Perhaps the economic stages are more apparent and concrete than are the others because they center -SO largely in occupations. We readily think of occupa- THE DEVELOPMENT OF RURAL SOCIETY 31 tions, since daily we see people following them. It may help us understand the beginnings of rural society, therefore, if we discuss them in relation to the economic stages. For our purposes we may say that society has passed through the following economic stages in about the order of their men- tion: namely, the finding, hunting, hunting and hoe-eulture, pastoral, agricultural, industrial, and commercial. The first men must have lived in very small groups and existed on what they could find and pick up as they roamed about. Fruits, seeds, roots, grubs, insects, clams, and the like were found and eaten. But when men became slightly inventive they were able to strike with the club, shoot with arrow or spear, snare and trap animals and fish which they then chiefly used for food, though still making use of the earlier articles. This was the hunting stage. In the hunting stage people lived in larger groups than in the finding stage, being organized as tribes, clans and fratries. These were kinship organizations — that is, people then were held together bj' their ideas of kinship. In the earlier period of tribal society a tribe or cluster of tribes would have a large territory which thej' held as their own, per- haps by understanding with other tribes. Over this they hunted in groups, although they had somewhat permanent habitations in rude villages. But later in their development the people began to cultivate the ground about their villages, in addition to hunting. Because the crop-growing thus practised was rude, and done on a small scale by sticks and crude hoes, it is often called hoe-culture. The women chiefly practised this culture, while the men hunted and carried on war when necessary. This,, was the hunting and hoe-culture stage. The pastoral and agricultural stages of society probably have not always appeared in the same order everywhere. In some places, as in semi-arid regions, the pastoral stage would likely come first and perhaps would always be maintained, as in Arabia; while in rich regions of abundant rainfall, agriculture might occur through the natural extension of hoe-culture. The latter would doubtless be the case when the district became so populous that wild game was no longer sufficient to supply all the food. Keeping young wild animals for pets must have been the chief road to domesticating animals and introducing the pastoral stage of society. This pastoral society was a tribal and 32 RURAL SOCIOLOGY kinship affair. A group of kinsmen had a definite territory or a definite route over a very large territory where they grazed their flocks. They might reside in one place or move from place to place with their flocks as the vegetation was exhausted. The land was a common possession although the flocks were likely to be the property of someone, such as the patriarch. The idea of capital could easily arise under sucli conditions. Houses were usually somewhat temporary, portable affairs. Such a thing as a permanent neighborhood as we think of it was practically out of the question. The early Greeks and Romans appear to have been pastoral peoples when they settled the areas which became Greece and Rome. They came from the northeast, driving their flocks into those regions. The growth of population likely forced peoples to take up agriculture, as we think of it today. As was said, hoe-culture may have grown into agriculture when game grew scarce. This appeared to be the ease with the Indians of our southwest, who practised extensive irrigation, and with the Incas in South America. Or, pastoral peoples, on entering arable regions, may have evolved into it out of exclusive stock raising, as in the case of the Greeks and Romans. In either case, it seems that the agriculturists commonly lived in small villages, from which they resorted to the nearby land to do their farming. Evidently such was the method of living among the early Greeks and Romans, the Incas, the agricultural Indians of our southwest, and with the Celts of England at the time of the Roman invasion and up to the time of the arrival of the Teutonic tribes in the fifth century. With the rise of industry and somewhat extensive commerce, large aggregations of population, known as cities, made their appearance. With these stages of society we are not concerned, for we have already noticed the rise of agricultural society. In its nature, that agricultural society when it was established was properly rural. We may broaden the term "agricultural" so as to include the pastoral society treated above. Then we may say that we have seen the rise of rural society — as to its nature — with the appearance of the pastoral and agricultural stages of economic development. But we are to remember that there were no cities to distinguish it from until the arrival of the industrial and commercial stages which brought cities into existence. THE DEVELOPMENT OF RURAL SOCIETY 33 STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT Ancient agriculture. — Ancient nations, such as Egypt and Babylonia, had a high development of agriculture. Thus,'Egypt raised four kinds of animals and eighteen kinds of crops, among which were wheat, barley, millet, and flax. Its lands were owned by its ruling castes — the monarch, the military order, and the priest class — and farmed by the toiling masses. As early as Homeric times, Greece had attained a consider- able agricultural development. Stock raising, crop production, and dairying were engaged in. The land was largely owned and tilled by free peasants. Little is known of the manner of life of rural people then. After the eighth century B.C., wars, emigration, and industry changed the basis of Greek economic life, city life with large industrial and commercial interests be- coming dominant. Because of a failure to work out a just and wise economic system, many of the formerly independent peas- ants were degraded to debt slaves, tilling the consolidated estates of capitalist creditors, while others who had been ruined flocked to cities. Thus the national life of Greece was under- mined by alloTving wholesale exploitation of the farming popu- lation. In Rome, agriculture attained its highest development dur- ing ancient times. Practically all of the domestic animals of Europe known before the discovery of America were reared and most of the later crops and fruits were produced. Roman farmers knew and practiced principles of irrigation, drainage, seed sanitation, fertilization, farm management, and crop rota- tion. As in Greece, the early farmers were independent peas- ants, owners and tillers of the soil, but also as in that country militarism, conquest, the employment of prisoners of war as farm slaves, the confiscation and consolidation of small estates, and ruthless exploitation of the agricultural classes generally, broke down agriculture and ruined the small farmers. The lack of an intelligent and fair agricultural policy drove the farmers from the land to recruit the parasitic masses of the cities. Without a large body of independent and self-respecting farmers and with her city populations demoralized by idleness, exploita- tion, vice, and luxury, Rome was in a position to fall a prey to the more vigorous invaders of the north. 34 RURAL SOCIOLOGY Medieval English agricultural communities. — We may take the English manorial system as representative of medieval agri- cultural communities, although this system was not so general in Europe as it" became in England. The manorial system in England was built on the farm village system which preceded it; hence, an explanation of this farm village will help to an understanding of the former. The farm village consisted of from ten to fifty houses built along one or a few streets and was commonly located near a stream. The houses were one-roomed huts, often built of posts plastered with mud, and having a thatched roof and an attic. The bare earth was the floor, there was no window or chimney, the spare amount of furniture was handmade, the cooking was done over a fire in the center of the room, and the house garbage was dumped in a pile outside the door. Each house had a garden plot adjoining it. Outside the village were the farm lands. There was no private property in land, all lands of all kinds used by the villagers being held in common. The lands in pas- ture and woodland were used by all alike, there being no par- ticular parts set aside for the use of particular persons. But the lands which were used for meadows and tillage were so divided, although the division was made by the community as nearly equitably as possible, all sharing alike as to quantity and quality. The land in tillage lay in several large tracts. Each tract was subdivided into a great number of narrow strips, containing about an acre each, each strip being about four rods wide and a furlong in length. Since each farmer tilled about thirty acres, many of the narrow strips must be assigned him. These assignments were made from all the large tracts and also from all parts of each tract, the purpose evidently being to dis- tribute good and poor land as equitably as possible. The plow- ing was done by a community wooden plow drawn by several yoke of oxen. The common crops and farm animals were raised. Fallowing and two-crop rotation were practised. Each family produced its own food, coarse and abundant, but poorly pre- pared. In the village meeting, local laws were passed — rules governing cultivation, road repairing, and keeping the peace. There, also, representatives were chosen to attend the meetings of the hundred and the shire. Thus the farm village was a THE DEVELOPMENT OF RURAL SOCIETY 35 community of freemen with a large measure of self-government. During the century or more before the Norman Conquest tliere had been a development of many of these farm village communities into feudal manors. William the Conqueror com- pleted this development by converting practically all the rest into such communities. The manor included one or several farm village communities. A castle with its surrounding farm build- ings was added. Here the overlord dwelt and administered. All of the land was now his or under his control. The villagers had become villeins, cotters, landless laborers, craftsmen, and a few herders, drivers, etc. English farmers were now a peasant class. Of these there were two kinds: a few freemen and bondsmen, the latter being the villeins and the cotters. Land was distributed among the villeins about as in previous times according to the custom of the particular community. That is, each villein had on the average about thirty acres in the various tracts and strips to till, some allotments of meadow land, and the use of woodland and pasture land. The cotters had on the average about five acres of land. Bondsmen were obliged to give the lord several days' work per week during the year, extra days at special times, and tribute. Freemen were subject to the two latter payments. Villeins and cotters were bound to the land, the freemen were not. The latter were protected by the laws of the nation, the former were under the entire government of the lord of the manor. The lord was lawgiver, governor; he held court and judged ; and he was the landlord. Thus the bulk of the farmers were a servile class at the bottom of a social pyramid having its apex in the king. Without education and schools, having a superstitious religion, bound to the land and with their lives limited to the small, self-sufficing community, existing crudely as they did, the agriculturists of that time were not to be envied. Life was bound by custom on every side. Social affairs changed little in generations. Even in economic matters, where self-interest would seem to impel toward making improvements, beneficial changes came about slowly or not at all. For instance, it took generations, perhaps centuries to transform the two-field into the three-field system of farming, the latter allowing only a third of the land to be fallowed each year while the former re- 36 RURAL SOCIOLOGY quired a half. Carver rightly ascribes this lack of progress to a system of society which deprived individual farmers of all private initiative.^ Early American agricultural communities. — ^Let us pass over later English farm life, also that of colonial America, and take a glimpse of farm life in the first third of the nineteenth cen- tury. This was before the period of steamboats and railways, when each farm was practically self-sufficing. It will be noted that farmers lived apart on individual farms rather than to- gether in villages. Each farm then made most of the goods it consumed and consumed most of the things it produced. Farm- ing was on a small scale since markets in which to sell were distant, could not be reached for lack of transportation facili- ties, and the tools of farming were backward. An illustration from wheat raising will help us picture the farming of those days. The ground was broken up with a one-horse plow fitted with a wooden moleboard and an iron share. The harrow to drag the soil was a cumbersome A-shaped frame with wooden teeth. The gi'ain was sown broadcast and dragged in. Ten acres was a large field of wheat. When har- vest time arrived, the grain was cut with a cradle, bound by hand, hauled on a cart into the barnyard, and stacked. It was threshed out on a floor or level earth by a hand flail or by being tramped out by animals. The seed was separated from the chaff by pouring the grain from a height in a strong wind, the chaff being blown to one side. A crude water-mill ground the grain into grist, whenever the boy of the family took a bag of it on horseback thither, where he waited until his grist was done. Other small grains were produced in the same fashion. Crops demanding cultivation during their growth were tilled with a single-bladed plow or by hoe, chiefly the latter. The heavy household labor of the time is illustrated by the woman's work in producing the family clothing. Much of the cloth used was woolen. The housewife commonly carded the fleece of wool, spun it into yarn on the spinning wheel, wove it into cloth on the loom, cut the cloth into clothing according to pattern, ran the seams by hand, and, finally, pressed the seams of the completed garment. Rag carpets were also made on looms in the home. The fireplace afforded about the only ' Thomas Nixon Carver, Principles of Rural Economics, p. 45. THE DEVELOPMENT OP RURAL SOCIETY 37 means of cooking food. Canning and preserving were home processes. Both women and men were kept busy, for most of the things now produced in factories were then produced on the farm. Neighborhood activities were interesting, if not highly de- veloped, where the population was not too sparse to allow them. Rural education was lacking or consisted of a few months of school during the year, and many children had a chance for a very few years only. The teachers were poorly equipped for their work and received their pay largely in "keeps," obtained by "boarding around" in the homes of the pupils. Public elementary schools supported systematically by public taxation were only then just beginning. Religious ministrations were conducted by backwoods preachers who possessed little learn- ing, but great fervor. Revivals and campmeetings abounded and were the great community events. Families drove long distances to attend these affairs, taking camp equipment for a prolonged stay. Diversions such as dancing, horse racing, log- rolling, corn huskings, shooting matches, candy puUings, and occasional spelling matches were engaged in. The residents of the country, although but slightly educated in the schools, had a large native intelligence, and they knew something about the politics of the nation, took an interest in political campaigns, and, of course, had the franchise and a representative govern- ment. Most of the farmers were owners of their farms, lived on them as independent citizens of neighborhood, state and na- tion, enjoyed intensely the somewhat cramped and crude pas- times of the period, and at times got comprehensive glimpses of great world-currents and events through the medium of newspapers and political campaigns. Although we may think of country life of a century ago as dull and backward in view of the rural life of today, it seems wonderfully advanced when we compare it with that of English agricultural communities of the middle centuries. And if we were to name the two chief causes for this advance, no doubt we would find them in political liberty and individual land ownership. By the first, caste lines based on law were abolished; by the second, economic, and hence a large measure of social, equality was promoted. Ameri- can farmers never have been a peasant class but have formed an important part of the national citizenship. 38 RURAL SOCIOLOGY Recent agn^icultural community life. — The agricultural life of a century ago seems quite remote from that of today and we appreciate the fact that we are living in another age than that. Such great changes have taken place in rural life within a cen- tury that we may properly call the transition an agricultural revolution. Should we compare the farm life of today with its predecessor — as to houses and barns, machinery and imple- ments, size and character of farms, character of crops and stock, frequency and quality of roads, ease of transportation and communication, nearness and frequency of markets, furnish- ings of homes, household implements such as stoves and ma- chines, amount of household drudgery and home manufacture, public educational system, daily mail delivery, abundance of newspapers and periodicals, and in other respects, we would realize that a revolution has taken place. Comparing farm life with city life of the present, we find that there is no great difference between rural and urban peo- ple, that the majority of the people live as well or better in the country as in the city, that rural life is as healthy and vigo- rous, that intelligence is as general, and that there is a greater measure of economic and social equality. Never before in the history of the world has rural life as represented in the United States been so advanced, or compared so well, in most respects with that of the urban districts. The American farmer is truly a citizen of the nation and of the world. He has knowledge and opinions about great matters. Farming is not paradise, nor is running the average store, shop, bank, or restaurant, or working as clerk, laborer, or miner. On the average, farming is as pleasant and profit- able as most other modes of life. This is more than could have been said of it in earlier ages. When compared with the best there is in city life, farm life looks meager and unattractive; but this is an unfair comparison. The best in country life is much above the average of city life. Let us recognize the weak places and deficiencies found in the country, but let us also see that many, or most, of them may be strengthened or removed. This agricultural revolution, of course, took place gradually as the many different causes came into operation. Some of the more important of the causes should be mentioned. Steamboats and railroads opened up the interior of the continent for settle- THE DEVELOPMENT OF RURAL SOCIETY 39 ment. Railroads, steamships, and telegraph made world markets possible. Improved farm machinery such as plow, seeders, har- vesters, threshers, made the larger scale farming practicable which world markets created a demand for. Farmers ceased to consume all they raised, and sold the most of it. Great manufacturing inventions created cities and developed indus- tries which took many of the manufacturing tasks out of the home and off the farm; and as a consequence farmers came to purchase nearly all their foods, clothing, and other supplies. The Homestead Act gave farms and land to everyone who really wanted farms and lands and did much to establish democracy. Markets made a demand for roads, and road machinery was in- vented which made roads possible. Knowledge of plant and stock breeding raised the quality of stock and crops. Public schools raised the standards of education and improved press and printing provided the papers and books to create intelli- gence. The extension of the government mail system to the country did perhaps more than anything else to heighten in- terest in the great currents and events in the life of the nation and world. The sewing machine, mechanical washer, wringer, cream separator, improved stove, and many other devices have come to relieve the overworked farm woman. Agricultural col- leges and government agricultural experiment stations have promoted the science and art of farming among farmers. Im- proved farm vehicles made travel easy and pleasant and did much to stimulate neighborhood activities. Farmers' organiza- tions and clubs have made their contribution toward a deeper understanding of agricultural problems and the socializing of country life. STUDY QUESTIONS AND TOPICS 1. The agriculture of the Stair Case farmers of Ancient Peru. 2. The agriculture of ancient Egypt. 3. The agriculture of Indians of America, Encyclopedia of American Agriculture. •I. What caused farmers in America to settle apart on farms instead of following the village custom of Europe and England? 5. Compare American farmers and European peasant farmers as to intel- ligence, influence in society and matters of state, wealth, modes of habitation and living. 6. What part have political campaigns, such as presidential campaigns of the times of Jackaon, Harrison, and Lincoln, played in developing the intelligence of the agricultural classes'! 40 RURAL SOCIOLOGY 7. Is it likely that as great a development in rural life and people will occur in future as has taken place in the past? 8. What changes in agriculture and rural life are likely to be brought about as a consequence of the introduction of motor trucks on farms and the improvement of rural communication J REFERENCES Ashley, W. J. — English Economic Eistory and Theory, Vol. I, Pt. I. BoGAEDUS, E. — Introduction to Sociology, p. 139ff. ; University of Southern California Press, 1917. BoGART, E. L. — Economic History of the United States; Longmans, 1912. BoTsroBD, G. W. AND SiHLER, E. G. — Hellenic Civilization; Columbia Uni- versity Press, 1915. Breasted, J. H. — History of Egypt; Scribners, 1909. Carver, T. N. — "Historical Sketch of American Agriculture," Cyclopedia of American Agriculture, Vol. 1 : 39-71 ; Macmillan, 1917. Chapin, F. S. — Social Economy; Century Co., 1917. Cheyney, E. P. — Industrial and Social History of England; Macmillan, 1913. COMAN, Katherine — Industrial History of the United States; Macmillan, 1910. Cunningham, W. — Western Civilisation in its Economic Aspects; Cam- bridge University Press, 1902. Cyclopedia of American Agriculture; Macmillan, 1917. Febrebo, Guglielmo — The Greatness and Decline of Some, Vol. I; Putnam. GiBBiNS, H. De B. — Industrial History of England; Methuen and Co., London. Harrison, F. — Soman Farm Management ; Macmillan, 1913. Harper, M. W. — "Historic Farm Animals," Cyclopedia of American Agri- culture, I: 71-8. Holmes, G. K. — "Aboriginal Agriculture, The American Indians," Cyclo- pedia of American, Agriculture, I: 24-39. LiPPiNCOTT, Isaac — Economic Development of the U. S.; D. Appleton & Co. Phelan, John — Readings in Rural Sociology, Chaps. I-II ; Macmillan, 1920. Prothebo, R. E. — English Farming, Past and Present; Longmans, 1912. BooERS, Thobold — The History of English Agriculture ; Oxford. Seebohm, F. — The English tillage Com,munity ; Longmans. Sims, N. L. — The Sural Community, Part I, "The Ancient Community"; Scribners, 1920. CHAPTER IV DISTINCTIVE CHARACTER OF RURAL SOCIETY There has been much written about the rural mindedness, individualism, isolation, economic uniqueness, and other as- serted characteristics of country populations. From a partial survey the casual reader might gain the impression that rural society is fundamentally different from urban communities or from society in general. In a previous chapter it was set forth that rural society is, in its essential nature, similar to society at large. In this chapter, although distinctions between urban and rural communities appear incidentally throughout the volume, it may be well to summate and set forth in some detail the chief characteristics of the society of the country. Rural society like society in general. — We are not to think of the rural community, or rural society, as so fundamentally distinguished from society at large that it should be viewed as of an essentially different nature. When things are of a dif- ferent nature they must be constitutionally distinct from each other. That is, some of them must contain elements which are vital to their existence which the others do not have, some- thing so necessary and profound that because of it they are known as distinct in kind. Thus we say that vertebrate ani- mals are distinct in kind from invertebrates because the back- bone is a vital and significant part of their bodies. Also, we say that, mentally, the beings having logical reasoning powers are quite different in kind from those only possessing ability to draw simple inferences, because reasoning by logic is a compli- cated process and the results are such that mere inference could never secure them. Now we do not find deep-seated differences between rural communities and other kinds of society. It is true there are elements and characteristics in urban and rural communities which distinguish them from each other just as individuals with different heights, poise, complexions, physiognomies, and other 41 42 RURAL SOCIOLOGY physical characteristics are known from each other. But be- cause we distinguish individuals by means of their character- istics we do not think of them as essentially different in nature. In the same manner, merely because rural and urban commu- nities may be distinguished from each other by reason of cer- tain characteristics is not a good reason for thinking of them as, by nature, distinct kinds of communities. On the contrary, we find in each the fundamental essentials of society just as in a great variety of human beings we discover the essentials of humanity. Nor are we to think of rural inhabitants as essentially a dif- ferent kind of people from urban individuals. If we were to examine the individuals composing both kinds of communities and compare them according to their deeper physical and men- tal traits we would be able to c|iscover no profound differences. Physically, the people of the country have about the same weight, height, strength, complexions, kinds of hair and physi- ognomies, and the same physiological parts and systems as those of the cities. Mentally, they possess the same kind of sensa- tion, perception, conception, memory, and rational powers as do the urbanites. The minds of the people of the country are in some respects different from those of the cities because the conditions under which they develop give to them a character- istic outlook or twist. It is much like trees grown in the midst of thick forests as compared with those grown apart from other trees. The first are tall, slender, and Avithout branches except at the tops and these stand in close to the body of the tree, while the second are spreading, branched all the way up, and not so slender. Yet forest trees and isolated trees both belong to the same species or variety. Character of the population. — One of the distinctions between country and city community which we would expect to be most evident is that having to do with population. It is commonly said that an urban community has a much larger population than has a rural community. Thus, the United States Census now classifies all communities having over 2,500 inhabitants as urban and those under 2,500 as rural. Of course, what this means is that all towns and villages of less than that popula- tion are classed with country communities. This distinction really resolves itself into one of density oi DISTINCTIVE CHARACTER OF RURAL SOCIETY 43 population. It means that communities having large popula- tions within small areas are called cities while those having small or scattered populations within given areas are denomi- nated rural districts. Generally speaking, the larger the city, the denser the population while the smaller the aggregation, the sparser the population for a given area. The density of Chi- cago in 1919 was about 13,500 and that of New York was about 20,000 per square mile, as compared with a rural density in New England of 16, in the Middle Atlantic States of 56, in the East South Central States of 28, and in the Mountain States of 2. Not only have New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and other great cities very large populations, but they also have an enormous number of people living per block or per square mile in parts of their territory. Certain blocks within London or New York contain more persons who live there all the time than are contained in the larger of the "rural" towns. Some great office buildings in most any of the larger cities which, during the day, have five and ten thousand occupants, are larger in population than even some of the smaller urban communities. But on the basis of population there is no more reason for placing the division between country and city at 2,500 than at 1,000 or perhaps 500. The real difference is not found in mere size or density of population. Why should 2,500 persons living in a small area constitute a city while one of 2,499 does not, or why should a place of even 5,000 souls be classed as urban while one of 1,000 is not? As a matter of fact there appears little justification for classing any small places whose inhabitants do not directly follow agricultural pursuits as rural communities. Out of the fact of low density of population arises what is known as rural isolation. The physical basis of rural isolation in large measure is spatial separation of individuals and fami- lies; in part it is due to occupational isolation. The result of spatial separation is seen in social and cultural isolation, in lack of frequency and abundance of personal contact, and in the paucity of opportunity for mind sharpening the mind. Social hunger, the craving for satisfying stimulations, and the bore- dom of monotony and mere familism place a premium on the. excitement of urban life. Country populations in the United States are more homo- geneous in respect to racial stock, and those of civilized nations 44 RURAL SOCIOLOGY generally have greater homogeneity respecting classes than do cities. To be sure the rural South has its negroes, but very few of other racial stocks; the Pacific states have their agricultural orientals, the "West North Central States their Scandinavian, Russian, and Polish farmers, and other portions of the coun- tryside have German, French-Canadian, and some other foreign rural groups. But the larger cities of the nation are largely compounds and agglomerations of myriad kinds of foreign colonies or "quarters." This situation is reflected in the fact that the foreign born in our cities forms 22.6 per cent of the population while it is but 7.5 per cent of that of the country. Freedom from classes and many distinct social strata in the country is the outcome of singleness of occupation, simplicity of economic interests, and a wider distribution of property. The extreme stratification in cities comes from multiform occupa- tions and interests, the unequal distribution of wealth and in- come, and the diversification of social positions which follow from distinctions in work and income. As a result of the greater homogeneity of population the country has a greater unity of language and culture than tbd cities. Were other things equal, rural 'populations would ex ■ hibit a greater unity of action in political, economic, religious and educational matters than do those of cities. That they do not do so in the United States is probably due to a dearth of trained leadership, of deep-seated understanding of their par- ticular problems, and of a universal and well-knit agrarian organization. Country populations of our land contain a larger proportion of the very young and the aged and, consequently, a smaller proportion of persons between the ages of fifteen and sixty-five than do the cities. This condition doubtless helps account for the different rates of the flow of life in the two kinds of com- munities. Those under fifteen are too young to undertake and transact while those over sixty-five have passed the prime of life. Consequently, we should expect country activities to be measurably less dynamic, vigorous, and more conservative than those of the city, and that some of the drive and attainments of cities are due to their excess of youth. Economic distinctions. — When the term economic is used we think of those social activities which are concerned directly with DISTINCTIVE CHARACTER OF RURAL SOCIETY 45 getting a living or with producing wealth. Very much the larger part of the activities of human beings in society are ex- erted in these directions. As a consequence we might expect the distinctions between country and city to appear clearly in economic matters. One such distinction is that rural producers of wealth engage in extractive industries while urban producers do not. In other words, rural producers are first-hand producers, taking their products directly from the land. In contrast, urban workers are second-hand, third-hand, or fourth-hand producers, the mate- rials with which they work having gone through one or more processes since leaving the land prior to reaching them. Wheat and corn, cotton and tomatoes come out of the soil directly; but flour and meal, muslin, and canned tomatoes have been hauled and shipped and transformed and perhaps had some- thing else done with them before reaching the manufactured form. A much larger proportion of urban than of rural inhabitants do not directly handle or deal with materials in carrying on their economic processes. Thus the cities have many kinds of professional classes who are not directly concerned with material goods: physicians, lawyers, engineers, architects, editors, artists, publicists, etc. The occasional teacher and preacher furnish nearly the whole supply of such professions in the open country districts. On the part of the rural producer, there is a closer identity of capital and labor than there is in cities. What this means is that the farmer is very likely to be both capitalist and laborer at the same time. He owns his farm or at least his farming implements and stock and at the same time performs the greater portion of the labor involved in producing the crop and stock. While there are many shopmen of various kinds in cities of whom this also is true, they form a much smaller proportion of the inhabitants of their communities than does the like element in the country. In cities managing and superintending tend to become ele- vated to independent functions with the result that social position is thus conferred and far greater opportunity secured for organization of business, projection of plans, speculation with reserve funds, engaging in political and civic activities, 46 RURAL SOCIOLOGY leadership matters, and the like. The tendency in the country is to reduce the farmer to the treadmill and dulling position of the semi-skilled laborer, to tie him closely to his farm and work, and, in spite of his capital and managing functions, to stifle his leadership and organizing potentialities. In rural districts there exists a greater degree of combination of managing ability and variety of technical skill in the person of the farmer than obtains in the case of a majority of urban dwellers. Since every farmer is a capitalist to some degree and the majority of farmers have a considerable amount of capital invested in their enterprise, agriculture as a business calls for a large measure of managing ability. Every step in the agri- cultural business makes a demand for foresight and wise plan- ning. Then, too, as a skilled laborer, the farmer has perhaps the largest assortment or system of technical operations at his command of any great body of workers in the world. As Pro- fessor Veblen remarks, the city man upon going to the country to work is practically worthless for the first year or two because he does not know what to do nor when and how to do the multi- tudes of different kinds of work which farming demands.^ He says: "Any capable farm hand is a trained workman. He must, in effect, have had several years of special training, such as will amount to an apprenticeship of several years ' duration. ' ' It may be said that no one who has not lived on a farm has a very clear conception of the combination of managing ability and skilled workmanship the business of farming requires. Industries of the country are of a few simple types as com- pared with the multitudes of types — many of them complicated in the extreme — of the cities. Crop raising, stock raising, and fruit production are the essential types of agricultural com- munities, although it must be remembered that there are many kinds of each of these produced, sometimes on the same farm. Nevertheless, this is simplicity itself in comparison with the great diversity of businesses and occupations that are followed in urban districts. As a consequence, the social and economic organization of the country is simple and obvious, while those of the city are complex and often very difficult to trace. We have time to merely mention for discussion two or three ' Thorstein Veblen, "Farm Labor and the Period of the War," The Public, 21:882. DISTINCTIVE CHARACTER OP RURAL SOCIETY 47 other ecouomic differences between country and city : A greater proportion of laborers in the populations of citi«s than in those of country; the greater duplication of businesses and occupa- tions and, hence, greater economic waste in the former than in the latter; the greater relative impoverishment of city popu- lations; and the more removed from their places of work of urbanites than of ruralites.^ Domesticity. — The city is lacking in domesticity, but the coun- try makes the home its center and reliance. In cities a vast number of persons are migrants from other nations, other cities, the country, and other sections of the same city ; and settled life is needful for the development of the family spirit. People marry younger in the country, and there are few spinsters and bachelors. Practically all adults rely on establishing a home, and domestic ties are far less often broken by divorce. City populations contain a large percentage of unmarried persons; the tendency among the educated, professional, and wealthy classes is toward postponement of ma/riage to a late age; and the divorce rate is often twice that of contiguous rural sections. The large number of single adults in cities, surrounded by temp- tations and allurements and protected from the gaze of the public by the thick veil of anonymity, are conducive to vice and immorality. Tenements, apartment and lodging houses, hotels, restaurants and other public eating places, numerous attractions to absorb the interests of the various members of the family — these are strong decentralizing and disintegrating forces. The^ city home tends to be a mere place where the individuals sleep and eat but otherwise have few interests in common. In the open country attractions and external seductions are few and infrequent and the home and family is relied on to furnish the bulk of stimulating satisfactions. Moreover, everyone lives under direct public surveillance and the ordinary moral re- straints therefore obtain. There are no dark corners in which lurks vice in its various forms and child life is safe from its intrusions. The operation of the farm is a family enterprise in which all who are old enough to work have a part, the organic basis of the family being thus greatly strengthened. ■For first point, see Veblen, loc. cit., 21:219; for second, Gillette's Con- structive Sural Sociology, pp. 18-19. 48 RURAL SOCIOLOGY Culture and recreation. — The function of culture or informa- tion is to give insight into and understanding of the problems of life, to find solutions therefor, and to make living more satis- fying and bearable. The function of play or recreation is to set the human spirit free; for in play and recreation the monotony of drudgery and the restraints of toil are forgotten and the self finds itself in a sense of freedom. The cities appear at a great advantage in cultural matters, for they are the distributing places and, therefore, "centers" of culture. Art, literature, scientific thought and news emanate from such centers and much of these currencies are produced there. The bulk of. the highly educated and professional classes dwell there. Massed populations and social income provide often munificently for cathedrals, churches, libraries, museums and institutes, universities, schools, public buildings, recreation centers, parks, and other play places. The elementary schools are superior, high schools abound, and higher institutions of learning generally have their seat there. The masses of rural people have no more, often much less, than an elementary school education, and the open country is as yet almost without high school facilities. A minor percentage of children go away to high school or other more advanced schools. A very small percentage of rural adults have had collegiate advantages. The talent that produces the highest cul\ ture may hail from the country, but directly the country pro-j duces little or no art, literature, philosophy, or scientific discoveries. It stands as the recipient of the gifts distributed from city centers, and as yet the methods of distribution are poor. However, it must not be inferred that rural inhabitants are all ignoramuses or lack a substantial intelligence. The products of culture may be attained today by those who really desire them and there are many country homes that are well stocked with books, papers, music facilities, and some works of art. Many farmers are wide readers and deep students of public affairs, of matters which touch their interests, and of agricul- tural concern. The statement is often made by intelligent observers that the average farmer has a better grasp of public questions than the average urbanite. At least, it is safe to say that the average of intelligence of farming populations in the DISTINCTIVE CHARACTER OF RURAL SOCIETY 49 nation at large is as high as that of the cities. But the coun- try has a dearth of trained leadership and more highly educated men and women ; also, it has not sufficiently developed organiza- tions with their periodical group discussions which have been so serviceable in creating the mass mind and the capable leader- ship in organized labor. The culture of the rural people is in the main technological, that is, it pertains to the technical details and operations of their industry. This is likewise true of the masses of city resi- dents; but since there is only one industry in rural districts, although the particular form varies much from climatic and geographical conditions, there is a greater uniformity of this practical culture than in cities where occupations and, conse- quently, technologies are so diversified. Because of these con- ditions the rural mind is of a more uniform type than is the urban mind. The city offers a sharp break between work and play Laborers, shopmen, merchants, managers, and most professional men leave their work behind at the close of each day and may gain freedom in many obvious kinds of recreation ; sometimes indulging in excessive excitement. But in the country, play and work are in close contact. Play is near work and at any time the latter may interfere with the former. Weather and market conditions prohibit recreation at stated times. Even conversation after work is apt to be concerning the work in hand. This hang-over of work prevents the fullest attainment of the freedom of the self by means of play; and excessive re- course to sexual satisfaction may be the result of inability to find a sharp contrast between work and play. The nature of farm work confines recreation within narrow limits. Vacations are exceptional, even where the single type of farming prevails. Leisure is of a few hours at a time and what reading is done is apt to be of a light sort. Heavy muscu- lar work absorbs the energy and at times inhibits vigorous mental activity. There is apt to be a lack of subtlety of think- ing. Humor of a coarse and evident sort is demanded. Humor and sentiment tend to lack the touch of the higher imagina- tion as is also true of urban workers. Love is ardent but relatively speechless, devotion being often evinced in strenuous exertion and stoical silence. 50 RURAL SOCIOLOGY Recreation is likely to be vigorous in character in keeping with the muscular work that demands strenuous action. Base- ball, hunting, and fishing are favorite sports. Otherwise recrea- tion takes the form of lounging, eating heavily, and sleeping. The sudden transition from hard labor to leisure often brings resort to such vices as strong drink, as among city laborers, the expression of an organic need of an equivalent stimulation. The rural mind. — The country mind in its social aspects ex- hibits some distinctive features. The mind of the farming inhabitants appears to be more individualistic than the mind of urbanites. The farmer is inclined to think in terms of the individual instead of in terms of the public. This means that when he confronts what are really public questions he is likely to try to deal with them as an individual apart from others, to settle them himself if he is able, and if he is not, to let them go. It is true that many citizens of cities are unable to think in terms of the public but it is undoubtedly true that inhabitants of cities have proceeded further toward community thinking than have those of the country. Urban inhabitants are not inherently superior but have been compelled to think collectively ' because their city problems could be solved only by so doing. It will likely prove to be equally true for agriculturists that they will not get their pressing grievances righted until they learn to think together inventively as farmers and as citizens of neighborhoods in which they have common interests. The occupation and occupational isolation of the country go far to account for certain traits of mind of farmers, such as individualism, lack of cooperative ability, and conservatism. The farmer is directly dependent on the processes of nature for success as is no other undertaker. Other enterprisers may in part control the conditions incident to their business; by enterprise turn a defeat into a victory; or have the thrusts of nature considerably broken by the intervention of shock- absorbers in the shape of societal organization. But the farmer immediately faces and contends with storm, drought, and a formidable array of pests. He has no buffer to throw out to take the brunt of their visitations, and no enterprise could stay their inroads. If nature smiles, he succeeds; if it frowns, he fails. With a favorable season his management and toil count for something; if an unfavorable one, debt and want may be DISTINCTIVE CHARACTER OF RURAL SOCIETY 51 his lot. He comes to feel that he and nature are partners with nature as the chief agent and that social agencies and efforts have little import for his business successes and failures. This situation induces a fatalistic and individualistic attitude, in- duces conservatism as to social action, and hinders cooperative enterprise. Another phase of his occupation leads in the same direction. Most of the farmer's work is pursued in isolation. Only occa- sionally is it joint or cooperative. Hence he is left alone to think out his problems. He thinks, and broods, and mulls over his problems as he works, striking what light there is within him, often finding only the darkness of ignorance. But his con- clusions, whether right or wrong, are his. While this isolation breeds independence and self-reliance, it discourages the coop- erative spirit. Cooperative thinking is necessary to cooperative action and business. But the farmer does not feel comfortable, at home, under cooperation, because it has not become second nature and he has a strong tendency to revert to individualism. The conservatism of the farmer is doubtless due, in part, to the exercise of great caution in expenditures made necessary by an average small income or by recurring crop failures. The average farmer does not have the means to strike out boldly on a large scale or in untried directions. His life is an exemplifi- cation of the adage, "A penny saved is a penny earned." Most of his business acumen is spent in figuring out how far he can make a dollar go. This necessary caution and conservation in expenditure is naturally carried over into other than business matters and characterizes his attitude in educational, domestic, and other affairs. Provincialism and want of wide culture aid in making the farmer conservative. In narrowness of culture he is like the industrial capitalist, only that the latter is somewhat more in- telligent in the direction of adjusting his business to new condi- tions and laws. A widening of his information is likely to convert the farmer into a progressive — a progressive not only in his farming operations but also in politics, education, and religion. As in the case with other classes, narrowness of cul- ture, together with a standing resentment over misfortune and injustice, may lead the agricultural classes into radicalism at times. 52 RURAL SOCIOLOGY This lack of a social mind relative to many matters which concern them vitally is one reason why recreation and other community and sociability activities languish in the country. So long as primitive men did not desire, did not see the need of clothing, they went about unclothed. A perception of the need of anything must arise, usually, before the necessity is provided for. "When the people of the country awaken to the fact that they have been famishing for companionship and recreation, that they have a genuine case of social hunger, they are in a position to discover the means of satisfaction. An interesting question is raised as to whether the degree of suggestibility is greater among city or rural populations. On the one hand it is maintained that the bombardment of the senses which continually occurs in the former produces neuras- thenia, k standing condition of nervous irritability and suggesti- bility J that the city shelters many degenerates who would perish in the country and that these are unduly unstable and sug- gestible; that the frequent mental contacts made possible by density of population and ease of communication and assemblage lead to mass-mindedness. In these respects the city is a facile field for the manifestation of mob-mindedness. Individuals are. easily swept off their feet in the presence of multitudes and the display of their emotions. Besides, the business men are massed in business districts and thus form favoring conditions for initiation and the development of business crises, or specu- lative manias. On the other hand, it may be maintained that since the coun- try possesses greater homogeneity of population and culture conditions, waves of contagion may the more readily sweep over and through the rural masses. In line with this view it is main- tained that history demonstrates that the country has been the seat of the great waves and visitations of suggestion and crowd histeria. Because of the diversity of race, culture and class levels, and of economic conditions and occupational inter- ests, the urban districts possess checks and inhibitions against the quick spread of mental and emotional currents. Social organization. — A marked feature of the country com- munity is the extreme simplicity of its social organization. If the community selected is large enough it probably possesses the rudiments of the chief framework of society at large. It DISTINCTIVE CHARACTER OF RURAL SOCIETY 53 will likely show features of government, religion, education, industrial life, trade, transportation, communication, and so on. But when we compare the manifestations there in each of these respects with the same activities existing in society at large or in the larger urban communities, they seem only the rudiments of social organization, they are so meager and simple. For example, the government of our national society is composed of three great branches or divisions, legislative, executive, and judicial. Should we follow the executive branch we find it is divided into departments, each having jurisdiction over vast affairs. If one of these departments, such as that of agricul- ture, were inspected it would be discovered to consist of bureaiis, the bureaus in turn to be composed of divisions, these subdivided in turn, and so on almost infinitely. The Post Office Depart- ment is so vast that it employs an army of men, something like 200,000 in normal times. The government of one of ,our states or great cities presents a somewhat similar complexity. Even the government of small cities and towns has a large number of divisions and officers as compared with that of the country com- munity. And what is true respecting government is largely true of the other social structures and activities. As a consequence of the widely distributed population and the simplicity of the social organization of the country com- munity there is an absence of many of the problems which con- front and perplex other kinds of communities. The regulation of trusts and large industries which the nation and state have to consider are not rural local government problems. Neither do the regulation of street railways, of power plants, of slaughtering animals, of maintaining sidewalks, or of securing public health through community waterworks and sewer sys- tems come before rural neighborhoods as they do before city populations. Although there are other problems which some communities have to consider which the country is free from, those referred to will illustrate the distinction under discussion. TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION 1. Is it the same thing to say "rural society" and "the rural com- munity ' ' ? 2. Are the following rural or urban: a mining village? an industrial village? a logging cump? 54 RURAL SOCIOLOGY 3. Is a society the assemblage of all the characteristics of its respective inhabitants? 4. If 80, would it explain the individuality of the urban and the rural community? 5. Would you expect the individualities of all the different rural com- munities to be the same? 6. Why is there more social stratification, the existence of classes, in the country in Europe than in America? 7. How many kinds of technical operations does the average American farmer know? (b) The farmer's wife? 8. What is meant by the expression, "the neighborhood mind"? (b) Is it the same as the "social mind"? 9. Would you expect the neighborhood mind to be the same in country as in city? Why? 10. If agricultural life tends to make the farmer individualistic and con- servative, how are the radical agrarian movements which occur from time to time to be explained? 11. Would you class the "open shop" movement among business men and the Grain Growers' and other such movements among farmers as conservative or radical? 12. Would the $100,000 a year farmer of Washington and the small farmer of New England have the same outlook on life? REFERENCES Beenaed, L. L. — ' ' A Theory of Rural Attitudes, ' ' American Journal of Sociology, 22: 630-649. Bbtce, James — ' ' Characteristics of Farmers, ' ' American Commonwealth, II: 293-4; Macmillan. Gillette, J. M. — "Distinction Between Bural and Urban Society," in Constructive Sural Sociology, Chap. II; Macmillan, 1915. Groves, E. B. — "Psychic Causes of Rural Migration," in Rural Problems of Today, pp. 137-148. "The Mind of the Farmer," Publications of the American Socio- logical Society, 11 : 47-53. ' ' Suggestion and City Drift, ' ' Bural Manhood, April, 1916, pp. 47-52. Hates, E. C. — "Characteristics of Cities," Introduction to the Study of Sociology, pp. 60-62; Appleton. Phelan, John — Beadings in Bural Sociology, Chap. VIII; Macmillan, 1920. Boss, E. A. — Social Psychology, pp. 58-61 and 87-9 ; Macmillan. CHAPTER V TYPES OF RURAL COMMUNITIES This subject, types of rural communities, must be regarded as of considerable importance in the science of rural sociology. It has not been developed to the extent desirable because, as in all new fields of investigation, the seemingly more practical con- siderations received first attention, and further, because the determination of types of communities in the country is an ex- ceptionally baffling one. The undertaking looks easy at first but an intensive investigation brings the discovery that a completely satisfactory classification is next to impossible at the present time. Perhaps the first attempt made in this direction was that made by the present writer in a volume on rural sociology, the first edition of which appeared in 1913. Since then others have also contributed to the discussion. IMPORTANCE OP DISTINGUISHING TYPES AND NATURE OP TASK The thesis of this chapter is that while there is a great simi- larity among the rural communities of the United States there is also a great diversity of types due to the differentiating effects of divergent conditions at work in the various parts of the nation. Antecedent to the task of depicting such types it may be proper to allude to the usefulness of the undertaking and to assign a meaning to the terms "type" and "community." Usefulness of discriminating types of rural communities. — To distinguish the various kinds of rural communities to be found in our nation maj' be regarded as an important work for both scientific and utilitarian reasons. When viewed scientifi- cally, there is every reason to believe that the accomplishment of such an undertaking is of value. Science develops quite largely by means of classification of phenomena. When a scientific field is new, the various phenomena look pretty much alike. But as the result of careful inspection and comparison, they are 55 56 RURAL SOCIOLOGY seen to present differences as well as similarities, and, finally, to fall into well defined classes. Classification is a step toward generalization, which of course means the establishment of truths and principles. All realms of facts are equally interesting and important to the view of science. The field of rural facts is being explored anew and much new light thrown on rural life. To early students of rural society, the various communities looked quite similar. Now they are found to differ, and, in so far as they are studied, compared, and classified, there will be scientific advance in that field. The utilitarian importance of locating types of rural commu- nities is even more important than the scientific, although the task is a scientific one and must be well done first before the utility result can appear. Several useful results may be noted. First, the establishment of well defined types will tend to pre- vent such sweeping generalizations about rural society as have often been made in the past. Rural sociology is not alone sub- ject to such wide statements, however. Students of primitive society, for example, have asserted the erroneous "unilateral theory" relative to various phases of social evolution. In urban studies, also, the tendency has been to speak of cities of all sizes as if they were alike and to recommend improvements generally on that assumption. It evidently would not be either scientific or useful to assert something of all rural communities or advo- cate a similar program for all irrespective of the fact that they may differ fundamentally and that what is true of some may not be of others. Second, it is conceivable, at any rate, that the discovery of various kinds of rural communities might lead to the further discovery of a method of distinguishing between normal and abnormal communities. So long as the whole of rural society is blurred and confused, it is impossible to tell what is normal and what is abnormal in rural life. If animals were unclassified, it would be impossible to pronounce as to whether any given animal were a freak or an average animal. When classified, however, it is possible to refer each animal to its class, to the average of its kind, and so determine its nature. Evidently the same principle applies to rural society. Given, let us say, six distinct and well defined varieties of rural communities, and it is possible to refer any given community to its class and in the TYPES OF RURAL COMMUNITIES 57 light of the typical communities of that kind pronounce on whether or not it is pathological or normal. Obviously it would be ill-advised to treat a given community as sick, if it were only a normal variant. This chapter can present only a preliminary attempt to mark out some of the types of rural communities. In the nature of the case, the nation is so large, so variable throughout, and exact studies of rural life are so few as yet that it would be pre- sumptuous to think that the task can be done by any one man now. The final classification will be dependent on widespread and careful surveys, their study and comparison, and the criti- cism of the results obtained by those who seek- to formulate the communities studied into definite classes. It promises to be a process involving patience and penetrating insight; and much time may elapse before it is completed. Meanwhile, a beginning, even though crude and imperfect, should have a use ; for, in the field of science, it is often said that a crude initial hypothesis is better than none, and in the field of statistics it is affirmed that a guess is better than no estimate at all, because it is an initial estimate. Use and meaning of term, rural community. — A definition is often useful because it emphasizes essential characteristics by which objects and phenomena may be recognized and distin- guished. Accordingly, the following is proposed as a definition of rural community. By a rural community is meant a popula- tion of low density inhabiting a wide area, having a conscious- ness of kind based on common interests and modes of living and working, whose members communicate and cooperate on the basis of one or more interests, which interests are housed in a center or centers, whose chief industry is agricultural extraction, whose social organizations and reactions are relatively few and simple, and are correspondingly modified by spatial separation and mode of production, and whose chief social dependence and resort is the family. We should notice that open-country communities seldom pos- sess definite boundary lines, but shade gradually into each other. But this is also true of communities in cities. A city is made up of subsidiary communities, these having more or less definite common interests and centers of interest, such minor divisions shading into each other imperceptibly. Potentially, because of 58 RURAL SOCIOLOGY the consciousness of kind of farmers, every part of the country is on a cooperative basis and, therefore, all parts together con- stitute one great community. But actually there are various kinds of local communities. A population living in a given district meets, let us say, at a church for certain purposes and may be considered a religious community; while a mile away is a school where the educational interests of much the same popu- lation, together with those of some contiguous people, constitute an educational community. Other organizations and interests enter at times to further cause new groupings and overlappings. Hence, a rural community of the open country is no very defi- nite, eut-and-dried affair. Even in the ease of the "rurban," or town-country community, where the center is well-defined, the boundaries are ill-defined and variable, since farmers between villages go to one population center for some purposes and to another for others. A center of interest is vital to the existence of a rural com- munity. A community of interest is likely to express itself in cooperative organization and the latter must have a meeting place, a home. There is hardly any part of the nation, as will be shown later, that is without such a center, for the rural school- house, at least, is fairly ubiquitous. It might be objected that for our purposes here, the term "neighborhood" instead of "community" should be used. This presumptive objection rests on the conception that while the community, as defined above, embraces most farm populations, many populations in reality are only neighborhoods ; that is, are without interest centers, organizations, or definite boundaries. But we will soon show that scarcely any populations or districts need be considered as being without some sort of a center, either in the open country or rurban type. And, further, even a neighborhood has community aspects; for neighbors neighbor with one another. They exchange visits and work, cooperate at harvesting, haying, and threshing times, and in many other ways. They have a common interest in agriculture, although it may be implicit rather than explicit, and recognize them- selves as distinct from urbanites, although they may not clearly distinguish between neighborhoods by means of boundary lines. When, in addition to these more or less implicit community TYPES OF RURAL COMMUNITIES 59 characteristics of neighborhood populations, it is remembered that the vast majority of them are proximately near a school, church, or village center and further, that the topography and natural boundary lines often serve to set off such populations from one another, it will become evident that there can be little objection to applying the term "rural community" to rural populations generally. MEANING OF TYPE The significance of the term "type" turns upon what is to be made the criterion of type. In the natural sciences, classifi- cation of phenomena may proceed by recognizing and denoting all the essential characteristics common to all the objects placed in a given class; or it may consist in selecting some prominent characteristic common to all the objects of the class and denot- ing the various classes in terms of such peculiar and character- istic marks. Probably the latter method is more used than is the former. Instances of this method of classification are seen in biology. Thus, the animal forms classed as Crustacea are char- acterized by a hornlike cuticle which envelops and protects the flesh and vital organs of the body ; while those classed as verte- brate are characterized by a common backbone, or spinal col- umn, which supports and orientates the body and in which the chief rope of nerves is carried and protected. In the case of plants, we may take as an instance the monecious plants, those having both male and female organs, or stamens and pistils, in separate blossoms on the same plant, and so are capable of self- fertilization. For rigid and very exact scientific purposes, the method of classification by denoting all the essential characteristics pos- sessed in common by objects or phenomena would undoubtedly be the better of the two methods. But this method involves at least two possibilities: the ability to assemble the knowledge necessary to make a close and detailed classification, and the space to devote to an extensive exposition of the various impor- tant characteristics. Since this discussion must be compassed within the confines of this chapter, the detailed explanation and discussion of all the characters of the various classes of rural communities is out of the question; and it must be confessed 60 RURAL SOCIOLOGY that the present writer does not have the data on which to proceed to such a discussion, were the space available. More- over, he very much doubts the value of such an undertaking, were it possible. TRAITS COMMON TO TYPES OF COMMUNITIES While a treatment of types of communities lays the emphasis upon differentiating characteristics, the inference is not to be drawn that there is little in common to be found among the various types of rural communities. The following exposition will make this clear and so help to guard us against drawing wrong conclusions. Differentiation does not exclude similarity. The scientist clas- sifies the phenomena in a given field of nature on the basis of like and unlike, or those having similar and dissimilar charac- teristics, putting the objects with similar traits in one class, those of other similar traits in another class, and so on until all the objects are accounted for. Thus we have blackbirds, sparrows, warblers, and other kinds of birds. Within each of those classes further groupings are made, such as redwing and yellow-wing blackbirds, and English-, tree-, field-, song-, white- throated, and other kinds of sparrows. While warblers, spar- rows, and blackbirds are different from one another in one or more respects, they are very much alike in some very funda- mental respects. In like manner, within the sparrow group, the various kinds of sparrows are more alike in fundamentals than they are dissimilar. There are two great types of living things, plants and animals. These forms of life are funda- mentally different from each other and yet at the same time they are more fundamentally similar. Whatever it may be, life is common to both, something which distinguishes them from all the great inorganic realm and binds them together inextricably. Further, both are cellular; that is, the metabolism of life is conducted by means of the microscopic organisms known as cells. There are several races of man, distinct from each other in obvious physical characteristics; and yet blacks, yellows, whites, reds, and browns are alike in having the similar quali- ties that go to make up human beings. We would expect, there- fore, that the several types of rural communities have more fundamental characters in common than differentiating traits. TYPES OF RURAL COMMUNITIES 61 "Without going into too great detail, it may prove instructive to denote some of the more important similarities running from type to type of rural community. 1. Direct dependence of the population upon the physical environment. — This is doubtless the basis of rural life and of rural communities as such. Agricultural communities are di- vorced and distinguished from all other kinds of communities by the fact that their inhabitants engage in a characteristic ex- tractive industry. Other rural populations may pursue extrac- tive industries as in the case of lumbering, mining, fishing. But only the farmers extract produce from the soil by a method of cultivation and solicitation. What they produce is conse- quently peculiarly dependent on a nice combination of quality of soil, temperature, wind, moisture, and precipitation. All agriculture is extraction from the soil, but in varying de- grees. The production of all crops is alike dependent on the treatment and solicitation of the soil. But the raising of stock is a step removed, since livestock feeds on plants which nature, unsolicited, may provide or which man may produce by methods of culture. But in either case, the rearing of stock is a step removed from the soil. All types of rural communities are alike dependent on this extractive industry. None can escape it and it is fundamental to their existence and life. 2. A common fund of interest and of consciousness of kind. — Although farmers and farming populations differ greatly in what they produce, they have a strong and ever-present con- sciousness of being farmers and a recognition of kinship with each other because of being farmers. A part of this conscious- ness of kinship is based on their common craftmanship. Agri- culture extraction has called into existence a technology of its own which distinguishes its workers from all other kinds of workers. Farming is made up of a great fund of technique and lore, as nicely worked out and adapted to accomplish its pur- pose as any in the world. Let producers of cotton, corn, wheat, citrus fruit, livestock or what else meet one another anywhere and they warm up to each other just because they are farmers, and at once begin to talk shop and to swap experiences. This consciousness of kind involves a somewhat common men- tal complex by reason of the fact that farmers live and work 62 RURAL SOCIOLOGY under fairly similar conditions. Not only is the technique in the various kinds of farming somewhat similar, but the mode of life, the outlook on nature, the clothing, habits, and customs are strikingly alike. Those who are so much alike in these re^ spects are bound by that very fact to think, feel, and react to stimuli in characteristically similar manner. This fact runs through all kinds of farm communities and makes the farmers of the nation feel akin. 3. Intense familism. — The farmers, more than city people, are dependent on the family and home for a great measure of their social contacts and satisfactions. The evenings after work and the Sundays are chiefly spent in the home. This large de- pendence has made the family and home larger factors in the life of rural communities and has stamped rural communities everywhere with its flavor. 4. A center or centers of interest. — The possession of a cen- ter or centers of interest is not peculiar to rural communities but it is a characteristic which all' rural communities of every type almost uniformly share in common. This does not mean that all kinds of communities have developed such centers to an equivalent degree any more than being Caucasian implies that all whites have the same complexion. As said elsewhere, these centers may be of any nature: church, school, club in the open country or one or more of such interests in a neighboring village. GENERAL TYPES A somewhat extensive variety of rural communities confronts us, when we seek to class them on the basis of some characteris- tic common to a type. Rural communities are of two main classes: (1) Nomadic, or peripatetic, and (2) stationary. The stationary rural communities are of several types, of which the following are probably the more important designations: (1) Crop-response; (2) ethnic, consisting of both racial and nativity groups; (3) open country; (4) farm village; (5) rurban, or town-country; (6) cultural types; and (7) single interest com munities. This by no means exhausts the possibilities of nam- ing kinds of rural communities, and other authors are at liberty to make as many as their purposes require. It must be noted that in such a classification as this, the classes TYPES OF RURAL COMMUNITIES 63 tend to overlap one another. Peripatetic agricultural commu- nities may be, at the same time, racial groups. Immigrant agri- cultural communities may be of the open country, town-country, or farm- village types. Any type of stationary farm community may vary in culture from a semi-primitive to a high and pro- gressive level ; and so on for other crossings. It is also to be noted that these rural communities vary all the way from incompleteness to relative completeness of community life. Wherever there is a single common interest and accom- panying cooperation among a body of any people, there is a community, but it is a community of an incomplete kind. This single interest may be religious, educational, economic, recrea- tional or anything else which secures cooperative action. When two interests emerge and two kinds of cooperation take place among a people, there is an instance of a more complete com- munity. As other interests are added, the rural community grows in completeness. As a consequence we may conceive the complete rural community as a local population cooperating in the direction of all the essential interests of modern civilization and rural life. The peripatetic type. — This type is found among primitive and barbarous peoples whose chief means of living are the herds of dairy animals which are driven from place to place, usually as the pasture land is grazed off, accompanied by the dependent population. The chief homes of such rural groups at the present time are to be found in the sandy and arid regions of Asia and Africa. The cattle grazers of Afghanistan, Persia, Arabia, and the Kirghiz and Kalmuk in the plains of the Caspian Sea are notable examples. Says Miss Semple of the Kirghis and Kal- muk: "The description given by Herodotus of the ancient Scythians is applicable in its main features to the Kirghis and Kalmuk who inhabit the Caspian plains today. The environ- ment of this dry grass land operates now to produce the same mode of life and social organization as it did 2,400 years ago; stamps the cavalry tribes of Cossacks as it did the mounted Huns ; energizes its sons by its dry bracing air, toughens them by its harsh conditions of life, organizes them into a mobilized army, always moving with its pastoral commissariat. ' ' ^ 'Ellen Churchill Semple, Influence of Geographic Environment, Chap. I; Houghton Mifflin Company. 64 RURAL SOCIOLOGY On the Kirghiz, Professor Ross quotes MaeGahan as follows: ' ' To anyone unacquainted with their habits of life, there does not seem to be the slightest system in their movements. They have a system nevertheless. Every tribe and every aul follows year after year exactly the same itinerary, pursuing the same paths, stopping at the same wells as their ancestors did a thou- sands years ago ; and thus many auls whose inhabitants winter to- gether are hundreds of miles apart in summer. The regularity and exactitude of their movements is such that you can predict to a day where, in a circuit of several hundred miles, any aul will be at any season of the year. A map of the desert showing all the routes of the different auls, if it could be made, would present a network of paths meeting, crossing, intersecting each other in every conceivable direction, forming apparently a most inexplicable entanglement and confusion. Yet no aul ever mis- takes its own way, or allows another to trespass upon its itiner- ary. One aul may at any point cross the path of another, but it is not allowed to proceed for any distance upon it. Any de- viation of an aul or tribe from the path which their ancestors have trodden is a cause of war." Upon being asked why the people did not stay in the same §pot instead of all moving and so crossing each other's trail, a member of the Kirghiz replied : ' ' Well, our fathers never did so, and why should we not do as they always have done?" And this seems to be the true reason for their migrations.^ Such a systematic and far reaching migration of pastoral groups is not characteristic of all nomadic rural communities. Generally, the given group has a habitat which it considers its territory — and which is more or less so recognized by other groups — within which it moves from place to place to keep in touch with fresh pasture. Such are the nomads of Persia and such are pictured to us in the Old Testament. Abraham and his group was a nomadic rural community. Crop response communities. — A produce map of the United States reveals several great areas of agricultural production, each of which is dominated by and named for some one or two of the most prominent products. Thus, New York and the New England States are labeled as "dairying and mixed farming," a belt extending westward to Colorado and Wyoming from the ' E. A. Eoss, Social Psychology, pp. 200-201. TYPES OP RURAL COMMUNITIES 65 Atlantic coast, lying between the parallels of latitude of 37 on the south and about 41 on the north, but including the southern peninsula of Michigan is denoted as the "corn and winter wheat belt." The "cotton belt" lies just south of the former belt, stretching from the Atlantic to New Mexico and to the Gulf southward. The "spring wheat belt" lies north of the "corn and winter wheat belt" and between the Great Lakes and Mon- tana. The eight mountain States constitute the "wool and live- stock" region. The Pacific coast States are devoted to "grain and fruits. ' ' So far as agricultural production goes, these belts do name the predominant crop responses of the respective areas. But, of course, there are also other crops and farm products raised within the same areas. Thus, corn is a close second in the cotton belt, livestock a close second in some portions of the corn belt, and dairying a predominant occupation in portions of the spring wheat district. However, the produce map does call attention to an essential fact; namely, that, if anywhere, it is within such districts that a pure type crop response community is to be Tound. Thus, we would probably find certain communities de- voted to raising cotton exclusively in the cotton belt, some de- voted to raising corn exclusively in the corn belt, those busied with wheat almost exclusively in t le spring wheat belt. In these cases, whatever else is produced is by way of feed for work animals, milk cows, and hogs for the family meat supply, and for crop rotation purposes. It may be objected that naming communities by the nature of the crop response merely designates superficial characteristics and does little to differentiate them according to essentials. Let us recognize a large measure of truth in this stricture. How- ever there are features connected with various forms of produc- tion which we must recognize as having some weight and pos- sibly significant social results. Thus the time required to pro- duce a crop of cotton, the growing season, is about seven months, that of corn is about five or six months except in the case of the 90-day varieties of the far north, while that of spring wheat is about three or four months. It is obvious that where the given crop is raised practically alone, the leisure time of the pro- ducer of cotton is less than that of corn and that of corn is less thajL-that of wheat. Leisure time may mean only idleness 66 RURAL SOCIOLOGY and loafing or it may mean self-improvement, farm organiza- tion for improvement of community and calling, recreation, cul- ture — in general a larger life. It must also be conceded that crop response and the time devoted to cultivation and harvest- ing will have a bearing on the amount and quality of labor em- ployed, especially as to whether labor will be of the steady or seasonal variety. The presence or absence of migrant labor also determines to a large extent whether or not there shall appear in community liffe certain vicious and infectious symp- toms. Again, the presence of a permanent labor force may eventually bring about a stratification of rural society into hired men and employers, and a permanent labor force is most likely to occur where a dominant crop is absent, since there farming is diversified. Ethnic ratal communities. — An ethnic community is one whose population belongs wholly or chiefly to a certain race or nationality. There are rural communities in the United States of both the racial and immigrant ethnic kinds. Of the former sort are the negro communities of the South and the Japanese agricultural groups of the Pacific Coast districts. Samples of immigrant communities occur all over the United States, al- though the intensity of distribution varies greatly. There are sections of the South where the rural population is not only chiefly but almost exclusively negro. This is more especially true of the so-called "black belt," an almost con- tinuous chain of counties extending from Virginia, through the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana to Texas. Negroes in this belt of counties constitute from 35 to 75 per cent of the total population and the proportion in the country is greater than in the cities. Whole counties exist where the negroes are from five to ten times as numerous as the whites. Several things occur which combine to make the negro com- munities distinctive. (1) Negroes are black people, and where there are many black people thrown in proximity with whites a somewhat violent and sometimes bitter race prejudice is called into being. This tendency is manifesting itself at the present time in South Africa, where the "race problem" is assuming troublesome proportions. A recent negro leadei there said that when the white man came to South Africa the negro had the TYPES OP RURAL COMMUNITIES 67 land and the white man had the Bible, but that now the white man has the land and the negro the Bible. (2) The negro has been a slave in America and in the South, and this fact follows the negro now and confronts him in various ways. To have been owned, to have been servile, carries with it the imputation of inferiority. So the negro is relegated to a lower place in the economic order and has no standing among whites of the South — and often in the North — in the "social" or sociability sense. (3) Because he was so recently a slave the negro is largely ig- norant, heavily illiterate, has not developed high appreciation of the value of attaining property, the worth of thrift, and of personal responsibility. His schools are poor, his teachers in- sufficiently trained, his religion and religious leaders of a primi- tive and superstitious character. (4) The negro has been gen- erally disfranchised throughout the South and is impotent politically, which of course means that he has not the political and legal means of rectifying many conditions which help to keep him down. But on the whole, the negro of the South is making progress. He is learning industry for himself instead of for a master, de- creasing in illiteracy, getting better schools and teachers, attain- ing some property, and becoming a land owner of considerable importance in certain sections. A larger and more sympathetic attitude on the part of the whites would doubtless be beneficial to negro communities. The immigrant type of ethnic rural communities are wide- spread throughout the nation, being, however, chiefly distributed in the North. So long as our immigrants came chiefly from western and northwestern Europe and the British Isles, the bulk of them settled on the land in this country. Then we had great settlements almost purely of Germans, Swedes, Norwegians, Danes, and the like. Such states as Wisconsin, Minnesota, and the Dakotas were largely settled by northwest Europeans. Then there was plenty of accessible and cheap land, and our cities were not so large in proportion to the nation and did not fur- nish so many opportunities for ready work and cash. But in recent decades, especially since about 1890, what is called the "new immigration" has dominantly flowed out of Europe to America and the "old immigration" has comparatively receded 68 RURAL SOCIOLOGY in importance. And while some of the new migrants settle on land, the majority of them locate in cities, notwithstanding the fact that they were largely peasants in Europe. in 1910, only about 28 per cent of the more than thirteen million foreign-born residents of the nation were classed as rural, and a portion of this percentage resided in places of less than 2,500 souls. The South has practically no immigrants, although a comparatively large percentage of those there dwell in the country. In New England less than one-twelfth of the immi- grants live in the countrj' ; in the Middle Atlantic States about one-sixth ; in the East North Central States more than a fourth ; in the West North Central and the Mountain divisions more than three-fifths ; and in the Pacific division less than two-fifths. Interesting immigrant rural communities may be found in many states: Italians in New York and in several southern states; Germans and Poles in Wisconsin and neighboring states; Scandinavian in Minnesota and the Dakotas ; Poles and German- Russian in North Dakota. In some cases the whole population is made up of foreign-born people and of children recently born. Perhaps the Italians have had greater difficulty in fitting into American agriculture than has any other people, and this is largely because their kind of farming in Italy is quite different from the American. Many Italian farmers have been vineyard and small farmers, and know little of diversified or large scale farming. A few general statements may safely be made of immigrant farm communities. (1) The immigrants are generally poor when they first settle on land here and have a hard struggle for the first year or two. Thus, the Italian settlement at Tonti- town, Arkansas, was housed in pole shacks during the first year and suffered great hardships from exposure and lack of supplies. The men and boys went to the mines of Kansas and Missouri to earn enough money to keep the colony alive. But after a few years, these conditions were overcome, farming was a success, comfortable homes were built, and schools and churches were erected. This has been the ultimate outcome of most immigrant colonies. (2) Such colonies tend to preserve their language and customs during the first generation in America. This is due partly to the fact that that is a natural and inevitable thing to do, as a population cannot change its language and customs at TYPES OF RUKAL COMMUNITIES 69 will, and partly to the fact that the foreigners encounter some prejudice from native American neighbors. Being looked down on and repelled, the colonists do not "mix in" as fast as they otherwise might do. The Italian settlement just mentioned found a very strong initial prejudice from the native neigh- bors in Arkansas. This manifested itself at one time in the attempt on the part of a gang of boys to burn down the church. But after a few years prejudice abated and the two popula- tions participated in community activities together. Especially was this true after the native children began to attend the parochial school established by the Italians, a school superior to the local schools. (3) After the first generation, or better, as fast as the young generation comes on to the stage of action, the backwardness and aloofness of immigrant rural settlements disappear. The second generation goes to school with native-born children, gets the country's language, and imbibes its customs, ideals, spirit, and ambitions. Often it intermarries with the native stock. The standards of living rise, and sooner or later it is impossible to distinguish between the old native element and the foreign ex- traction. This is most fortunate and testifies to the winning excellence of the American spirit and "institutions." The open-country community. — The open-country community has been the prevailing type of American agricultural commu- nities during most of the national history. Its name suggests what it is: namely, a group of agricultural people who have de- veloped a community consciousness and one or more interests respecting which they cooperate and who have a center or centers where they meet to discuss and promote those common aims. How many such communities there are in the United States it is possible only to approximate roughly. Taking the state- ment of the Federal Bureau of Education that there are in this country 256,000 school buildings outside of all incorporated places; and making use of our later estimate that the agri- cultural population probably occupies not over half of the land area of the nation, it would appear that there is at least a school center for each farming district three miles square. If it is true that wherever there is a common interest expressing itself in organization and cooperation, there is a community, then there are many open-country communities in the United 70 KURAL SOCIOLOGY States. Beyond this, there are churches and other organizations which often are housed in the open country. Generally speaking, these open-country communities are back- ward in social spirit and cooperative organization. The occa- sional "meeting," funeral, school exhibition, and school election are not enough to set the common life into vital pulsation. The old literary society, the debate, the spelling school, the singing class, and the long-drawn-out revivals were useful instruments — now generally forgotten — to awaken the neighborhood conscious- ness. Perhaps the farmers' club and other agencies may come to serve as superior substitutes. Farm village commumty. — With the exception of the United States, Canada, and Australasia, practically every civilized farming population whose history is known has at some time passed through the stage of development known as the ancient village community. This community, as typified in the medieval English village community, was sufficiently described in the chapter on the evolution of rural society. It was found that this was an agricultural village of a few or a hundred families, that the land of both the arable and commons type were owned by the population in common, that the larger and costlier farm equipment was so owned, and that the land farmed was allotted yearly by the heads of families. The Russian mir has been a late survivor of this kind of farm community. This village community has not come down to us in most European and English lands as it formerly existed, for while the agricultural populations of those countries quite uniformly live in villages from which they go out to work on the surround- ing lands, the communistic feature has long since disappeared. Those village populations may now go out to farm their own plots, the plots of others, or to work as hired laborers for owner or renter employers. The kind of village occupied by the peasant farmers of Persia has been interestingly referred to by a recent writer. "While Teheran is the seat of an experiment in representative govern- ment, most of the surrounding villages are a part of an oriental feudal system, as the property of the crown or the wealthy land- owning nobles. In these dreary, unsanitary, adobe villages still centers the Persian peasant life — an existence entirely aloof from the modern world, dominated by bigotry and conservatism, TYPES OF RURAL COMMUNITIES 71 and not yet ameliorated by medical science. From their cen- tralized abodes the peasants go each day to till the surrounding fields with tools and methods similar to those employed oy their forebears. ' ' ^ The farm villages of portions of Utah and of some other states peopled by Mormons are samples of this kind of rural community. When the Mormons went to Utah, there was danger from Indian attacks, were farmers to live apart on individual farms. There were also to be overcome the remoteness from civilization and the loneliness which such remoteness in a great wilderness engendered. The Mormon church desired, in addi- tion, to develop a system which would promote the greatest pos- sible solidarity among members of the faith, and more espe- cially among the new converts. Besides this, the land had to be watered by means of irrigation, thereby permitting relatively small farms and, consequently, promoting compactness of popu- lation. For all these reasons, Brigham Young determined that his followers should settle in farm villages. And in Cache Valley and in some other portions of Utah, one sees few indi- vfdual farm residents. Those who live in these villages have nearly an acre of land in connection with the dwelling, perhaps another five acres in the first ring of such plots of land outside the village, and, it may be, a larger tract in a still more distant ring of plots of ten acres or more each. The wealthier farmers own still more plots farther out. This was the original plan, and it has been carried out with more or less modification. Such a village is sometimes a place of hundreds of families, and supports stores, shops, banks, and the customary businesses of small towns — although it seems that these are less developed than commonly, since the inhabitants are prone to transact their business in the larger towns and cities, where these are available. But the church and school life is fully developed, and the Mor- mon church has done much to stimulate and provide for the recreational side of life. Rurbaji community. — The rurban, or town-country, commu- nity consists of a combined village or town and surrounding agricultural population.'!. We have no exact method of deter- mining the frequency of this type of communitj', but it is pos- 'F. L. Bird, The Jfationctl Geographic Magazine, April, 1921, p. 392. 72 RURAL SOCIOLOGY sible to make an estimate that will give us a rough idea concern- ing the number in this country. There are over 14,000 incorporated places of all sizes in the United States and perhaps as many as 2,500 small unincor- porated places. Just about one-half of the 1,900,000,000 acres of land comprised in the forty-eight states is available for strictly agricultural purposes, although an additional area of some extent might serve as questionable grazing ground. It may be taken for granted that the preponderating proportion of towns and villages are located within the agricultural sections. On this basis, there would be on the average a village, town, or city nucleus for every ninety-one square miles of territory. This would mean Lhat, if these centers were equally distributed over this half of the national domain, every district less than ten miles square would contain such a center, and that prac- tically the entire agricultural population would be reasonably accessible to village, semi-urban, or urban centers. But no such regularity of distribution of places and population exists. Where population is dense, as in the eastern half of the nation — outside of mountain districts — there are few agricultural populations out of reach of such centers; but in the western half, where population is thin and where great districts lie remote from rail- ways, such is not the case. The relationship between the two kinds of population, village and agricultural, constituting a rurban community will receive attention in a later chapter. It will be found that in some re- spects such a community tends to be a double one, that is, a divided community. What we need to recognize here is, that where a conflict of interest has not occurred so as to create hostility between the two populations, there exists the condi- tion for a much more complete and richer community life than in the average open-country community. The village or city is the center of life in many respects. There is a likelihood that more interests will arise in the agricultural population and be served in such a community tlian in one without such a center. Schools, churches, lodges, social clubs, and places of recreation exist to call forth interest and concentrate social contact and cooperative endeavor. Further, especially in the case of towns and small cities, there is available a considerable body of TYPES OF RURAL COMMUNITIES 73 trained and capable leaders for initiating and directing activities in many of the common fields of interest. Single-center communities. — There are rural communities which are single-center communities, and although we have already noticed these in discussing open-country communities, they are tabulated separately for the purpose of bringing them into contrast with multiple-center communities and for empha- sizing their reality. Probably the bulk of open-country com- munities are communities of this type, but there is a tendency in the country to place school, church, community-hall, store, blacksmith shop, and the like at some central point and so to create a social center. The development of the consolidated school also bears in the direction of awaking other than strictly school interests and giving them a home and realization in the school building. Some of these single interest centers have manifested great virility and have shown a persistence and dominancy in the face of competition and rivalry of nearby village centers. Such a community is the Pleasant Hill community, located twelve miles southeast of Eugene, Oregon, between the Coast Fork and the Middle Fork of the Willamette and between two railroads. The history of this community goes back over half a century. The home of a pioneer Disciple church for many years, a union high school was established in 1907, the first of the kind in the state. While tendencies toward breaking up the old community as new settlers came in to take the place of the old pioneers were beginning to manifest themsdves, the establishment of this four-year high school and the union of five districts saved the day. The competition with the villages located on the nearby railroads would be expected to sap the vigor of this community. Nevertheless, it has held its own and it even draws students from some of the villages, for its high school is recognized as the best in the larger region. In spite of the fact that good roads and bridges lead from Pleasant Hill to at least two of these villages, a good deal of the social life of the larger district cen- ters at the Hill. It is said that the annual picnic at Pleasant Hill is the largest thing of its kind in the whole county.^ '■A Rural Survey of Land County, Oregon, Country Church Work Board, Home Missions Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A., 191C. 74 RURAL SOCIOLOGY Cultural types of communities. — Rural communities may be designated according to the grade of culture which they mani- fest and according to whether or not they exhibit a static or progressive tendency in respect to culture. By culture is here meant, not the refinement of intelligence, manners, and accom- plishments which are said to denote the cultured individual, but the level of intelligence and technological attainments which serve to distinguish gradations in the evolution of society. As the various societies of the world may be graded according to the measure of their attainments in scientific insight into na- ture and society and the practical arts of manipulating and controlling the conditions in both nature and society, so rural communities may be likewise estimated and ranked. That this is not a fictitious and barren method of classifica- tion may be observed by placing some agricultural populations in contrast. Merely to mention the average negro rural com- munity of the "Black Belt," the white neighborhoods of the hill and mountain country of the Ozark and southern Appa- lachian regions, the poorer type farming districts of the north, and the most advanced and up-to-date farming sections in the best agricultural states aU over the nation, brings into view the fact in question. In this series we have a steady advance from the superstitious, unscientific, outlook and the almost primi- tive methods of response in agricultural and social operations and activities, through the intermediate grades, up to a scien- tific comprehension of the essential forces at work in nature and society and a rational and nicely adapted use of means and methods in the attainment of the desired ends. Concomi- tantly there is an enlargement of life and an emancipation of the minds and souls of men for the freer expression of aspira- tions and ideals. Where culture has become static, we have examples of back- ward communities or cases of communities with arrested develop- ment. Such examples, it is probable, are to be found pretty much in every state of the Union. Such communities are the more likely to occur in the older portions of the nation, espe- cially where the physical environment has served to isolate con- siderable populations and communities and to cut them off from the influences of the great vitalizing currents of life. The mountain districts of the west and the communities of the west TYPES OF RURAL COMMUNITIES 75 generally are yet too new for the exhibition of these traits. Yet in due time they may be expected to show themselves there. In fact, there are places now that clearly manifest symptoms of arrested development, if not of decay. The classical example of arrested rural communities is the great southern Appalachian mountain and table land region stretching over portions of some eight states. The population of this great region is pure white and comes from a reputable stock that settled there over a century ago. When the cur- rents of population flowed west to fill up the national domain, the people of these regions were, for the most part, untouched by the flow. Also, as the nation advanced in its general cultural development, these regions were left untouched, for most part. As a consequence, they did not adapt the inventions, utilities, scientiflc ideas, and modes of living as those things came into use; so that after a century they found themselves far behind the level of culture of the nation at large. But it is to be re- membered that in body, natural strength of mind, and whole- someness of life and morals, these populations are inferior to none ; and now that the country is opening to roads, modern in- ventions, and scientific ideas, this portion of the nation holds out great promise. TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION 1. Is a type the same thing as being typical? 2. What relation between a typical man and men generally? between a typical county and other counties? between a typical community and other communities? 3. Is there any community in the United States that is typical of all the communities of the nation? 4. Is there any rural community in the nation that is typical of all other rural communities? 5. If there were a dozen types of rural communities, what would be their relation to one another? Would there be anything in common? 6. How would you go about it to discover the various types of rural com- munities? 7. Could the survey be made useful in ascertaining types? 8. Suppose you attempt to select the township in your county that is representative of all the other townships in your county. 9. Study up on the Mennonites and see if their kind of communal life fits into any of the types described in the text. 10. Where would you class an Indian group? 11. What would be the advantage to anyone or to any group to be able to make a map of the nation on which all the rural communities were represented according to type? 76 EURAL SOCIOLOGY REFERENCES Burr, Walter — Sural Orqani:alinn, Cliap. I; Macniillaii, 1921. Galpin, C. 3.—Eural Life, Cluip. IV; Century Co., 1918. Gillette, J. M. — Construdirc Hural Sociology, Chap. Ill: "Types of Rural Coniiiiunitios. " Treats tlio subject in a considerably different manner. Gives more details concerninf>- some ty])es considered here. KoLB, J. H. — Bural Primani (Irmips, Research Bulletin 51, Agr. Exper. Station, Madison, Wis., 1922. MacGarr, h. — The Sural Community, Cliap. TV; Macmillau, 1922. Ross, E. A. — .SociVi? Psychology ; Macmillan, 1908. Sanderson, Dwight — Locating the Sural Community, The Cornell Beading Course for the Farm, Lesson 158, Ithaca, N. Y., June 1920. Sims, N. L. — The Sural Community. Chap. 6: "Types of Communities"; Scribners, 1920. Valuable for concrete instances of the ethnic, immi- grant, rurban, idealistic, religious, school, and exceptional community. Surveys op the Board or Home Missions op the Presbyterian Church, and those of other agencies and individuals for detailed studies of various rural eominunities. PART III CONDITIONS AND MOVEMENTS OF THE RURAL POPULATION CHAPTER VI CHARACTERISTICS AND MOVEMENTS IN RURAL POPULATION The study of population is both interesting and significant/ There is a natural curiosity as to whether or not a population is growing, how it compares with other populations, and kindred matters. The economic and social significance of conditions of the rural population is apparent, for the nation and the world must have enough agriculturists to furnish foods and other materials ; and if rural society is to be attractive and wholesome ■it is requisite that extreme depopulations shall not occur. It is inevitable, therefore, that an understanding of rural life is im- possible without a consideration of rural population. Limits of rural population. — The United States Census divides the national population into urban and rural, and now sets the dividing line at 2,500, whereas formerly it was at 4,000, and still earlier at 8,000. This means that for census purposes towns and villages of less than 2,500 inhabitants are included with the open country. This is, as previously denoted, an arbi- trary distinction, and there is good reason to think that a fur- ther reduction to 1,000 or even 500 might logically be made. "Were occupation selected as the chief characteristic of country populations, it would be found that a very small minority of a village of 1,000 inhabitants are immediately engaged in pro- ducing agricultural commodities. In 1910 the rural population was 49,348,883, including as rural incorporated places of less than 2,500, or 53.7 per cent of the national population ; in 1920 it was 51,398,144, or only 48.6 per cent of the total population. But if such incorporated places are not counted as rural, in 1910 but 45.6 per cent of our people were rural, while in 1920 the proportion was still smaller, being only 40.1 per cent of aU. inhabitants. Increase in rural population. — As in the case of urban com- munities, there are a number of factors which operate within 79 i pq O g a Q PS Ah 80 CHARACTERISTICS IN RURAL POPULATION 81 rural populations toward increasing or decreasing them. Immi- gration of foreign-born persons; births; deaths; migration to cities, to other rural districts, to other states, and abroad; in- corporation of rural territory into urban territory; and decline of urban territory into rural territory make up the bulk of such causal conditions. The results of the operation of certain or all of these diverse factors relative to the country manifest them- selves under immigration and natural increase. They are em- bodied in the accompanying table. FACTORS OF RURAL INCREASE OF POPULATION IN UNITED STATES, 1900-1910* Factora Amount Per Cent of Census Increase 1,290,000 2,861,000 4,151,000 31.0 Natural Increase Total 69.0 100.0 * J. M. Gillette, A Study in Sociat Dynamics, etc., American Statistical Association, December, 1916, Vol. 15:367. That portion of immigration which settled in rural territory during the decade, together with its natural increase, amounts to 1,290,000, which is 31 per cent of the total increase of rural population. It is estimated that the natural increase of the inhabitants living in the country in 1900 amounted to 7,638,000 by the close of the decade, 1910. This is an amount greater by 3,487,000 than the total rural increase as estimated by the cen- sus of 1910. Immigration, together with its natural increase, settled in the country during the decade to the extent of 1,290,- 000. This factor, added to the estimated natural increase, totals 8,980,000, which is twice as much as the rural increase of population allowed by the census. Had the country retained all of this population, its rate of increase would have been more nearly equal to that of cities. But the country lost from this population in the following ways: 924,000 by the incorporation of rural territory and inhabitants into urban territory ; 294,000, the assumed rural portion of emigration out of the nation; 3,559,000 as the measure of migration of ruralites settling in cities. These eliminations leave the sum of increase of rural population as given by the census of 1910.^ ' The details of the calculation to derive these figures are to be found in the author 's A Study in Social Dynamics, etc., American Statistical Associa- tion, Vol. 15: 363-8. 82 RURAL SOCIOLOGY The difficulty in determining to what extent rural population may be regarded as having increased may be illustrated by the decade 1900-1910, the result being dependent on the basis chosen in order to make the estimate. The several bases and resulting estimates are denoted as follows : (1) Counting only persons living in the open country and in unincorporated places — for which we have no data — as rural, we •find there was a population of 41,230,000 in 1910 and one of 42,436,776 in 1920, an increase of 2.9 per cent, as compared with the one of 5.6 per cent in 1910. (2) Should incorporated places of less than 2,500 inhabitants be included in the rural population — the practice generally — the rural population in 1910 would be 49,806,146 and in 1920, 51,406,017, a gain during the decade of 3.2 per cent, as compared with 9.9 per cent in 1910. (3) There is a difference in rural population assigned to the earlier of two censuses, depending on whether at that date we mean by rural population those inhabitants living in terri- tory that was rural in the earlier or the later decade. The latter territory is less than the former because rural territory is con- stantly being incorporated into cities and towns. The estimate under (2) above is on the basis of 1910, thus yielding a larger population at that time and a consequent smaller increase of population during the succeeding decade than occurs when the 1920 territorial basis is used. When the rural territory is re- garded as that of 1920, the rural population of 1910 amounts to 48,779,082 and the decennial increase of population is 5.4 per cent, as compared with 11.2 at the previous census. Rural population has declined from the place of dominancy in the national population. Taking 8,000 as the dividing line between rural and urban population, the only basis possible prior to the last few decades according to United States Census usage, it is found that in 1790, the rural population constituted about 96 per cent of the national population, while in 1920 it had declined to 56.2 per cent. Using 2,500 as the margin and confining our view to recent decades, it formed 70.5 per cent of the total population in 1880, 63.9 per cent in 1890, 59.5 per cent in 1900, 54.2 per cent in 1910, and 48.6 per cent in 1920. It is obvious that the urban population has increased in importance in a corresponding manner. It may be useful as well as interesting to compare the ratio CHARACTERISTICS IN RURAL POPULATION 83 of urban with that of rural increase of population, since this will lend additional insight into the tendencies manifesting them- selves in the national population, the dividing line between urban and rural being 8,000. RATE OF EURAL AND OF URBAN INCREASE OF POPTJLATION AND THE RATIO BETWEEN THEM BY DECADES FROM 1790 TO 1910" Decade Ending Per Cent of Urban Increase Per Cent of Rural Increase Ratio of per Cent of Urban to Rural Increase 1920 25.7 32.8 37.0 60.2 41'. 1 59.1 75.1 99.3 68.2 82.0 23.1 69.3 60.4 5.4 11.2 14.1 14.5 27.2 15.6 29.9 30.0 30.1 31.0 33.1 35.0 34.2 4.1 1910 2.9 1900 2.6 1890 4.2 1880 1.5 1870 3.8 1860 2.5 1850 3.3 1840 2.3 1830 2.6 1820 1.0 1810 2.0 1800 1.8 • U. S. Census Bulletin, No. 4, 1903 ; Abstract Thirteenth Census ; and Vol. I, Popula- tion, Fourteenth Census.' The average rate of urban increase is 59 per cent while that of the country is 24.5 per cent, or only 41.5 per cent as rapid. The rural rate has almost uniformly decreased until in 1920 it is only about one-sixth what it was in 1800. Since its highest point, reached in 1850, marking the close of a decade in which the cities almost doubled their population, the urban rate of increase has fallen to about one-fourth its force then and to about three-sevenths its value in 1800. The ratio of urban to rural increase, denoted in the last column of the table, has fluctuated, but the trend is in favor of the city. The average for the first four decades, ending 1830, shows that the urban population was growing almost twice (1.9 times) as fast as the rural; while the average for the last four decades, ending 1920, indicates that the former is now growing 3.45 times faster than the latter. Not since the great decade of homesteading, 1870 to 1880, has the country gained on the urban rate of increase. It would be in- teresting, although probably futile, to speculate on how far this trend will continue into the future. Natural increase of rural population. — As we shall learn in 84 RURAL SOCIOLOGY the chapter on health conditions in the country, the outcome of the play of the forces at work in society in the form of births and deaths is a good index of the vitality and validity of any given population and society. This outcome is known as the natural increase of a population and represents the excess of births over deaths. The rapid decline in the relative importance of the rural population raises the question as to its cause. The assumption is often made that the natural increase in the country is much less than in the cities. The opposite, however, is found to be the case, for the rate of natural increase of the total rural popula- tion is nearly twice that of the urban. The accompanying table presents the urban and rural birth rates, death rates, and nat- ural increase rates for the entire nation and for the nine divisions. RATES OF BIRTH, DEATH, AND NATURAL INCREASE IN THE UNITED STATES FOR THE DECADE 1900-1910, BY DIVISIONS* Birth Rate Death Rate Rate Natural Increase Division Rural Urban Total Rural Urban Total Rural Urban Present Estimate Children's Bureau Estimate Total New England . 21.0 24.4 23.6 24.4 16.0 17.1 16.9 5.0 7.3 6.8 Middle Atlantic 2d. 3 26.4 26.0 26.2 14.8 16.8 16.2 10.7 9.6 10.4 East North Central 2.5.2 24.7 25.2 24.2 12.8 13.9 13.4 12.4 10.8 11.6 West North Central 28.4 22.5 26.3 25.5 10.3 12.4 11.0 18.1 10.1 15.8 South Atlantic •6i.i 26.4 32.1 31.2 15.5 19.4 16.4 18.9 6.0 16.0 East South Central 84.4 25.4 32.2 31.6 14.7 18.0 15.3 19.7 7.4 17.8 West South Central .... 36.4 27.0 34.1 32.2 12.5 16.8 13.4 23.9 10.2 21.6 Mountain .■ . . . 31.0 25.5 29.4 27.0 10.5 15.0 12.1 21.1 10.5 17.6 Pacific 24.6 20.4 23.1 19.9 12.0 13.8 13.0 12.6 6.6 9.8 United States 80.4 25.2 2S.6 (27.1) 13.5 16.4 14.7 16.9 8.8 13.65 * Gillette, Loc. cit., p. 15. According to this table, the rural birth rate is considerably higher than the urban in all of the nine divisions excepting New England and the Middle Atlantic, being about one-fifth higher in the southern divisions. On the other hand, the rural death rate is uniformly lower throughout the divisions, the weighted average being 13.6 for rural and 16.4 for urban popu- lations. The result of a higher birth rate and a lower death rate is, of course, a much greater decennial rate of natural increase for the country : 16.9 as compared with an urban rate of 8.8. CHARACTERISTICS IN RURAL POPULATION 85 Only in one division, the New England, do the cities sustain a higher rate of natural increase than the country. This may be due to the great influx of prolific immigrants into the industrial centers. The rate of natural increase of immigrants in the United States at large for the ten years ending 1910 is esti- mated at about 18 as compared with one of 13.7 for the entire population. The industrial cities of the Middle Atlantic divi- sion have also absorbed a very great proportion of such immi- grants, with the result that the urban rate of natural increase is nearly as high as that of rural sections. It is interesting to note that the cities of two southern and of the Pacific divi- sions have a lower rate of natural increase than those of New England. In the South the bulk of the negroes, who multiply rapidly in the rural districts, dwell in the country ; also, it may be that the native white stock in the South and West tends to decrease in its rate of increase as it is known to do in New England. It is apparent from these figures that if all the population re- sulting from natural increase remained in the country the com- parative gains of city and country populations would be much altered. There is little reason to doubt the approximate accu- racy of the estimates presented. Besides those methods em- ployed in the formulation of the above table, other methods of estimating the rate of natural increase show as wide a diver- gence between rural and urban populations. For example. Pro- fessor Warren S. Thompson reckons the decennial urban rate of increase at 5 and the rural rate at 15; and he regards his figures as conservative.^ The reasons why the country has a higher rate of natural increase than the city have been set forth by Professor Thomp- son, and they pertain to both births and deaths. He accounts for the lower birth rate in cities as follows: "The chief causes of the lower birth rate in the city may be summed up by saying that the people in the city more often voluntarily limit the size of their families than do the people in the country." The higher the economic class in the city, the greater are the limitations on the size of the family. Ignorance of limitation methods, lack of social ambition, the practice of allowing children to support themselves at an early age, and sometimes viewing children as ' Scientific Monthly, Vol. 5 : 30. 86 RURAL SOCIOLOGY an economic asset to the parents in that their wages are claimed among certain immigrant populations, accounts for the heavier birth rate in the lowest class. In general, there are fewer women that are married in the child-bearing age period of fifteen to forty-four than in the country. Relative to the reasons for a high rural birth rate, outside of negro populations. Professor Thompson finds that rural popu- lations are of essentially the same beliefs. The women gener- ally are homemakers and free from the ambition for social dis- tinction with prevents motherhood. The children are of eco- nomic value early in life and, hence, are not felt to be a burden. It is easier to rear children in the country, where interests are centered about the home instead of outside it, as is so largely the case in cities. What is termed "frontier conditions" favor the production and rearing of large families, by frontier conditions being meant not only conditions in newly settled regions, but those where people feel that there are good opportunities for their children — opportunities which require little or no special training to enable the children to do as well as their parents. To the above reasons should be added the fact that rural in- habitants are less likely to possess a knowledge of voluntary limitation of families than equivalent classes in the city; and that 64.6 per cent of the women between the ages of fifteen and forty-four are married as compared with only 57.8 per cent in cities. That both the economic and cultural factors are important conditions influencing birth rates in rural districts is indicated by the figures presented in the table so recently considered. For the rate is lowest in the regions longest settled, most crowded and industrialized and supposedly most enlightened, and highest in the divisions that are either newest or undeveloped and oppor- tunities therefore are most frequent or where the populations are ignorant and backward. The following are some of the significant reasons adduced by Professor Thompson for the lower death rate in the rural popu- lation. (1) Country people lead an outdoor life with an abun- dance of fresh air and sunshine and are free from occupational diseases. Even the women get much outdoor life with their gardens and chickens and not a few chores. Poor ventilation and inadequate heating may obtain but the crowding and un- CHARACTERISTICS IN RURAL POPULATION 87 sanitary conditions which prevail among the masses in the cities are absent and on the whole the life situation is more healthfuL (2) Country people are closer to the source of food and there- fore have purer food than city people. Fresh vegetables in sea- son, an abundance of fresh dairy products, and a large share of the meat and poultry consumed are things the farmers enjoy and which are beyond the reach of most urbanites. (3) The farmer's job and a living for his family are more cer- tain than is the case with the average city man; therefore, he is freer from that worry that saps nerve force and undermines health. The wage earner lives from day to day, and the menace of famine is never far removed because of the insecurity of his job and the possibility of incapacitating accidents and sickness. Only a relatively few business and professional men have posi- tions so secure that they need not worry; and with them over- absorption and confinement may have quite as deadly effects as insecurity of position. (4) Akin to this is the freedom from close competition in his line of business which the farmer enjoys. In business, the pro- fessions, and within the ranks of labor in cities there is not only the stimulus of competition but the gnawing fear of being out- distanced and displaced by more successful rivals. Things in cities are graded so that there is always a more desirable posi- tion just ahead, whereas farmers are comparatively exempt from striving among themselves for a better place. (5) The burdens of accident, both direct and indirect, are less in country than city. The fact that farmers secure a lower premium on life insurance than do urban laborers is probably partly due to this. In case of accident to the farmer, there is commonly ample reserve to tide over the period of incapacity and other members of the family as well as neighbors may step into the gap and carry on at least the most necessary work. John A. Hobson attributes the higher mortality rates obtain- ing in cities to the following causes, the most of which evidently are more pertinent to the industrial classes : (1) Consumption of the more energetic and vigorous people and gradual deterioration of the whole urban population. The causes of this lowered vitality are: " (a) predominance of indoor occupations, including unwholesome air. (b) The sedentary character of most work in factories and workrooms, or otherwise 88 RURAL SOCIOLOGY the lack of free play of physical activities, (c) The wear and tear of nerve fiber, as in boiler making, weaving sheds, etc. (d) The wearisome monotony and lack of interest attending highly specialized and subdivided machine industry and pro- ducing physical lassitude, (e) Injuries arising from dust fumes or other deleterious matter, or from the handling of dangerous materials or tools." He regards the higher death rate of towns as more town-made than trade-made, for the differences in town and rural death rates is far wider for children below the industrial age than for the adults who are employed; and Galton estimated that in a typical industrial town less than half as many children grow up as of children of laboring people in the country. (2) We might add another possible cause of the deteriora- tion of the physical stock living in cities, namely, the building up of political organizations there which control voting power, administer urban matters in favor of certain classes, neglect populations in great areas, and so bring about their submergence. Rural migration and rural depopulation. — The subject of rural migration and rural depopulation deserves careful consid- eration because it has been so widely discussed, and oftentimes exaggerated statements have been made. Rural migration is frequently treated as the great rural problem. But it is only one among a great number of rural problems, and perhaps is not immediately the most serious one. It unquestionably pre- sents certain grave aspects, but it is doubtful if they are more important or serious than are some of the other rural conditions. Complaints about the movement of farming populations to cities is not a new phenomenon. Both Grecian and Roman writers complain of the drift of farmers to cities because of the attractiveness of the latter. French and English writers from the days of Mirabeau and Goldsmith have protested against the cityward movement. The Agrarian Party of Germany has bit- terly blamed manufacturers and the Government for contribu- ing to the lure from the country. The rural population of France has been decreasing in numbers, having decreased nearly 17 per cent between 1846 and 1906. Prance has resorted to certain kinds of legislation, especially in the field of agricultural credit, in order to check the flow to cities. The accompanying table CHARACTERISTICS IN RURAL POPULATION 89 depicts the situation in the rural districts of England and Wales during nearly a century. PER CENT OF INCEEASE OK DECREASE IN ETIRAIi COMMUNITIES * Date Sparse Growing The Rest 1801-1831 27.9 2.9 — 13.3 (Decline) 37.0 24.2 25.1 33.3 1831-1861 5.7 1861-1891 — 9.1 (Decline) * Thos. A. Welton, "Distribution of Population in England and Wales," Journal 0/ the Royal StatUtical Society, London, Vol. 63 :S40-642. Here it is observed that the rural communities are divided into three kinds : the sparse, the growing, and the others. The second class alone exhibits an increase in population in each of the periods denoted. In the other classes, the decline in the rate of increase of population was rapid between the first and second period; and in the third period, an actual decline of population takes place in both these classes. We may estimate the amount of rural migration taking place in our nation by dealing with either the urban or the rural population. The results attained by the former method are rep- resented in the accompanying table, the results by the latter method having been given previously, on page 81. FACTORS OF URBAN INCREASE FOR THE UNITED STATES AS A WHOLE, 1900-1910 * Factor Amount Per Cent of Urban Increase Incorporation Immigration 924,000 4,849,000 2,426,000 3,637,000 7.8 41.0 Natural increase Rural migration 20.5 30.7 Total 11,836,000 100.0 • GUlette, loc. cit., pp. 365-7. This table on urban increase estimates rural migration at 3,637,000 for the ten-year period, and incidentally seems to cor- rect a widespread apprehension that the great growth of cities is due almost entirely to rural migration, whereas it is observed to account for only about 31 per cent of such increase. The 90 KURAL SOCIOLOGY former table does not reveal the amount of rural migration and it requires the additional computations to secure it. It was seen that the total potential increase in rural population for the decade ending 1910 is 8,928,000, immigration accounting for 1,290,000 and natural increase for 7,638,000. Prom this poten- tial total is taken the census statement of increase, 4,151,000; the amount of loss by incorporation, 924,000; and loss by emi- gration, 294,000. The difference, 3,637,000, represents rural migration, an amount about 68,000 less than that attained by the other method. But this does not seriously invalidate the validity of the estimate, since, as statisticians understand, com- putations based on population data often bring only approxi- mate results because of uncertain data and the presence of in- determinate factors. It is possible to estimate roughly the proportion of this "rural migration " .that hails from the open country. In 1900, 86.3 per cent of the "rural population" according to the Census usage lived outside of incorporated places of all sizes, and in 1910, 83.6 per cent. The average of the two percentages, 85.5, would represent about the unincorporated population for the decade ending 1910. Therefore, we may think of this percentage of "rural migration," 3,000,000 souls as representing the drift from the open country to the cities during the decade in ques- tion.' Some significance is attached to this decennial migration to cities of three and a half million people, when it is remembered that during each of the ten years enough persons change resi- dence to make such a city as Newark, New Orleans, Cincinnati, Kansas City, Memphis, or Seattle. When it is also remembered that a similar but larger flood pours in from foreign nations in the shape of immigration, it is not difficult to understand why the cities forge ahead of the country in population. The writer hesitates to present his estimates of the amount of rural migration for each of the nine divisions of the nation be- cause of the great divergence between the results obtained when figured on the basis of rural and on urban populations separately. Yet there is some value attached to such estimates, for they are all we have as yet and they do portray in a rough way what is going on in the different parts of our country. •Thirteenth Census, Vol. I: 65. CHARACTERISTICS IN RURAL POPULATION 91 DIVISIONAL RURAL MIGRATION, 1900-1910, BY RURAL AND URBAN COMPUTATION ■■ — t3 if !5a s ii }| il a is a 1 o 1 Rural 24,448 •53,800 417 634 7fl7 a7R 602,454 532,262 456,010 572,171 363.696 382,053 1228,808 519,809 166,944 218.714 314,579 SSTlino 58,218' 174.900 • Oeecit. The totals for rural migration obtained by adding the divi- sional results in the case of both rural and urban are about 75,000 apart and also are two or three hundred thousand less than the previous estimates. It is likewise observed that the rural and urban divisional results differ in range from about 18,000 in the East South Central division to about 291,000 in the West South Central. Two larger factors are employed in making divisional estimates which probably account for these different results. One is an interdivisional migration of about 1,000,000, to be apportioned between country and city ; the other, an emigration from the nation of over a half million, to be ap- portioned both among the several divisions and between country and city in each division. The apportionment is made in pro- portion to population in each case; but there is no cue as to whether or not those movements of population actually behave in that manner. These and other inevitable factors of uncertainty entering into a great complex of calculations may well serve to produce indeterminate results. The results, then, are only rough guides as to the amount of rural migration taking place in each of the divisions. Perhaps the rural and urban estimates set approximate limits between which rural migration occurs. There is a reasonable certainty of two conclusions: first, rural migration is a patent fact, prac- tically, in every portion of the nation ; second, in proportion to population it is much less in New England and the Middle Atlantic States than in the rest of the country. For example, the population of the Middle Atlantic di->'ision exceeds that of the East North Central division by more than a million, yet its rural migration is only about half that of the latter. Rural depopulation may be the result of each or all of three factors : rural migration to cities, migration of farmers to other agricultural sections, and emigration abroad. There is no abso- 92 RURAL SOCIOLOGY lute depopulation for the rural United States as a whole, since, as we have seen, the rural population increased by a consider- able percentage between 1900 and 1910. But there is widespread and marked depopulation of farming regions. The nation as a whole gained in rural inhabitants, but at a lower rate than ten years before, and, as we saw, only one-fourth as rapidly as it gained urban people. In 1910 two entire divi- sions had lost rural population. New England and East North Central; in 1920, three divisions, those two and the Middle Atlantic. In 1910, six states. New Hampshire, Vermont, Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, and Missouri, showed rural losses as states; in 1920 such losses occurred in fifteen states; all New England States, save Connecticut ; New York in the Middle Atlantic divi- sion; all but Ohio and Wisconsin in the East North Central; Missouri and Kansas, or two out of the seven in the West North Central division ; Maryland and Delaware, two of the nine in the South Atlantic division ; one of the East South Central division, Mississippi; one Mountain division state, Nevada. The Pacific division alone exhibited no rural loss when considering states as wholes. It is to be noted that almost as large a number of states, 12, lost population between 1890 and 1900. But it is when counties are taken as the unit that rural de- population becomes most impressive. In the following table one state from each of the nine geographical divisions, except New England, is chosen to typify .roughly what is taking place in this respect. New England is left out because the Fourteenth Census does not give the rural population by counties. LOSSES OF RURAL POPULATION, BY COUNTIES— TYPICAL STATES * Total Population Rural Population State Number Counties Number Losing Highest Rate Number Losing Highest Rate Alabama 67 75 59 45 92 99 62 24 20 25 14 11 64 27 33 13 20.3 10.8 56 67 15 12 26.3 38.8 25 31 23 20 84 56 53 .17 20.3 18.4 56.5 Colorado 53.3 28.9 Iowa 27 New York 30 19 • Fourteenth Census, Vol. I, Table .'iO. CHARACTERISTICS IN RURAL POPULATION 93 A few things are to be noted regarding this table. First, the states chosen may not be entirely typical of the other states of their division, but they are fairly representative. Second, the rural losses are seen to occur heavily everywhere, even in the Pacific division, which reports no states as a whole losing rural inhabitants. Third, the number of counties in each state that lost rural population is always greater than that expressing a loss of total county population, being proportionally very large in New York and Indiana. Fourth, the rates of loss appear alarmingly large. Certain counties in California and Colorado lost more than half of their population during the last census decade, and also more than half of their rural inhabitants. But those were mountain counties where it is likely that failing mines account for the enormous rates. But rates of rural loss ranging from 20 to 30 per cent, as in Indiana, Alabama, Iowa, and New York — states that are good agricultural states — are really alarming. Rural migration is no doubt the chief general cause of rural depopulation now, but the movement of farmers from older to newer farming districts was formerly an important factor. The study of interstate migration for the decade ending 1900 re- veals the great currents of population flowing from the older East to the newer and opening West. This stream was being checked in the next decade. Thus the currents of population out of Indiana, which had previously flowed west almost wholly, were then being diverted to Michigan to the north and to Ken- tucky and Tennessee to the south, regions of new or renewing agricultural operations.^ The pull of newly-opened Canada farming lands has been very strong in states near them. Hundreds of thousands of Ameri- can farmers have migrated thither to secure cheaper lands and homes. It is likely that such rural losses as those of the counties in North Dakota which are on the Canadian border are to be so explained. The statistics of rural migration thus far presented have in- cluded migration from villages of less than 2,500 to cities and elsewhere. Such migration is evidently frequent and widespread and constitutes a movement that is attended oftentimes with ' See the author 's ' ' Drift to the Cities in Relation to the Rural Problem, ' ' American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 16: 645-667. 94 RURAL SOCIOLOGY grave results. This phenomenon will be considered in the chap- ter on declining villages. We may think of the causes of the drift of farming popula- tions to cities as of two kinds : the ultimate conditions which are inherent in and intrinsic to the nature of our modern civiliza- tion; and the more immediate or psychological — that is, the things which on the surface are the attractive forces constituting the appeal of the cities. Like many classifications, this one is a matter of convenience, for there are no definite boundaries between the two. The succeeding exposition denotes the nature of the first set of causal conditions mentioned. Science and the result of scien- tific principles are inherent in our modern civilization. The further society develops toward enlightenment, the more it is founded on and organized according to the findings of science. As scientific discoveries multiply and utilities result from them, conditions within society undergo transformation and human beings seek to adapt themselves to the changes taking place. When a great invention or discovery is made, no one clearly foresees what profound social changes it may ultimately bring about. The locomotive, the cotton gin, the harvester, the prin- ciple of electricity, the germ theory of disease, and many other great discoveries and inventions have produced veritable revo- lutions in human adjustments, turning the currents of life in new directions and enforcing new arrangements of populations. Perhaps society for most part, makes its adjustments to the new resulting conditions unconsciously and automatically. Science, as an ultimate cause of rural migration, has operated both in the field of urban industry and in that of agriculture. In agriculture it has made man power many times more pro- ductive than it was formerly, and in urban industry it has cre- ated numerous new forms of production, thus making place for multitudes of additional operatives. Thus cities arise on a gigantic scale to meet the inherent social demands for manu- facture and commerce. As an illustration of the increased effi- ciency and productivity of agriculture, compare the grain farm of seventy-five years ago with that of today. The size has been multiplied many fold as the result of improved plow, harrow, seeder, harvester, thresher, and other implements. With the use of these implements one man produces many times more the CHARACTERISTICS IN RURAL POPULATION 95 amount of grain than could the man with the crude instruments of the earlier period. The labor required to produce a bushel of wheat was reduced from OA'er three hours in 1830 to ten minutes in 1896; and to produce a bushel of corn, from four and one- half hours in 1850 to forty-one minutes in 1894. Out of the logic of this situation we are obliged to conclude that relatively very much fewer people are required in agriculture than formerly. Conversely, a relatively larger number of individuals are demanded in urban centers to manufacture and transfer the increased and increasing amount of goods resulting from the introduction of new wants and new forms of goods to meet the wants. A statistical measure of this increase is unnecessary, since all are so familiar with the fact. The uniform growth of cities in all civilized, and especially in industrialized, nations is a testimony to the universality of the phenomenon. The inducement rural dwellers think they see in cities to attract them thither constitute the psychological causes of rural migra- tion. There are many factors in cities that appeal'to the young men and women of the country which seem to them worth attain- ment. The great fortunes amassed there, too often, indeed, by sheer exploitive means, proclaim loudly that the city is the place to make money, the place of opportunity. Enterprise seems to find its reward, and employment to open up in many directions. In a similar manner, fame and distinction have been connected with urban life and ambition for honor appears to have small opportunity in rural districts. There are a confusing number and kinds of attractions in cities: theaters, dance halls, mu- seums, parks, bathing beaches, contests in baseball and other sports, conventions and pageants; an incessant flow of cars and vehicles; the magnetic contact with crowds, tumult, hustle and bustle — always something going on, something new or novel. The city appears to be the worthwhile place. Youth is the ro- mantic period of life, and the city seems to the young and ambi- tious as a world of unexplored and boundless possibilities. It is the place where something is always happening and where it is possible to avoid the monotony and the hard physical drudgery of the farm. Whether or not steps should be taken to try to check rural drift to cities must be decided according to the reply given the 96 RURAL SOCIOLOGY further question as to whether or not its eifects are sufficiently disastrous either to the country or to the cities to warrant action. Certainly rural migration in itself is not an evil and cannot he considered an evil on any other grounds than that its effects are bad. It would not be easy to demonstrate that there are too many people living in cities all of the time. Undoubtedly there are too many at times, when industry has slackened and there are many unemployed. At other-times the supply of workers is practically absorbed in gainful occupations. But it is doubtless true that there are many persons from the country living in cities who would be very much better off were they back on the farm. There is also an excess of incompetents and unemployable in urban centers; but they would add nothing to farm life were they removed to the country. The settlement of the question as to whether or not there are too few people in the country on farms would hinge on several things. Prom a health point of view it would be possible to assert that more of the population should live in the country because health conditions there throughout the nation in gen- eral are superior to those in cities. It is unquestionably true that many rural sections are suffering injury from a loss of in- habitants. Where isolation is already considerable, the further thinning out of families greatly weakens the community spirit, resources, and organization. But it would not be safe to say that this has proceeded so far as to constitute a real menace to either country or nation. It might also be held that there is a menace in the relatively lessening supply of food and other farm commodities such as wool. We have seen that the gradual reduction of foodstuffs exported prior to the Great War might indicate that at some time national production may fall below national needs. There is a not remote menace there, and it is safe to say that it is most desirable that farm population should always remain sufficient to furnish the nation its own food sup- ply at least. Turning to a consideration of the possibility of applying remedial cheeks, in case it were thought advisable to attempt to stop the movement of farming populations to urban centers, it is needful to examine the two classes of causes of rural migra- CHARACTERISTICS IN RURAL POPULATION 97 tion in order to determine to what extent they may be controlled by society. But first, as to the facts concerning what is happening. The so-called "back to the land movement" has, up to the present, been more a hope than a reality. There have been signs that multitudes of urban residents have a more or less articulate longing to live in the country ; but they lack the knowledge con- cerning appropriate location, the financial resources to make the transition, and possibly the grit to endure the period of readjust- ment in which failure due to inexperience in agriculture bulks large. There are scattering farm colonization schemes in opera- tion — that of the Salvation Army probably being the most hope- ful — outside of the state systems of Australia, New Zealand and California. Yet, all told, the immediate effect in replacing popu- lations on farms is almost as a drop in the bucket. The industrial depression, accompanied by extreme unemploy- ment in cities, that followed the Great War has evidently created a widespread desire among urban populations, especially among those who previously dwelt in rural sections, to return to the land. The best proof of this is obtained from the records of a land company, doing a nation-wide business selling farms, which reports that its sales of 4,272 farms during 1920, as compared with the twenty-year record, yield distinct signs of an impulse and movement of people from city to country. The long-stand- ing tendency has been that two-thirds of the sales have been to farmers moving from one locality to another and one-third to city purchasers. But during 1920 the figures were almost exactly reversed, two-thirds of the purchasers being from city residents, the clerical class participating more heavily than the industrial.^ However, it is likely that this is only a temporary readjustment to after-the-war conditions and that the former tendencies will reassert themselves whenever industry and trade return to a normal condition. It might appear obvious that the ultimate causes, by the very fact that they are inherent and intrinsic to our modern society are either beyond control, or that, if they could be controlled, it might not be advisable to attempt it. If they are inherent and intrinsic to society they could not be greatly modified without * Daily Grand Forks, North Dakota, Herald, March 19, 1921, and Chicago Herald and Examiner, July 8, 1921. 98 RURAL SOCIOLOGY changing the nature of our civilization. Even if they could be so modified, it is not likely that either agriculturists or urbanites would consent to any serious modification or checking. For to check the advance of scientific discovery and invention would be to put an end to increased agricultural production per farmer and farm laborer and also to the increase in new kinds of wants and of goods to meet them. While some kinds of wants might well be trimmed down or eliminated, on the whole it would be undesirable to interfere with the general forward march. Our conclusion must be, then, that we can make little headway by seeking to directly modify or control the ultimate causes. But the psychological or more immediate causes are more vul- nerable. Since they consist of attractions, what country people think they see in cities that are desirable attainments, it follows that they may be offset by establishing and creating in rural dis- tricts counter attractions. And when it is understood that the deep-seated and ultimate causes of rural migration exert their influence through and by means of these psychological factors, it becomes conceivable that something may be done to redirect, although not to check, their force. The possibility resident in this kind of effort is only bounded and limited by the ability to create in the country attractions sufficiently magnetic and pow- erful to actually offset those of cities. That it will be difficult to establish such high-power attractions is beyond doubt, yet it is likely that something may be accomplished in this direction. Better homes and improvements on the farm, more leisure and vacations, improved roads and communication, the establishment of adequate schools, the cultivation of a community spirit, and the creation of agencies to keep it alive, founding play days, promoting choral clubs and dramatic organizations, and the like will doubtless prove useful. The devotion of state and federal attention to securing a better system of tenancy, to the aboli- tion of absentee landlordism and land speculation, to the promo- tion of scientific agriculture, to establishing liberal plans for short-time and long-time rural credit, and to the creation of a comprehensive system of land settlement would serve to place farming on a better business basis, and to make it more possible for the man of small means to purchase land and to improve it. Rural depopulation and the growth of cities have troubled European countries for a long time and they have legislated and CHARACTERISTICS IN RURAL POPULATION 99 organized in several directions to cheek the flow to cities and to put farming on an attractive, productive, and paying basis. The United States as a nation might very well formulate a definite and far-reaching agricultural policy which should make provi- sions in the above directions and so help stay the currents that set so strongly away from the country. Age distribution. — Our national population is apportioned among the age periods of life in a certain way, that of the cities in a somewhat different way, and that of the country according to its own pattern. The accompanying combined table and graphic figure will serve to bring out the divergencies between the rural and urban modes of distribution by broad age periods. Distribution by Broad Age Periods of Huhal and Urban Population, 1910 * Under 15 Urban Rural 27.3 36.2 15-44 Urban Rural 63.3 44.9 45 and Over Urban Rural 19.2 18.7 * U. S. Stat. Abstract Thirteenth Census, p. 129. On the basis of 100 persons in city and country districts alike, the country has an excess over the city of about nine persons in the first age group, under fifteen, and has a deficit in the next two age groups of between eight and nine in the group, fifteen to forty-four, and of about half a person in the group, forty-five and over. But a narrower age group gradation shows that the country has six-tenths person more in the age group, sixty-five and over, than has the city. These differences are probably to be accounted for in two ways. First, the migration from country to city chiefly occurs between the ages of fifteen and sixty -five; second, immigration from abroad which chiefly settles in cities, is about 60 per cent more adult than is the population at large. These causes serve to greatly increase the adult and middle age population in cities and to lessen the proportion of children and the aged ; the effects on the rural population being just the reverse. 100 RURAL SOCIOLOGY Considerable significance attaches to these differences in age distribution of city and country. The excess of adults in the exuberant and vigorous period of life denotes that people be- lieve the cities to be the places o£ opportunity. Again it indi- cates that the cities have a preponderating portion of aggressive- ness and energy. On the other hand the country is likely to tend toward conservatism in temper and production. These things become all the more apparent when it is remembered that rural migration takes the ambitious and much of the talent from the country; perhaps, too, it is true that immigration bestows an unusual proportion of the gifted and ambitious on our cities. Sex distribution and marriage. — Of some importance is the matter of the distribution or proportion of the sexes in society. The accompanying table presents the facts relative to the distri- bution of males and females between city and country. Peopoetion op Males to Females in the United States • Males to 100 Females Division and Class of Total Population Native White: 1910 Foreign- Born White: 1910 Community 1910 1900 Native Parent- age Foreign or Mixed Parent- age Negro: 1910 United States.. Urban Rural 106.0 101.7 109.9 104.4 98.7 108.5 104.0 99.3 106.7 99.5 94.6 109.5 129.2 118.9 161.1 98.9 90.8 102.1 'Abstract Thirteenth Census, p. 102. It is seen that for each 100 females in the United States there were over 104 males in 1900 and 106 in 1910. In 1910 there were nearly 102 males for each 100 females in cities and almost 110 in rural districts. According to this count the excess of males in the country was about eight greater than in cities. The excess of males among the foreign-born population was very great for the nation, cities, and country, that in the country being nearly forty greater than in city. Such a distribution of the sexes is of course due to social conditions rather than to a fiat of nature, for there is an almost equal number of males and females born. Immigration goes far to account for the excess number of males in the nation. For CHARACTERISTICS IN RURAL POPULATION 101 the five-year period, 1909 to 1914, the number of male immi- grants was about 23 per cent greater than that of females. But since two-thirds or three-fourths settle in cities, the explana- tion of the excess of foreign-born males in the country as com- pared with cities is probably that a much greater portion of the immigrant females than of males locate in the cities because of the greater opportunities of employment there for women than in the country. On the other hand, the proportion of foreigners among farm laborers may be unusually great. The fact that there are more male than female negroes in the country and far fewer in cities may indicate that negro women enter largely into the domestic callings of cities, since there are few other callings open to them. Native-born white women drift to cities as teach- ers, stenographers, clerks, operatives in industries, and domestics. A balance of the sexes is desirable. A disproportion in either direction makes the establishment of a family impossible to some, and the development of wholesome family life for all is most desirable. Such an excess of males as that seen among foreign-born populations and in the rural sections, especially of the West, is unhealthy socially, because it is conducive to vice and immorality. A proprietary family on every farm in the United States would constitute the most wholesome form of rural society. A larger proportion of both males and females in the country than in the cities are married and a smaller percentage are single. The percentage married in country and city in 1910 were : males, 56.8 and 54.7 ; females, 63.3 and 54.6. The percentage of those single and of marriageable age were : males, 37.5 and 40 ; females, 26.6 and 32.8. Both males and females marry at an earlier age in country than in city. This situation helps to account for the higher rate of natural increase of population which we have seen obtains in the country. On the whole, marriage seems to be on a firmer basis in the country, although it is probable that in some sections, especially in the South, marriage often occurs at too early an age. The literature relating to tenancy in Okla- homa and Texas, for example, reveals instances of mothers at the early age of fifteen and sixteen. Such immature mothers have not the experience to properly rear children and to assume household duties ; and the instances cited indicate very deplorable family conditions. Nationality and race. — Racial and national differences are 102 RURAL SOCIOLOGY of social consequence because they tend to introduce division and aloofness among inhabitants and to break up national and com- munity solidarity. The fires of race prejudice have been fanned by the advent of orientals into agriculture on the Pacific Coast and by the small but steady increase of negro land ownership in the South. In the North there are agricultural communities of Germans, Poles, Scandinavians, Russians, Italians, and other nationalities. In some instances they are almost as foreign in language and customs as they would be in their home-land. Fre- quently religious services and, occasionally, school activities are conducted in foreign tongues. Newspapers in foreign languages are familiar. Native populations are prone to think that efforts expressed in foreign languages clothe and propagate sentiments of disrespect and disloyalty. It is difficult to maintain an effi- cient school in rural districts having a large foreign element, and other neighborhood affairs are seriously hindered by racial and nationality lines. Thus, in the country there occurs complete segregation of foreign communities — little Africas in the South, living under backward conditions, and mixed neighborhoods where the diverse elements refuse to mingle and cooperate. In the entire nation, 14.5 per cent of the rural population and 6.3 per cent of the urban population is negro. In the three Southern divisions negroes form about as large a proportion of urban as of rural inhabitants, although nearly 80 per cent of all negroes in the South reside in the country. This seeming con- tradiction is, of course, due to the fact that the southern popula- tion is only about one-fourth urban. The accompanying table exhibits the proportion of the foreign population living in each of the nine divisions of the nation which resides in urban and in rural communities. PEE CENT OF FOREIGN- BOEN POPULATION OF THE UNITED STATES LIVING IN URBAN AND RURAL COMMUNITIES, BY DIVISIONS: 1910 • 5 JS .a J3 % 1- o 3 O _ CQrt o ^•2 ■s-s 1^ ^A 03 M a o ■3 Iz;h WO ^o m< HU PO C^ Urban 92.4 84.0 71.4 39.2 66.3 66.6 39.4 39.6 60.8 Rural 7.6 16.0 28.6 60.8 33.7 33.4 60.6 60.4 39.2 • statistical Abstract Thirteenth Census, p. 201. CHARACTERISTICS IN RURAL POPULATION 103 It is observed that in only three divisions is the proportion of the foreign-born living in the division greater in the country than in the cities — namely, in the two west Central divisions and in the Mountain — the percentage being slightly more than 60 in each case. In the other divisions the range is from 7.6 to 39.2 per cent. For the whole United States, 72.1 per cent of this class live in urban districts and 27.9 per cent in rural com- munities. The Middle Atlantic, East North Central, and West North Central divisions contain 70 per cent of the rural foreign- born, while the three Southern divisions embrace only 9.1 per cent. The great foreign-born agricultural population is the Scandinavian living in the West North Central division. TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION 1. Why do people take such pride in belonging to groups having large populations and boast of being the ' ' biggest ' ' nation, or city 1 2. Would it not be better to manifest pride in the quality rather than in the quantity of the population? 3. Does the relatively large birth rate in the country denote relatively low culture, or superior vitality of the population? 4. With the present high birth rate and low death rate, should all born in the country remain there, what results would ensue? 5. Distinguish between absolute and relative rural depopulation for the nation; for a state; for a county. 6. Is there any danger that increasing incorporation vrill absorb the agricultural area of the United States? 7. Are you able to distinguish between the scope and meaning of ' ' natural increase ' ' as employed in this text and as generally used? What would be the effect on amounts of immigration and rural migration were the general meaning followed? 8. How many different factors can you enumerate which tend to lessen the relative need tor great increase of rural inhabitants? 9. Would it be fair to farmers, were the time to come when a tenth of the population Mving on farms were able to support themselves and the nine-tenths dwelling in cities? 10. Would it not be well to reduce the increasing power of cities to absorb populations by abolishing the manufacture of many ' ' useless ' ' and "superfluous" luxuries? By eliminating the demand for retinues of servants and those who perform only ostentatious ' ' services ' ' ? 11. What would be the effect on production and on rural population of national or uniform state legislation limiting the amount of land one man could farm to forty acres? 12. What is your solution for the "problem" of rural depopulation? 13. Enumerate and evaluate all the factors you can discover which lead more immigrants to settle in cities than on the land. 14. Would you have a law passed requiring that all rural immigrant settle- ments should speak the English language and take no papers printed in foreign languages? 15. Why do a greater proportion of rural people marry? Why do they marry younger than people in cities? 104 EURAL SOCIOLOGY REFERENCES Abstbact Thirteenth Census, V. S. Bailey, W. B. — Modern Social Conditions; Century Co., 1906. Clabk, Eabl — "Contributions to Urban Growth," American Statistical Association, 14: 654-71. Davibs, Geo. E. — See under Gillette. Ellwood, Chas. a. — Sociology and Modern Social Frohlems; American Book Company, 1920. Gillette, J. M. — "City Trend of Population and Leadership," Quarterly Journal University, N. D., I: 54-83. , ' ' The Drift to the City in Belation to the Rural Problem, ' ' Ameri- can Journal of Sociology, March, 1911. , ' ' A study in social dynamics : a statistical determination of the rate of natural increase, and of the factors accounting for the increase of population in the IT. S., " Publications of American Statistical Asso- ciation, Vol. 15, 345-79. -, Constructive Rural Sociology, Chap. V : Rural and Urban Increase ; Macmillan. Gillette, J. M., and Davies, Geo. E. — "Measure of Eural Migration and Other Factors of Urban Increase in the U. 8.," Publications of Ameri- can Statistical Association, 14 : 640-53. GOLDENWEISBE, E. A. — "Bural Population," Pt. II, Sec. 1, Atlas of American Agriculture, U. S. Census, Washington, 1919. HoBSON, J. A. — Evolution of Modern Capitalism, Chap. XIII; Scribners, 1902. LoNGSTAPF, G. B. — ' ' Bural Depopulation, ' ' Journal Boyal Statistical Society, 56: 380-433. BuBiN, Marcus — "A Measure of Civilization," Journal Boyal Statistical Society, 60: 148-61; London. Thirteenth Census, Vols. I and II on " Population. ' ' Thompson, Warren S. — "Race Suicide in the United States," Scientific Monthly, 5: 22-35; 154-66; 258-70. Welton, Thos. a. — "Distribution of Population in England and Wales," Journal of Royal Statistical Society, 63 : 540fE ; London. Whipple, G. C. — Vital Statistics; Wiley and Sons, 1919. Wilcox, Walter F. — Some Population Statistics of the Pacific Coast States, American Statistical Association, 14: 711-712. CHAPTER VII BACKWARD AND ANTISOCIAL CLASSES Not all of the individuals in our modern society are normal human beings. Not all possess a full quota of balanced intelli- gence, physical strength, and moral poise. Some persons also lack sufiQcient income to maintain an efficient and wholesome life. Hence, we have such classes of abnormal, backward, and unfortunate persons as the feeble-minded, epileptic, insane, de- pendent and impoverished, and criminals. There will be those who object to including the discussion of these classes under traits of population. They will maintain that a large share of dependency, crime, and insanity are products of social conditions and so are not inherent in the population. We will admit the force of the contention, but in turn point out that no scheme of classification has yet been devised which will permit the discussion of all the causes and characteristics of such classes of persons under one heading or another with- out being illogical in some particulars. The term "population" commonly means a collection of individuals living in a place or nation characterized by hereditary traits or physical qualities. Birth, age, and sex are easily included under such a term; and to a less extent, certain physical and mental diseases as welk Some diseases are hereditary ; some are acquired under social contact. The causes of feeble-mindedness, insanity, and many diseases are almost as much social as hereditary, in the sense that social contacts are in the causal situation. Poverty and dependency are due to both congenital and social causes. The same is true of vagrancy, crime, and so on. Hence, since it is impossible to discuss any of these matters completely under either the hereditary or social aspects alone, it is a matter of convenience of arrangement as to where the discussion is intro- duced. Our discussion of these varioms classes under population traits, 105 106 RURAL SOCIOLOGY therefore, is merely a matter of convenience. It is desirable to treat all of these classes together in one place, and since the causes of some of them are overwhelmingly biological and since the biological element enters into all of the classes to a con- siderable extent, there can be no great objection to placing the discussion here. POVEETT AND PAUPERISM A good index of how a society grades up relative to others is to be found in the extent of pauperism and poverty. In this respect, the country surpasses the cities, for it doubtless has fewer impoverished persons and those dependent on public relief some or all of the time than the cities have. Our conclusions as to the distribution of wealth in the coun- try must rest on such considerations as these. The open country, in 1910 — that is, the population living outside of incorporated places of all sizes and of unincorporated places — could not have been far from thirty-nine or forty million. The population out- side of incorporated places is known to have been 41,230,000, and it is likely that an additional million or two lived in small, unincorporated places. Now, the size of the average rural family was 4.6 persons; allowing something like 8.5 or 8.7 million rural families. In that year, there were 6,361,058 farms, a farm consisting of all tracts of land operated by one farmer or manager. Thus, about three-fourths of the families must have been farmer families, in that sense. The remainder were engaged in some capacity in the country. Thirty-seven per cent of the number of farms were operated by tenants, that is, by non-owners. But tenants generally have considerable property beyond their household goods, such as horses and other livestock, feed, and equipment. The value of all farm-property was placed at $41,000,000,000 in 1910 — about one-fourth the national wealth at that time. About 33 per cent of the four million farms operated by owners were mortgaged. These facts indicate a widespread ownership of property and wealth on the part of the open-country population. As com- pared with conditions in cities, the situation is equitable and democratic. For in the large cities, at least, probably 75 per cent of the population is pract*ically propertyless and so de- BACKWARD AND ANTISOCIAL CLASSES 107 pendent on more or less uncertain employment. Beyond this, dependency is extensive, the estimate being placed at from 10 to 15 per cent of the entire population in such cities as New York and Boston. The proportion of counti-y people who are dependent is known to be very small as compared with this. When the country had a half of the nation's population, it produced much less than half of the nation's paupers. This statement rests on the fact that in 1904, "agriculture, transpor- tation, and other outdoor" occupations accounted for but 23.7 per cent of all almshouse paupers; and most of the dependent persons of the open country are almshouse paupers. It is obvi- ous, therefore, that the agricultural population gave rise to considerably less than 23.7 per cent of those classed as alms- house dependents. There are two general methods of administering relief to dependent persons. They may be placed in institutions, in which case family life is disregarded and broken up and these dependent are subject to the commonly prevalent idle and shame- ful existence of "poor farms"; or, relief may be administered to individuals in their homes, thus preserving whatever good influences of family life are present and giving the recipients an opportunity to assume self-siipport as soon as possible, or at least to assist in their own support. The "county poor farm" is an almost universal institution in the United States, and most intolerable and dehumanizing conditions are allowed to persist in them, even in such populous and wealthy states as Illinois. Were dependent persons needing institutional care classified and specialized, and institutions pro- vided for each class, there would be no place or function for poorhouses. The aged poor would be sent to homes for the aged, diseased persons to appropriate hospitals or sanitoriums, feeble- minded, insane and epileptic to special institutions, and so on. Certainly states that have not yet established county poor-farms should not do so. If they do undertake to provide such indis- criminate homes for dependents, it should be on a tri-county or some such multiple county basis, to permit of competent super- intendence, adequate equipment, separation and segregation of classes, and for specialized work for the able-bodied. Outdoor relief or relief in homes is administered under two general plans, county and toAvnship. Under the county plan. 108 RURAL SOCIOLOGY the county commissioners administer relief or are responsible for having it done. Since they are few and are apt to be remote from many of the dependents, little supervision and proper guarding against promoting and confirming dependency ensue. In many cases, the allotment of relief has been used to build up a political clientele to help continuing commissioners in office or to gain other offices. This system has proved so waste- ful, inefficient, and pauperizing that there has been a tendency on the part of states to abandon it for the township system. Under an adequate township system, which can be operative only where politically organized townships exist, the township supervisors are authorized to administer relief. The advantages of this scheme are that such officers are near the indigent and so, presumably, are cognizant of the conditions surrounding them. They are likely to be held to account for needless expendi- tures by the electors, who also know the dependent persons and their circumstances. There is little opportunity to use relief for political and personal purposes. Proper relief laws require that strict records of the parties relieved, the amount of relief given, and the causes of dependency of each person shall be filed with the appropriate county officer. Some states also provide that township relief officers shall attend the annual meeting of the State Associated Charities. This gives them the benefit of the discussion of principles and methods of caring for the back- ward classes. A state welfare or charity organization is a very necessary agency to secure the effective operation of any system of relief. It is a voluntary association made up of members from all parts of the state who are interested in social work. As such, it is alert to defects, promotes better laws and methods of care, and in general seeks to eliminate pauperism by securing the adoption of preventive methods of relief. In some states having a good township system of poor laws, poor relief administration is lax and inefficient because of the absence of state supervision. INSANITY AND EPILEPSY There has been much apprehension among students of society over the apparent increase of mental disorders in recent times. Some have thought that civilization would finally perish by reason of the decay of the higher mental faculties. But it may BACKWARD AND ANTISOCIAL CLASSES 109 be said that the data are too indeterminate to warrant unneces- sary uneasiness. However, the situation is suflSciently grave to merit the attention of serious minded people. It is estimated that there were about 300,000 insane in this country in 1910, or about one for each 300 of the population, and that the annual expense incident to their care equals half the amount spent on educa- tion. The rural portion of the nation evidently does not furnish its proportion of the insane according to population. The accom- panying table presents the facts relative to the rates of insanity for country and city on the basis of admission to hospitals. RURAL AND URBAN INSANITY • Insane Admitted to Hospitals per 100,000 Population: 1910 From Urban Communities Dmsion Total Cities Having a Population of: From Rural 100,000 and Over 50,000 to 100,000 10,000 to 50,000 2,500 to 10,000 Commu- nities United States 86.0 97.2 77.2 80.2 70.2 41.4 New England 106.4 86.4 84.6 74.8 96.0 67.2 56.0 97.5 80.5 148.7 94.4 90.4 79.9 116.2 72.4 64.0 180.4 88.3 94.1 68.2 69.0 84.3 88.9 60.1 65.7 46.4 124.2 97.2 78.7 83.2 72.0 89.7 75.8 45.5 90.5 53.2 73.8 69.5 77.2 66.0 74.8 54.7 55.2 t6.9 76.5 91 9 Middle Atlantic East North Central West North Central South Atlantic East South Central West South Central 45.6 53.4 49.7 33.4 33.1 25.8 32.6 44.8 Pacific * Report of Bureau of Census, Insane and Feeble-Minded, 1910 : p. 49, Table 61. At that time the number reported from cities was 60,769 and from rural districts, 20,442. Besides this, there were admitted 3,673 whose place of residence was not reported.^ It is to be noted that the total urban rate is more than double that of the country. Five-sixths of the insane are in hospitals. It may be that rural people are less inclined to send the insane to hospitals than are urbanites. On the other hand, farmers are more likely to send friends and relatives to institutions which 'Report of Bureau of Census, Insane and Feeble-Minded, 1910; p. 49, Table 50 > • f > 110 KURAL SOCIOLOGY report to the national census than are the former. It is probable, therefore, that the statistics represent fairly accurately the com- parative frequency of insanity in the two kinds of communities. A recent study makes it possible to gain some insight into the frequency of insanity in urban and rural communities according to the specific psychoses or forms of mental derangement. The following table presents the essential data and results. The data are derived from admissions into 72 state hospitals distributed in 26 states. The states, in turn, are distributed widely through- out the nation. DiSTEIBUTION OP FIRST ADMISSIONS INTO 72 STATE HOSPITALS IN 26 STATES roB THE Year 1920, by Psychoses and by Urban AND KuRAL Population Psychoses Senile With cerebral arterio-aclerosis. General paralysis Alcoholic Maniac-depressive Involution melancholia Dementia praecox Paranoia or paranoid condition Epileptic psychosis Psychoneuroses and neuroses. . With psychopathic personality With mental deficiency All other psychoses Total Total number of cases Percentage each psychosis is of all psychoses 2,498 1,364 2,199 477 3,331 622 5,720 495 566 430 480 675 1,918 20,777 Urban 10.7 6.6 12.6 2.7 15.1 2.8 28.4 2.3 2.4 1.9 2.5 2.8 9.3 100.0 Rural 15.6 6.4 5.2 1.4 18.6 3.6 25.3 2.6 3.7 2.4 1.7 4.6 9.0 100.0 Percentage of occurrence of each psychosis according to population Urban Bural 56.8 66.5 82.3 78.8 61.0 59.2 68.2 71.2 55.3 60.3 74.1 53.8 ^6.2 65.8 43.2 33.5 17.7 21.2 39.0 40.8 31.8 28.2 44.7 39.7 25.9 46.2 33.8 34.2 I have added the last two columns of figures to the original report, as it was necessary to adjust the number of cases and percentages among urban and rural populations to the weight of the respective populations. According to the results, the rural districts have very low rates in general paralysis; high rates in maniac depression and melancholia ; and highest in men- tal deficiency, and in epileptic and senile neuroses. The urban population is high in general paralysis, alcoholism, psychopathic personality, and paranoia ; and lowest in mental deficiency. But all along the line the country is lower in the rates for the specific BACKWARD AND ANTISOCIAL CLASSES 111 psychoses than is the city, and in general has a little more than half the rate of the city.^ The following facts pertain to rates of urban and rural in- sanity according to sex, color, and nativity : According to sex, 20,274 males or 94.3 per 100,000 were re- ported from cities and 16,380 females or 77.5 per 100,000. From the country the number of males was 11,673 with a rate of 45.2 and the females were 8,769 with a rate of 37.3. Besides these, there were admitted to hospitals 2,169 males and 1,504 females whose place of residence was not reported.^ The rate for negroes admitted to hospitals was lower for both urban and rural districts than for whites, the rates being for negroes, urban, 78.0 and rural, 26.9; whereas for the whites admitted the rates were, urban, 86.5 and rural, 44.0.' The foreign-born whites sustained a much higher rate in both urban and rural populations than did native-born whites. The former admitted to hospitals from urban districts had a rate of 122.2 as compared with one of 73.7 for native-born whites. In rural districts the admissions for foreign-born whites sustained a rate of 78.4 and the native-born whites one of 40.0. It is note- worthy that the larger the city, the higher the rate for both classes of population. This conforms to the general table given above. It has been commonly believed that insanity occurs only among adult or fairly mature persons, yet from its investigations of over 18,000 school children in four rural counties, the United States Public Health Service reports the discovery of several insane children and a number of others with distinct psycho- pathic tendencies. It is recommended that the psychopathic cases should be noted and treated early, as such children are sick in mind and need appropriate attention. Their ultimate recovery depends on it.* ' Horatio M. Pollock and Edith M. Furbush, Comparative Statistics of State Hospitals for Mental Diseases, National Committee for Mental Hygiene, New York City, 1920. The urban and rural population rates for the 26 states necessary to adjust the rates to the two populations were derived from the Fourteenth Census, Vol. I. 'Ihid., p. 50. 'Hid., p. 51, Table 55. * Taliaferro Clark, M.D., The School as a Factor in- the Mental Hygiene of Rural Communities, National Conference for Social Work, 1916: 215-23. 112 RURAL SOCIOLOGY General paralysis and alcoholic psychosis are represented to a greater degree among those admitted to hospitals from the cities than from the country. The former indicates the presence of syphilis and the latter denotes excessive use of alcoholic drinks. The rate among those admitted from urban districts was 7.0 for general paralysis and 10.7 for alcoholic psychosis, the rates for these for rural districts being 1.6 and 2.6, respectively. The rates were estimated per 100,000. In 1910 21 per cent of those admitted from cities had one or the other of these forms of insanity, while but 10.4 per cent from the country were so afflicted. The rate for general paralysis increases with the size of cities among urban populations. Thus, for the lowest class cities 5.5 per cent admitted were so afflicted ; for the highest class, 9.9 per cent as compared with 3.8 per cent for the country.^ There are no data for country and city, separately, relative to the number of inmates of hospitals for the insane and of those outside such institutions. The total number of insane in hos- pitals in 1910 was 187,791, the number outside not being re- ported. In 1890, however, the number inside was 70,028, and that outside was 32,457. Two conditions act as guards to pro- portioning the number of 1910 on the former bases : the tendency to place more in hospitals and the increasing accuracy in reporting those outside. In 1880 the number inside was 40,942 and that outside was 51,017, the per cent being 44.5 inside while that in 1890 was 61.2. "Possibly this is a fair indication of the increasing tendency to place the insane under institutional treatment. ' ' ^ Discussion of methods of treating rural insanity would con- sider two points carefully. The first relates to hospital facili- ties and the second to provisions for detecting and treating the ineipiently insane. If the 1910 estimates of the number of insane in the Unitec States are correct, there are about 113,000 insane persons outside of institutions that report to the national government. Many of these must be in private hospitals and sanitariums which do not report. But there is another large contingent in poorhouses and kindred places and doubtless not a few at large who should * Report of Bureau of Census, Insane and Feeble-Minded, 1910; p. 54, Table 61. 'Hid., pp. 12-13, Tables 1 and 2. BACKWARD AND ANTISOCIAL CLASSES 113 have attention. Since many country inhabitants are remote from medical and general hospital facilities and since, also, country people as a rule give less attention to cuts, bruises^ strains, pains, and illnesses generally than do city residents, it is likely that a disproportionate number of insane persons of a mild and safe type are at large in the rural population. There is widespread neglect of incipient insanity, and the rural sections share the general ignorance relative to the imperative- ness of the attention of specialists for mental disorders when they first appear. It is probable that country people give less consideration to such cases than do city people. The specialists in mental troubles affirm that a very much larger proportion of insanity cases could be cured by recourse to early treatment than by waiting until the disorder becomes established as a habit. Several steps should be taken to improve this situation. First, efforts should be made through medical and health associations, teachers' organizations, the teaching of hygiene in the schools, and by other available means to educate the public to think of insanity as a curable disease that generally comes on gradually and may be prevented by early treatment. Second, medical schools which train for the practice of medicine should give more attention to mental troubles and to their treatment, empha- sizing especially the necessity of detecting psychopathic cases in their beginning. Third, general hospitals should be made more available for rural inhabitants and should contain pro- visions for housing and treating early psychopathic cases. Fourth, state hospitals for the insane which emphasize the care of the incipiently insane should be established at sufficiently fre- quent intervals to appeal to and be readily available for such persons. Minnesota has its hospitals for the insane specialized into those for incipient and those for chronic cases. The laws governing insanity are such that those for incipient cases are open to anyone who feels, or whose friends feel, that he needs special attention. No legal commitment is necessary. The per- son with a slight mental trouble enters without attracting public attention, receives appropriate care, is restored, and returns to the home community as free from stigma as the person who has been in a hospital for some physical ailment. Perhaps district state psychopathic hospitals would best meet the needs with re- spect to availability. 114 RURAL SOCIOLOGY Insanity appears to increase with the development of urban- ism, the outcome of a combination of causes which are to be found in cities. It is caused by alcoholism and venereal disease, and flourishes among immigrants. Heredity plays a part in per- haps half of the cases, the insanity thus pointing back to such ancestral factors as insanity, apoplexy, paralysis, psychopathic abnormalities, venereal infections, and chronic alcoholism. In- sanity must be combated by attacking its causal conditions, and improvements in rural society and elsewhere are to be realized by lessening the causes just mentioned. Epilepsy is closely associated with insanity in being such a derangement of the nervous organization that more or less fre- quent concurrent disturbances of the mental functions occur. The epileptic convulsions tend to appear both more frequently and violently and there is usually an accompanying decay of mental powers. The disease is associated with the different forms of degeneracy, such as is found in born criminals. The malady is all the more pathetic because the victims, between attacks, are often attractive and talented. It is hereditary in large measure, about one-half of the offsprings of epileptics being epileptic while others show indications of abnormality. There is an appreciable number of epileptic children and, while no satisfactory statistics are available, it is safe to surmise that rural districts have a quota of epileptics somewhat pro- portionate to that in the case of insanity. Epileptic children need supervision because of not infrequent mental disturbances in close association with the attack during which harm may be done other children. The attention bestowed upon epileptics and the care provided for them by states is as yet inadequate. The rural districts are backward in providing the medical inspection which would de- tect such individuals and assist in initiating suitable care. Probably the best method of treating developed epileptics is colonies in which they are segregated. Several states now have such colonies. They offer several advantages. Marriage between epileptics would be prevented, thus cutting off the hereditary source of supply. Useful occupations are engaged in, so adding to the happiness of the inmates and largely furnishing their support. A society made up of the members of the colony offers enjoyable and beneficial pastimes and cultural opportunities. BACKWARD AND ANTISOCIAL CLASSES 115 THE FEEBLE-MINDED As insanity may be regarded as being a problem which is more urban than rural, so feeble-mindedness may be regarded largely as a rural problem. The following facts lend support to this statement : Since heredity plays such a dominating part in the production of the feeble-minded, there is a tendency in small communities, especially those of long standing, toward the intermarriage of related family stocks, thus giving the determiners of mental defects an opportunity of crossing and reinforcing each other. There is also a strong current of the ambitious and vigorous rural minds toward cities, thus tending to reduce the proportion of the feeble-minded in cities as compared with that in the country. Likewise, in the open country, where the population is scattered, there is apt to be less consideration given to the occurrence and supervision of backward persons than is given in cities. Perhaps, too, there is some truth in the pr^nant asser- tion that the weak-minded tend to be eliminated in the ruthless pressure and competitive struggle of cities. The number of the feeble-minded in our nation can only be estimated. There were only about 20,000 such persons in the institutions in 1910, representing only a small portion of the entire feeble-minded population of the nation. On the basis of an inquiry made in Massachusetts in 1912 as to the number in that state, there woidd be about 200,000 at large. But the Massachusetts results are recognized as being incomplete. A corrective is found in estimates as to the frequency of occurrence in small samples of population examined, such estimates ranging from 1 in 25 to 1 in 500. There is a wide agreement among scientific students of the subject now that there is about 1 feeble-minded person for each 300 of the population. The distribution of such persons in city and country is like- wise subject to estimate. In Great Britain, where the popula- tions were classed as urban, industrial, mixed industrial and agricultural, and agricultural, it was found that the rate in the latter ranged from 3.96 to 4.68 per 1,000 ; in the mixed from 3.05 to 3.81 ; in the industrial from 1.10 to 3.96 ; and in the urban from 1.35 to 4.14. So it appears that the average for the strictly 116 RUEAL SOCIOLOGY agricultural population is considerably higher than for the other groups. The study made by Treadway and Lundberg of feeble-minded children in a rural county of Delaware assigns a higher rate to the country than to the towns, except among girls in the west side of the county. The full data for the entire county, east and west side, town and country, and boys and girls is presented in the accompanying table. PREVALENCE OF MENTAL DEFECTS IN WHITE SCHOOL CHILDREN* Number Inspected Number and Per Cent Mentally Deficient Locality Total Boys Girls Total Boys Girls Number Per Cent Number Per Cent Number Per Cent Whole county . . East Side Country . . Town West Side Country . . Town 6,001 1,8!)8 1,858 1,371 1,719 1,056 3,014 1,000 1,000 679 815 520 2,990 858 858 692 904 636 67 27 27 11 19 10 1.11 1.45 1.45 .80 1.11 .95 46 18 18 6 15 7 1.52 1.80 1.80 .88 1.84 1.35 21 9 9 5 4 3 0.70 1.05 1.05 .72 .44 .66 • Walter L. Treadway and Emma O. Lundberg, Children's Bureau, Publication No. 48, 1919. 'Mental Detect in a Rural County,' Twenty -nine, or 3.4 per cent, of the 855 colored school chil- dren were mentally defective. However, as no figures are given for country and town relative to these children, no conclusions relative to the comparative distribution of mental deficiency in this class of children can be drawn. An investigation as to the number of defectives in rural schools in 71 of the 93 counties of Nebraska made by Mr. G. W. A. Luckey in 1915, discovered 924 such children. Of this number, 8 per cent were blind, 17 per cent deaf, 40 per cent feeble-minded, and 35 per cent were classified under "other defectives." That state makes statutory provision for free education of the blind, deaf, feeble-minded, and crippled and deformed, and is one of nine states to provide for the crippled and deformed.^ It is probable that the amount of feeble-mindedness varies from community to community, according to inbreeding, physical en- vironment, immigration, rural migration, and other factors in the rural situation. Investigations made by the United States Public Health Service of over 18,000 school children in four ^ School Life, April 16., 1919, p. 10. BACKWARD AND ANTISOCIAL CLASSES 117 rural counties show that from three-tenths of one per cent to 1.1 per cent, according to locality, were feeble-minded. Of these children, 57 per cent of the girls and 42.8 per cent of the boys were above the average physical development of the children of the country ; 42.8 per cent of girls and 32.4 per cent of boys had visual defects; 14.2 per cent of girls and 57.1 per cent of boys had defects of hearing; and 2.9 per cent of girls and 7.1 per cent of boys had enlarged tonsils. These large percentages of defects suggest the query as to whether or not some of these children might not have been normal mentally had the other defects been removed. The nature of feeble-mindedness is such that far greater atten- tion should be paid to it than is the case. There are three classes of the feeble-minded. The idiots, who never develop mentally beyond the stage reached by a three-year-old child and are con- sequently helpless, constitute about 10 per cent of all. Imbeciles, a large class with a mental development of from three to seven years who are able to talk, play, and do some kinds of useful work. Morons, who reach a mental age of from seven to twelve and who are capable of reading, writing, and of working suf- ficiently to earn a living in institutions under supervision. The feeble-minded, consequently, are dependent persons, requiring either complete care in all matters or vigilant supervision. The defect is chiefly hereditary, perhaps two-thirds or more of the cases being due to ancestral influences. It is clear from this that the presence of this element in the population, in the fact that it is not only likely to reproduce its kind but to do so more heavily than normal persons, is a standing menace to society. The results which flow from feeble-mindedness are serious, plac- ing a heavy burden on society. It is a prolific source of alco- holism, pauperism, and prostitution, and is a contributing cause in a small percentage of criminality. There are no quick solutions for this problem. The best authorities on the social disposition of the feeble-minded uni- formly urge segregation in institutions provided especially for them. This would prevent marriage and reproduction and so go far toward ultimately eliminating this class from society, the great desideratum when regard is had for the safety and improve- ment of the race stock. It would provide a comfortable home for the helpless, amusement and helpful pastimes for those able to 118 RURAL SOCIOLOGY enjoy them, and productive industry and skilled supervision for the more intelligent and capable. But the public response is slow and it apparently will be decades before anything like complete segregation of this class is attained. Eugenic marriage laws which prohibit the marriage of de- fectives, if properly drawn and administered, are helpful. Many states have passed restrictive marriage laws; but the most of them are crude and poorly administered, and as yet are chiefly experimental. The public mind has not developed the under- standing and social conscience to make them effective, even where the provisions for administration are adequate. The sterilization of defectives has also been provided for in a number of states. Here again we have legislation which runs ahead of public opinion and, consequently, ahead of execution. The practice of sterilization is commonly confined to those in institutions and it probably would be inadvisable to require it for defectives outside of institutions. Segregation in institutions is doubtless the ultimate objective for this class and should be held before the public constantly as the safe solution. Meanwhile, several useful steps ought to be taken. The public should, by every possible means, restrain the feeble-minded from marrying and so from reproducing. Mental examinations of all children by specially trained persons would discover those who are inherently defective and place the schools and other agencies in a position to help and safeguard them. Industrial training is more apt to make an appeal to the highest class of feeble-minded, the morons, and to be more within their range of attainment than other types of education, and so should be provided for them. Agriculture has been found to be one of the most avail- able forms of industry for the feeble-minded. In the schools where they are educated, special classes for backward children should be provided. This would be possible in consolidated schools and is an added argument for consolidation. Doubtless there are many homes which require constructive work for the removal of unfavorable conditions and such a lightening of the burdens of the family that proper care of the defective in his own home may be exercised. Out-patient departments of states, through which certain types of patients may be given proper care and training in their own communities appears to be a use- ful suggestion. Special legal protection for mental defectives is BACKWARD AND ANTISOCIAL CLASSES 119 a widely recognized requirement, and states which have not done so should make it a criminal offense to cohabit with an insane or feeble-minded woman of any age. Treadway and Lundberg, the special investigators of rural f eeble-mindedness for the United States Children 's Bureau, say : "With a comprehensive program combining mental examina- tions, special classes, and supervision in the community, with institutional care and training, the early recognition of mental defect and the proper treatment of individual cases will be pos- sible. By this means the needs of all types of mental defectives may be met with justice to themselves and their families, and the interest of society safeguarded. ' ' ^ antisocuij classes In its broad meaning, the term "antisocial" signifies every kind of human conduct which interferes with the normal func- tioning of society. A person is antisocial who so acts that others in society are in any manner injured thereby. Thus, idleness throws the burden of support on others; criminality violates personal or property rights; vice affects the morals and health of others ; taking excess interest or profits in business robs some- one of what he had produced and is entitled to receive. But in this connection, only certain classes of individuals and actions are discussed: those which have come to be regarded especially as the antisocial. Antisocial individuals are the products of conditions in society : namely, of the hereditary, economic, legal, educational, home, and community conditions. Were it possible to discover and define all of the producing conditions, and could collective society completely control such conditions, there would be the assurance of solving the problems arising out of antisocial con- duct. But ability in these directions is limited and we are doomed to grope and run about in vicious circles. We do not possess full knowledge relative to any of the backward classes which this chapter considers, either respecting causal conditions or means of control. Yet our information assures us that while antisocial individuals are products of conditions they also in turn serve to perpetuate, often to intensify the conditions. It is difficult to form an adequate idea of the amount of vice 'ioc. cit., 94, 120 RURAL SOCIOLOGY and immorality existing in the open country. On the one hand there is a tendency to exaggeration in so far as our judgment is based on published reports relating to such groups as the Jukes, the Kallikaks, certain New England Villages, and a "Village of a Thousand Souls. ' ' The studies on which the reports are based are legitimate and no doubt well executed. But they represent extreme cases, populations or communities where the waters have been fished out, where the abler individuals have been drawn off to cities or western fields, and where there has been undue inter- marriage between defective stocks. On the other hand, there is a tendency to underrate the extent of vice, immorality, and other antisocial phenomena in rural districts. Jails and houses of prostitution, together with their inmates to be counted, are located in towns and cities, cases are tried by courts which sit in urban centers, and the apprehending officers reside there. Thus the more objective symptoms are associated with city life. However, it is evident that much immorality and delinquency may be hidden in the country, because homes and populations are widely distributed and such matters are mentioned only privately. Prostitution. — Prostitution is commonly regarded as an urban institution and there is some justification for this, because as an institution it may be veiled or segregated in populous centers, while only casual immoral women of the migrant type infest rural regions. Yet this form of vice reaches its tentacles into the country as is known from its trail of venereal diseases. But the proportion of those afflicted with venereal disease is appar- ently much less in the open country than in towns and cities. In one Ohio county whose population was about 60 per cent open country, the other population being in small towns and villages, physicians reported nearly twice as many cases of venereal diseases treated by them from town as from country. In another county, the difference was somewhat less, since a nearby large city, made very accessible to the country by reason of three electric lines, made possible the interchange of population be- tween town and city. Country women were subject to the diseases only from one-third to one-fourth the extent as men, thus reflecting the prevalent double standards of morality. And it is to be remembered that many women contract the diseases from husbands. In this connection Vogt, who gives the above BACKWARD AND ANTISOCIAL CLASSES 121 facts, remarks: "Hidden beneath the surface of the supposed moral standards of the community and caused by ignorance and indifference on the part of those who should be alive to real conditions lies a mass of sordid ideals and practices that cannot be other than detrimental to community welfare." Another evidence of rural vice and immorality is obtained from data as to the origin of inmates of houses of prostitution. Kneeland found that only slightly over 17 per cent of the in- mates of Bedford, a New York institution for fallen women, were born in the country and that in other such institutions about 42 per cent were so born. At that time about 21 per cent of the population of that state was rural. The first percentage is, at least, far less than the proportion of the rural population in the total population of the state of New York or of the nation. The. elimination of vice is a problem with which the world has long struggled and without much headway. No one knows how the problem is to be solved because it has not yet been solved, but some recommendations are well founded. Outright prohibition of prostitution by cities is recommended by special vice commissions generally. The accomplishment of prohibition would eliminate the main source of venereal disease and dissi- pate one of the prolific causes of immorality. It goes without saying "that whatever raises the moral standards of country communities will reduce vice and immorality. A wide dissem- ination of information concerning the filthiness of vice and the deadliness of the diseases it calls into being, not only to the men and women immediately concerned, but to innocent women and children cannot help but act as a deterrent. The introduc- tion of a judicious system of sex instruction in the schools would be conducive to enlightenment and, therefore, to a higher morality. Were women's clubs and other organizations to take a strong stand against the double standard and marriage with diseased men, decided and beneficial results could be obtained. Tramps. — The country is troubled by tramps as the cities are by vagrants. Tramps are perennial, appearing in the country with the mild seasons and disappearing into cities with the appearance of winter. The professional tramps are midway between dependents and criminals, having no supporting in- dustry nor residence, and being without community or com- munity morality they are ready for any kind of petty delin- 122 RURAL SOCIOLOGY quency. In one year vagrancy ranked second — alcoholism being first — as a cause of commitments to penal institutions — a costly price to pay for voluntary idleness. The railroads alone lose approximately $25,000,000 a year through railway vagrancy, and the toll of lives lost from this cause is large. The half million tramps in the United States "cost charitable and correc- tional institutions millions a year to take care of them; they corrupt the young and rob the older; they disseminate disease, perpetrate and encourage crime, and maintain indecent stand- ards of living." Tramps are a by-product of civilization. Their producing causes reach back into the vitals of society. Insufficient homes, indifferent parents, defective schools, breakdowns and irregu- larity in our industrial system, seasonal farm labor, saloons, gambling, vicious associations, and an element of hereditary wanderlust are some of them. No such individuals, except those with the hereditary wanderlust, begin to tramp for the love of it. Some one or more of the causes push them out on the road, then the habit of tramping forms and the tramp is made. It will be understood that the many men who pass through the country in search of work are not to be considered tramps. Since the tramp problem is a national one, it must be dealt with nationally. There is need of some imiform method or methods of meeting the situation. The most thorough and final method would be the reformation of society generally so that the producing conditions would cease to operate. If the supply could be cut off the tramp problem would be solved. But what- ever is to be accomplished in this way in future must necessarily take place gradually as the result of rising enlightenment and altruism. The adoption of uniform methods of handling tramps will have to be done by states, as Federal legislation is probably out of the question. Advanced students of the subject advocate the estab- lishment of farm colonies for tramps and vagrants. It is thought that such colonies would be useful in several ways. They would be curative and restorative by removing individuals from their haunts and associations, breaking up habits of idleness by sub- stituting wholesome labor, and overcoming alcoholism and dis- ease. In part they would be penalizing by depriving the individual of his freedom to idle, tramp, and indulge in de- BACKWARD AND ANTISOCIAL CLASSES 123 baucheries, enforcing labor up to the level of his ability, and exercising restraint until vagrancy habits were removed. In part they would serve to secure productive labor from an other- wise idle parasite. Perhaps the last return would be the most dependable. For when tramps have been made, the habit becomes so deep-seated and the vicious appeals so strong that curative remedies are apt to be applied in vain. The experience of Europe, where colonies for vagrants have been used for centuries, indicates that the great majority are repeaters. Hence their colonies serve not only as deterrents to vagrancy and as reformatories, but also largely as agencies to secure forced labor. Since tramps and vagrants are most numerous in sections situated near trunk-line railways, such steps should be taken as will reduce railway trespasses. Railways, communities, and in- dividuals will be interested to this end since all alike are injured by hoboes who use the railways. It is proposed to make the cost of maintaining tramps and vagrants in correctional institu- tions a state charge. Local authorities merely temporize with the problem, shipping the undesirables on to the next place in order to be rid of the expense of keeping them. But could they send them to a farm colony at the expense of the general public, they would be more vigilant and states with such provisions would be avoided by tramps and vagrants. Local "tramp-houses" with workhouse tests should be used to house tramps temporarily in place of the poorhouse. This is the practice of Massachusetts, and it appears that tramps pass through that state without stopping in order to avoid necessary work. To quote Mr. O. E. Lewis: "To my mind, real charity in the problem of the tramp evil is the reduction to the least pos- sible point of bread-lines; of free meals and lodgings given by missions, charity societies, and prison associations; and the elimination of private or public lodging-houses which give free lodgings and meals without work tests, or their reorganization into work-test lodging-houses. In short, charity in the case of vagrancy means cutting off every chance for the individual vagrant to find an excuse to continue his life of workshyness and parasitism."* • Annals of the American Academy, 1912 : 223. 124 RURAL SOCIOLOGY Delinquents. — The discussion of the backward classes so far has revealed the almost shameful deficiency of our national statistics relative to such matters; and our consideration of the delinquents must further that revelation. Not only are we in the dark as to the amount of criminality in the entire nation but we have even less direct light concerning the comparative show- ing made by country and city. By the use of indirect methods a somewhat reliable guess regarding crime in urban and rural communities may be arrived at. The United States Census Bureau compiles data on the dis- tribution of prisoners in the penal institutions throughout the land. By studying the distribution of these prisoners among occupations it is found that agriculture, transportation, and all other outdoor occupations contribute only 17.2 per cent of all male prisoners ; while ' ' all other occupations, which include agri- culture, furnish but 9 per cent of female prisoners. When it is remembered that the agricultural population was, when these figures were gathered, less than half of the total national popu- lation and that other large occupation groups are associated with agriculture in these percentages of criminality (17.2 and 9) cited, it is apparent that rural districts contribute a very much smaller portion of prisoners in proportion to their population than do urban communities."^ The character of the rural delinquency in Ohio appears to be chiefly rape, horse-stealing, and assault and battery, as compared with the distinctly urban crimes of robbery and burglary.^ This, however, may not be representative of the entire rural United States. As will be noted in discussing rural juvenile delin- quency, there are many acts of misconduct which in cities would be considered and detected as criminal that in the country pass unnoticed. The close contact of persons and of persons with property and the hard economic status of multitudes in cities constitute a set of conditions which multiplies crime. The chief defects in the treatment of adult oifenders consists in using jails as penitentiaries for the punishment of crimes. Authorities on crime and penology insist that jails should be used only as detention places while prisoners are awaiting trial, ' Special Census Report, ' ' Prisoners and Juvenile Delinquents in Institu- tions," 1904, p. 38. ' Vogt, op. cit., 215. BACKWARD AND ANTISOCIAL CLASSES 125 never as penitentiaries. The evil at present lies in the fact, first, that there is seldom work of any sort provided for crim- inals serving sentence, with the result that deterioration in health and habits of industry is inevitable; second, that the innocent suspects and first offenders who are not at all or little prone to crime are thrown together with the confirmed and vicious criminals and so subjected to humiliating disgrace and danger of moral contamination. Delinquents from the country, alike with those from cities, would be benefited by the adoption of the conditional sentence and parole systems. The subject of juvenile delinquency is vastly important be- cause it occurs in the developing age and therefore at a period of life when preventive measures are most successful. The indications from various sources are that the country children and youth are less prone to delinquency than are those of cities, not of course, because they are inherently better but because they are less exposed to provoking conditions. Reports from the in- dustrial school for girls at Delaware, Ohio, show that many times more girls go astray in cities than in country. Data from similar schools for boys in Ohio and Michigan are of the same import.^ Experts of the United States Children 's Bureau have made an intensive study of juvenile delinquency in the state of New York. This report depicts some of the conditions productive of de- linquency, criticizes institutions and practices which fail to func- tion preventively, and makes recommendations for improving the situation. Although New York conditions are not entirely typical of those of the nation as a whole in this respect, yet a resume of the study and its conclusions will prove useful in point- ing the way toward a more rational system. This study, "Juvenile Delinquency in Rural New York," in- vestigates juvenile delinquency in what is considered a typical rural county in the state of New York. In that county 185 delinquent children between the ages of five and twenty were found in the open country and in villages of less than 1,200 inhabitants. Sixty-six of the offenders were girls and 119 boys, 41 being "incorrigible," 68 sex-offenders, and 75 offenders against property. A larger proportion of the older girls than 'Vogt, op. cit., 205-6. 126 RURAL SOCIOLOGY of the older boys were classed as sex-oflfenders, but this was be- lieved to be merely the outcome of the fact that the girls can less easily conceal their offense. More than one-half of the chil- dren were living in "normal" homes — that is, homes "blessed" with both parents — and therefore supposedly regulative of child life. All levels of social and economic conditions are represented, the only type of family seemingly appearing more often than others being the tenant family. In many cases of offense against property, it was found that the parents instigated and encouraged their children to theft. The incorrigibility of boys was often due to overwork on the farm, work without wages or seeming recom- pense, the maintenance of parental control indefinitely, and unreasonable treatment of employing farmers. Some institutions and practices of the district studied are open to criticism. The rural churches are without social vision, bound by tradition, and manned by poorly educated and inefficient ministers. The schools are backward, especially those of the open country, the immature and poorly trained and poorly paid girls being entirely inadequate to control the older boys and girls. The public and the authorities often wink at truancy and some- times promote such occasions as "potato week," when children may stay out of school to work without danger of legal procedure. Standards of law enforcement are low and lax. Private citizens generally refuse to lodge complaint against neighbors' children, ministers will not take the risk of offending parishioners thereby, and town officers and supervisors fear unpopularity from their taking such legal action. The justice of the peace, through whom the law is invoked against juvenile offenders in all save two of the New York counties, is inactive because of incapacity, desire to avoid increasing taxes, and fear of making enemies. The county juvenile court sometimes sits in large cities, in such cases making it inconvenient and expensive for offender, local officers, witnesses, and complainant to appear in cases. The jails, in which children committed to an institution by a justice of the peace may be held for from two to five days, although having juvenile departments, are frequently dirty and unfit. The insti- tutions to which delinquent children are committed are regarded as detrimental in many eases, and adequate supervision of the children in their own homes is deemed preferable. The proba- tion system is weak, due to the quality of justice and parole BACKWARD AND ANTISOCIAL CLASSES 127 oflBcers. No case was discovered where the law providing prose- cution of parents for "adult contributory negligence" had been brought into action. The investigators make the following recommendations. The first of these relate to the juvenile county court. Juvenile de- linquency cases should be taken out of the hands of local justices of the peace and placed in the charge of this court. The functions and jurisdiction of the court should be extended and improved. Its inaccessibility may be overcome by dividing the court and assigning a district to each ; or by the appointment of competent referees who would hear cases in various parts of the county. Whatever the details, it is important that cases be impartially tried by competent and experienced authority not subject to local influences. Provision for a unified probation system for an entire county should be made. A probation officer, publicly paid if possible, shoidd be available in every part of the rural as well as the urban region. This would serve to bring out complaints now withheld. Connected with the juvenile court should be proper detention places — possibly in some existing institution for children or in specially selected homes. A properly strengthened juvenile sys- tem should cut down commitment of children to institutions to a minimum. Raising the age limit from sixteen to eighteen is desirable, for many boys and girls over sixteen have a childish type of mind, and such cases are better handled by a juvenile court. This is especially desirable for rural children, who are backward in maturing because of lack of frequent contacts. The second set of recommendations pertain to the justice of the peace and probation officers. The function of the justice of the peace should be abolished. "A stricter and more consistent prosecution of adults for neglect and cruelty and 'adult con- tributory negligence' should be undertaken." Parents should be unable to shift responsibility to the state. Probation officers should spend as much time supervising a natural home as a foster home, and the former, if at all possible, is better than the latter. Probation officers should be provided for all courts that deal with "non-support, desertion, neglect, divorce, bastardy, all domestic relation cases, misdemeanor cases, and felony cases." 128 RURAL SOCIOLOGY Where population is scant it is feasible to have a probation officer for both juvenile and adult cases. "In some rural communities the probation officer may well be clothed with other authority, such as that of attendance officer, nurse, parole officer, poor-relief officer, and S. P. C. C. and child- labor enforcement officer. ' ' This would justify in certain coun- ties expenditure for full-time and well-qualified persons. The probation officer, to succeed, must be in " close touch with schools, poor relief, recreation, churches, women 's clubs, institu- tions, industry, granges, local governmental officials, and all other social agencies that touch the life of his probationers in either remedial or preventive ways. ' ' The third recommendation relates to an advisory board of citizens. "In every county there should be either a legal or an extra-legal advisory board of citizens to cooperate with the judges and probation officers in securing progressive efficiency in the social work for children and adults in the county. ' ' The investigators make certain recommendations for the pre- vention of juvenile delinquency, but since these relate to the school, church, village, and the family and so nearly coincide with changes recommended under special consideration to those mat- ters elsewhere in this work, it will not be necessary to notice them here. TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION 1. Is a backward class at the same time antisocial f 2. Is an antisocial class at the same time a backward class? 3. Why should wealth be more equitably distributed in the country than in cities? 4. Would it be well to have a large landless and stratified labor class in the country? 5. Why is the total wealth in cities so much greater in proportion to the total urban population than is the total rural wealth to the rural population? (See Chapter XXII for statistics.) 6. What is the condition of the "poorhouse" in your county? Are you proud of it? 7. How many insane cases have you known that might have been cured if proper and timely treatment had been given? Are there any insane in your "poorhouse"? 8. How many feeble-minded persons would your county have if there is one to each 300 persons? your state? How many would there be in the rural sections of each at the same ratio? 9. How does your state provide for this class of persons? Does it have an adequate law that is strictly enforced? Does it have eugenic marriage and sterilization laws that are successful? BACKWARD AND ANTISOCIAL CLASSES 129 10. Do you have a local tramp problem? How would you treat a person who came to your door and asked for food? 11. Can individual farmers adequately handle the tramp situation} 12. What is the character of delinquency among children in your farming region? Among adults? 13. Review the laws of your state for treating juvenile delinquents and determine if they are appropriate and adequate for those of rural sections. REFERENCES POVERTY AND POOR RELIEF Bbonsok, Saba A. — The County Unit for Social Service; National Con- ference for Social Work, 1917: 645-9. COOLEY, H. R. — "Correction Farms of Cleveland," Annals, 46: 92-6. County, The, As a Unit of Social Work and Organization : Papers by H. Ida Curry, Homer W. Borst, W. H. Davenport, and Bessie A. McLenahan; pp. 241, 245, 249, and 595; National Conference for Social Work, 1918. Ellwood, Chas. a. — Sociology and Modern Social Problems, p. 291; American Book Company, 1919. Gillette, J. M. — "Poor Relief and Jails in North Dakota," Quarterly Journal of the University of North Dakota, 3 : 99-137. Haooard, Sir H. Rider — The Poor and the Land. A report on farm colonies and land settlements for the poor; Longmans, 1905. Mbndum, Gladys — Child Welfare Work in a Sural Community ; National Conference for Social Work, 1919: 20-26. Potts, C. S. — The State Farm System in Texas; National Conference for Social Work, 1914: .54-6. Sanderson, Dwight — The Farmer and Child Welfare Work; National Con- ference for Social Work, 1919: 26-33. Special Census Report on Paupers in Almshouses, 1904, Table 27. Statistical Abstract of U. S., 1918. feeble-mindedness and insanity Campbell, Dr. G. M. — The Mental Bealth of the Community and the Work of the Psychiatric Dispensary; National Conference for Social Work, 1917: 429-38. Census Report on Insane and Feeble-minded, 1910. Census, 1920, Vol. I, pp. 46-7. Clark, Talliaferro, M.D. — Feeble-mindedness among Sural School Chil- dren; National Conference for Social Work, 1916: 219. Duodale, R. L. — The Jukes; Putnam, 1910. Fernald, W. E. — Massaehtisetts Farm Colony for the Feeble-minded; National Conference for Social Work, 1902 : 487-90. FuEBUSH, Edith M. — See under Pollock. Gillette, J. M. — "Insanity (and Feeble-mindedness) in North Dakota," Quarterly Journal of the University of North Dakota, 5 : 139-164. Goddard, H. H. — The Eallikak Family; Macniillan, 1912. , Feeble-Mindedness ; Macmillan, 1914. Pinter, Rudolph — "A Mental Survey of the School Population of a "Vil- lage," School and Society, May 19, 1917. Pollock, H. M., and Furbush, Edith M. — Comparative Statistics of State Hospitals for Mental Diseases, 1920, p. 13, National Committee Mental Hygiene, New York City. Sims, N. L. — "The Rural Community," Part III, Division 3: Population Status; Scribners, 1920. 130 RURAL SOCIOLOGY Teeadwat, W. L., and Lundberg, Emma O. — Mental Defects in a Bwal County; V. S. Children's Bureau, Publication 48, Series No. 7. VooT, Paul L. — Introduction to Sural Sociology, Chaps. IX and XI ; Apple- ton, 1917. DELINQUENCY AND TRAMPS Gillette, J. M. — Constructive Sural Sociology, p. 121 and pp. 365-7; Mac- millan, 1915. Henderson, C. E. — "Rural Police," Annals, 40: 228-33. Juvenile Delinquency in Sural New Yorlc, Federal Children's Bureau, Pub- lication No. 32, Series No. 4. Lewis, O. F.— "The Tramp Problem," Annals, 1912: 217-27. , ' ' State Constabulary, ' ' Nation, 98 : 5-6. Paemelee, Maurice — "TJrban and Rural Crime and Vice," Chap. V in his Criminology; Macmillan, 1918. Thompson, H. C. — "Canadian Northwest Mounted Police," Outing, 32: 75-80. CHAPTER Vm RURAL HEALTH AND SANITATION FOUNDATIONS OF INTEREST IN EUEAL HEALTH The general sociological and individual importance of good health and sound body should be so immediately recognized that little or no discussion of a demonstrating nature would be re- quired. Yet the fact that freedom from ailments of some kind is rare indicates either ignorance or helplessness on the part of the masses. In a gigantic national undertaking, when the total national society is straining every means to make itself efficient and in- vincible, the imperative desirability of bodies unfettered by dis- ease is recognized. Thus the conservation of health as a means of "winning the war" was set forth during the European war as of prime importance. The Public Health Service of the Federal Government could say : " It is the patriotic duty of every loyal American to keep well." Production to the utmost limit from factory, farm, mine, and forest demands the restriction of disease to the minimum. "Sickness from preventable diseases means loss of time, money, and decreased efficiency and will impede America in her reconstruction work. ' ' ^ Individuals make up the nation or a society and either aggregate depends for its efficiency on the vigor of its constituent members. When the Spanish influenza smote our army and invaded our nation, our national efficiency suffered a staggering blow. Many military and civil communities were almost completely paralyzed for a time by disease and death. In normal times the same kind of results flow from the more quiet invasions which are accepted as necessary because they are so common. There is a growing rec- ^ Health Almanac, 1919, p. 3. 131 132 EURAL SOCIOLOGY ognition, however, that a direct connection exists between poverty on the one hand and inefficiency and disease on the other. Conse- quently, many industrial concerns are placing nursing care within the reach of their employees and great insurance com- panies are now furnishing medical advice and nurses to their policy holders. A few years ago the Federated American Engineering Society appointed a Committee on Elimination of Wastes in Industry. This committee made a most thorough investigation of wastes from every source, employing a staff of fifty engineers to prose- cute the task. Mr. W. L. Chenery says that after the results had passed through the fires of the intense criticism they evoked, "the statements stand out as. the nearest approach to reality ever obtained in this field. " " The engineers attribute the waste due to loss of production first of all to sickness. The committee estimates that the 42,000,000 men and women gainfully employed lose on the average more than eight days each annually from illness, a total of 350,000,000 days. Of the 500,000 workers who die each year, it is probable that the death of at least one-half is postponable by proper medical supervision, periodic medical examination, health education, and community hygiene. Assum- ing that the average life has, aside from the spiritual and human values, an economic value to industry of not less than $5,000 and assuming that the special diet, care, and medical attention re- quired by a man chronically ill costs $3 per day, it has been estimated that the economic loss from preventable disease and death is $1,800,000,000. " ^ Nor is the cost in sorrow and suffering entailed by disease by any means the least of all the costs. No words can depict the anguish of diseased victims due to racking and wasting sickness or that of sympathetic sorrow and care on the part of relatives and friends. There is a wide departure from the standard of health and hygiene which competent authorities assert is within the bounds of attainment. There is no physically perfect race or human stock and even the representatives of the population taken at the most favorable age period show startling defects. Thus more than 30 per cent of the young men of the nation were pronounced ^The Survey, 46: August 1, 1921. RURAL HEALTH AND SANITATION 133 defective as a result of the draft examinations of 1917-18. Fur- ther, of the 548,992 southern rural children examined by the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission, 39 per cent were infected with hookworm. Again, the findings of the Life Extension Institute are to the effect that only 2.4 per cent of life insurance policy holders examined were normal; the rest needed advice as to health and living habits, and 65.75 per cent were referred to physicians for treatment. Similar examinations by other agencies yield approximately the same results. But the lengthening span of life in historic times denotes that there is no iron law of mortality. How long people will live is determined by the complex of conditions surrounding them. The average duration of life in India is 25 years, in Sweden, 50 plus, in Massachusetts it is 45. The average span of life lengthens with the advance of sanitary science and preventive medicine. The average duration of life has doubled during the last 350 years : the rate of per century increase being four years during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, nine years during the first half and seventeen years during the last half of the nineteenth century. In Massachusetts, the only state for which data are available, the gain was fourteen years per century. But the rapid reduction in the mortality rate of certain dis- eases proves that we should not be satisfied to await centuries for increased vitality and health. Three-fourths of the 150,000 deaths a year from tuberculosis in this country are reckoned as preventable. From a study of data presented by advanced ex- perts in the various diseases and in vital statistics relative to ninety diseases, it is concluded that at least fifteen years could be added to the average life by applying the principles of pre- vention. And note that most of this increase would arise from the prevention of tuberculosis, typhoid, and five other diseases; and that the preventives appear cheap and attainable, being pure air, pure water, and pure milk. The elimination of con- taminated water has practically exterminated typhoid in many communities. The subject of rural health and urban health are not only of interest to the inhabitants of each of those kinds of commu- nities. The population of the nation is now about equally divided 134 RURAL SOCIOLOGY between country and city. The flow of population between the two regions offers the greatest facility for the spread of infec- tious disease between them and the interchange of foods, clothing materials and other kinds of goods still further promotes the reciprocal inoculation of germs. Disease germs know no boun- dary lines; do not stop to pay customs duties in their transit from city to country or from country to city. EURAL VKRSUS URBAN HEALTH CONSERVATION A good deal of both scientific and practical interest attaches to the question concerning the comparative status of rural and urban health. The rating of the two communities in this respect may be determined from data of mortality and morbidity. The findings drawn from death rates chiefly are presented in this section. A Swedish statistician, Gustav Sundberg, maintains that the death rate is the best means of measuring the height and efficiency of a civilization and that if we have the average death rates of two or more nations or communities for a sufficiently long series of years, we have in them an accurate measure of the compara- tive development of the two. His idea is that the desire to live, to continue life as long as possible, is the most fundamental human and social concern. All else centers about and gives way to that. Civilization or any given society is a complex mechanism for the realization of that end, all else being inci- dental. If with all its complexity, a society fails in securing the prolongation of life, it registers lower in the scale of social evolution, although another may be less complex, that succeeds in a greater degree. Hence, the smaller the death rate, the higher the civilization. Reckoned in this way, then England is more civilized than France, for in 1890 its death rate was 19.1, while that of Prance was 22. In like manner, rural society in this country maintains a higher grade of civilization than does urban society, since, in 1917, the rural death rate was 13.0 and the urban 15.0. However, Marcus Rubin of Denmark contends that not only deaths but also births should be reckoned with in comparing nations as to grade of their civilizations, because the creative as well as the destructive forces or qualities must be recognized. RURAL HEALTH AND SANITATION 135 And for reasons which are too detailed to be discussed now he proposes as the measuring formula the square of the death rate divided by the birth rate. Should we apply this formula to city and country in the United States, the resulting rural index is 20 and the urban index is 36. That is, the country grades higher than cities in respect to conserving life.^ Respecting the above death rates it is to be remembered that the mortality reports draw the dividing line between country and city at places of 10,000 inhabitants, all towns with less people than that being considered cotintry. If towns of smaller popula- tion have a higher death rate than the open country, which is possible, it is evident that records of open country districts alone would be yet more favorable to the country. Again, were the age and sex distribution of rural and urban populations the same, the country would present a still better showing in its death rate in comparison with urban populations. We have seen that the rural districts have an excess of those under fifteen and above sixty-five where death is most probable, while cities have an excess of population between those ages where the likelihood of death is least. Cities also have an ex- cess of females who have a slightly lower average mortality rate than males. The mortality rates for cities and country in England and Wales in 1890 were 20.9 and 17.4, respectively. Had the same conditions as to health obtained for the population of those dis- tricts, it is estimated that the rates would have been 20.4 for cities and 22.83 for the country. Consequently it is evident that had the distribution of population by age and sex been similar, the city rate would have been considerably above twenty-one and the rural rate much under seventeen.^ It is likewise apparent that with similar distribution of population by age and sex in the United States in 1910, instead of being 13.4 and 15.9, the rural and urban death rates would have been much further apart. The following table constructed from census data shows what the death rates would be, reckoned from age distribution alone. Marcus Bubin, ' ' Measure of Civilization, ' ' Journal of the Statistical Society of London, Vol. 60: 148-161. Tor birth and death rates, see Gillette, Study in Social Dynamics, American Statistical Association, 1916, p. 359. 'Hobson, Evolution of Modem Capitalism, p. 334. 136 RURAL SOCIOLOGY WHAT THE RURAL AND URBAN DEATH RATES WOULD BE IF THE COUNTRY AND CITY EACH HAD THE OTHER'S AGE DISTRIBUTION ' Urban Rural Age Groups Death Bate Per Cent of Population Death Rate Per Cent of Population Under 5 (1) 59.7 4.3 5.9 9.1 12.1 24.3 90.9 (2) 9.9 17.4 20.1 18.9 14.4 15.2 4.0 (3) 34.4 3.2 5.3 6.8 8.0 15.7 76.8 (4) 13.0 5-14 23.2 15-24 19.4 25-34 14.4 35-44 11.2 45-64 141 4.6 Weighted Death Rate Inverse Death Rate Weighted Death Rate Inverse Death Rate Under 5 590 75 118 172 175 370 365 1,865 18.7 775 100 114 150 136 341 408 2,024 20.2 447 75 102 98 90 221 352 1388 13.9 841 5-14 56 15-24 106 25-34 119 35-44 115 45-64 239 65 and more 303 Totals 1296 Average death rate . . . 13.0 " Twelfth Census, Vol. Ill, Vital Statistics, p. Ijotx, for death rate by age groups. "Country" means all places of less than 2,500 and open country. Thirteenth Census, Abstract, p. 129, for age periods of population in 1909. Note that death rates and age groups are for periods ten years apart Both not given for same census, but probably not of great moment. Thus, if cities and country had each other's age distribution, the city death-rate would be 20.2 and the rural would be 13.0. Accordingly, the latter would express a higher civilization. How- ever, such a conclusion obviously overlooks the likelihood that it is the advantageous physical surrounding obtaining in the open country rather than a more advantageous social organization which accounts for the difference. The death rate of infants in the United States is about 23 per cent higher in cities than in country, the estimated rate for cities in 1913 being 2.7 as compared with one of 2.23 for the country.^ There is an evident tendency in this country to reduce the gap between urban and rural mortality rates. Construed on the basis of 10,000 inhabitants as the dividing line between city and coun- try, the following comparative death rates reveal this tendency : > Mortality Report, 1913, pp. 34 and 577, RURAL HEALTH AND SANITATION 137 1900 1910 1916 Urban 18.9 15.2 15.9 13.4 15 Rural 12.9 3.7 2.5 2.1 In several of the states of the registration area the rates for city and country, on the basis above indicated, have undergone an interchange of position, the city rate having become less than that of country and places of less than 10,000 inhabitants. Thus in 1916, city and rural rates in the following states were respec- tively: California, 13.5 and 13.6; Massachusetts, 15.1 and 15.5; New Jersey, 14.7 and 15.4 ; New York, 14.5 and 15.7 ; and Wash- ington, 7.2 and 8.2.^ How much these rates are determined by the settlement in the cities each year of approximately 750,000 from the farm and from foreign lands who are in the most vig- orous period of life, cannot be closely estimated; but that the influence must be considerable cannot be doubted. Ten of the fifty largest cities show a smaller death rate in 1916 than do rural districts at large. The rates among the ten range from 7 in Seattle and Spokane to 12.7 in Milwaukee. The ten cities are : Los Angeles, Oakland, Seattle, Spokane, Portland, Oregon, Denver, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Milwaukee, and Grand Rapids. Thus they are all northern and western cities. The death rates are generally higher in southern cities, and within those cities much higher for negroes than for whites.^ Decrease in the death rate of the rural districts of European nations has evidently not kept pace with that in cities. The following table is for nations as a whole and since the rates of 1891 1908 Hungary 33.1 26.3 Austria 27.9 22.4 Italy 26.2 22.2 Germany 23.4 18.0 France 22.6 19.0 Belgium 21.0 16.5 Switzerland 20.8 16.2 Holland 20.7 14.1 Scotland 20.7 16.1 England and Wales 20.2 14.7 Ireland 18.4 17.6 Norway 17.5 14.1 Sweden 16.8 14.9 ' United States Statistical Abstract, 1917, pp. 89-90. - U. S. Mortality Statistics, 1916, p. 13. 138 RURAL SOCIOLOGY cities is much lower, the rates in rural districts must be much higher than for whole nation. The cities as a rule had higher death rates in 1891 but now they generally have lower ones. The following rates for the larger cities indicates this. The rates are for the years, 1906-9. Five cities of Germany 16.9 Five of Great Britain 18.3 Three of Netherlands 13.6 Four of Italy 19.5 Ten other European cities 18.5 Four of the United States 17.0 "Under favorable conditions it would seem that life would be best conserved in rural sections where there is abundant oppor- tunity for living in the open air, where there is little excitement and comparative freedom from contagious disease. The country, however, often lacks advantages that are enjoyed by the city, in the way of prompt medical service, efficient sanitary inspection, and well-equipped hospitals. Moreover, health receives more consideration in the city than in the country and new discov- eries are more quickly adopted. ' ' ^ Some health authorities maintain that morbidity records are better symbols of health of a people than are mortality reports. Death shortens life, it is true, but disease and sickness impair the quality of life, cut down its efficiency, and create great wastage in many directions. It would be well if we could meas- ure life and health conditions in communities by means of both mortality and morbidity records, but such is not possible be- cause, while our mortality reports are deficient in accuracy, we have little or nothing in the way of morbidity records. How- ever, there are several kinds of indications of the state of health and physical condition which can be used to supplement mortal- ity reports. For purposes of comparing the physical condition of rural and urban registrants for military service during the war the results of physical examinations in certain urban and rural districts were compared. The selected urban registrants were from boards in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Seattle, St. Louis, Cincinnati, and New Orleans. Rural commu- nities were chosen from each of the states, using only boards having less than 1,200 registrants. The comparison showed that ' Pollock and Morgan, Modern Cities, pp. 128-137. RURAL HEALTH AND SANITATION 139 21.68 per cent of the 100,000 examined in the urban communi- ties selected for the study were rejected because of physical de- fects, whereas of the same number from rural communities 16.89 per cent were rejected. A further study which compared the causes of rejection in eight rural and eight urban districts showed that out of nineteen disqualifying defects, rural regis- trants evinced the higher percentage of defects in nine ; namely, bones and joints; digestive system; genito-urinary (non-vene- real); heart and blood vessels; mental deficiency; respiratory (non-tuberculous) ; skin; teeth; thyroid. The urban registrants rated highest in defects relative to : alcohol and drugs ; devel- opmental; eyes; ears; flatfoot; genito-virinary (venereal); her- nia; nervous and mental disorders; respiratory (tuberculous); tuberculous ( non-respiratory ) .^ A report of the Surgeon-General states that the total defects found in sucih urban recruits were 38.3 in a hundred and in rural recruits, 33.3. Then the statement is made that "probably only a part of the rejections found by local boards in urban regions is due to an inferior physique of city men ; it is doubtless in large part due to the more critical examinations made by the physical examiners of cities. ' ' ^ Comparison as to health and physical condition of country and city may be made with respect to the defects of school children. Thus a committee on health problems appointed by the National Council of Education made a very comprehensive investigation of health matters in city and country and reported the results. The essential data relating to the comparative defects of urban and rural school children of the nation are given in the graph on page 140. An inspection of the illustration shows that rural children are defective to a greater degree than are urban children. No doubt much of the difference is due to the fact that the former are deprived of the benefit of the corrective treatment the latter en- joy. Much of the mental deficiency may be due to the lack of home stimulus and advantages that make for intelligence. The * Second report of the Provost MaTshal-General on the operation of the selective service system to December 20, 1918, Washington, 1919, pp. 159 and 419. 'Bulletin No. 11, Office of the Surgeon General: Physical Examination of the First Million Draft Eecruits: Methods and Results, p. 18. 140 RURAL SOCIOLOGY conditions picture a condition of morbidity that makes for ineffi- ciency but probably swells the death rate little. The competency of a civilization may be judged from the death rate of infants and the care taken of mothers during the child- bearing period. Surveys made by the United States Children's Bureau in various parts of the nation lead to the following state- ment : " A comparison of the findings of these rural surveys with the findings of infant Pee Cent of Defects, City and Countey mortality studies in cit- Childeen * . ^ , ^ les and towns, tends to i-»o«.t6 10 16 g) 25 80 85 40 45 60 ^jQ^fipj^ ^j^g impresslon that rural conditions are distinctly more favor- able than urban condi- tions to infant, life."^ The infant mortality rate in lowland North Carolina for whites was found to be 48.1 per 1,000, and for negroes, 44.4, while that for the highland section was 80.4, the population in the highlands being white. In spite of these low rates it was found that there was a great dearth of maternity care for child-bearing women be- fore, during, and after childbirth. Less than two-thirds of the seventy-five white mothers visited had medical attention at childbirth, while negro women are almost exclusively dependent upon the mid- wife. Heavy domestic and farm work is often undertaken up to the day and hour of the coming of the child and is usually assumed much too soon after the advent. The South has too few physicians and these are chiefly located in the larger places and so are not available for distant rural people ; and hospital facili- ' Children 's Bureau Publication, No. 33, p. 37. City and Country Children Compared Percentages from all Available Statistics. * Coantry ■■§ icleu City ^0 P*"^ Lang'DefMtB P-'* Heart Disease P'l Mental Defects * National School Service, February IS, 1919. RURAL HEALTH AND SANITATION 141 ties are generally out of the question. Consequently, maternal death rates are high, that for white women being 17.3 — some- what higher than that for the registration area of the nation — and that for negro women reaching the excessive rate of 93.9.^ The Public Health Service of the Federal government made systematic surveys of fifteen counties located in fourteen states during the years, 1914-16. The object of the surveys was to ascertain sanitary conditions in rural districts chiefly and the response which would be made by residents to suggestions and instruction pointing toward improvement. Since a house-to- house canvass was made by trained sanitarians and full particu- lars were obtained on a great number of points, the resulting report represents one of the most detailed, comprehensive, and accurate portrayals of rural health conditions to be found. The visitations included 51,544 rural and 24,349 town homes. The bulk of the town population lived in places of less than 10,000 inhabitants, there being only four places of from 10,000 to 20,000 inhabitants in the 15 counties, and only three addi- tional places having from 5,000 to 10,000 each. On the other hand there were 40 towns of less than 1,000, 11 of from 1,000 to 2,500, and 8 of from 2,500 to 5,000 each. As the total popula- tion of the district surveyed was 445,000, it is seen that it was most largely rural in character. The percentages of rural homes comprised under the various headings were as follows : Without toilets of any kind, 31.5 ; with unsanitary privies, 67.2; with grossly unsanitary disposal of human excreta, 98.2; with sanitary privies or sewer systems, 1.6 ; with water supply regarded as unsafe, 63.5 ; without screen- ing of doors or windows, 40.7. The showing made by the towns was not much better. In Union County, Mississippi, 73.8 per cent of the country homes were without toilet of any kind and in Orange County, North Carolina, about 68 per cent. Over 95 per cent of rural privies in Dallas County, Iowa, were un- sanitary and in a number of other counties the situation was as bad. Rural Mississippi, Georgia, North Carolina, and Alabama ranged from 60 to 80 per cent of homes without screens.^ The larger cities of the nation are in a more fortunate situa- 'ioc. cit. 'Rural Sanitation, Public Health Service Bulletin, No. 94. 142 RURAL SOCIOLOGY tion respecting nearly all of these conditions. The water supply is usually good and pure, houses have toilets flushed with run- ning water, and sewer systems dispose of human excreta in a manner that is sanitary for the city, even if not for outlying in- habitants. The surprise is that rural inhabitants are as healthy as they are and sustain the small death rate they do, considering the unsanitary conditions with which they surround themselves. They live in spite of filth, which often must contain infectious germs ; but they 'should live longer and be freer from disease with its removal. In 1915 the Indiana State Board of Health made a house-to- house survey of all the rural homes in four counties. A score card was kept of each house, the chief score points being clean- liness, neatness, decency, and comfort. A score of less than 75 per cent was adjudged to denote an unsanitary condition. The average score for 1,374 homes was 53, and 84 per cent were unsanitary.^ RURAL HEALTH DEFICIENCIES In considering rural health conditions it is important to dis- cern if there are any causes of death which are peculiar to the country and to what extent, if any, rural districts suffer from general mortality causes more than do cities. A discussion would possess little value as a guide in an attempt to improve the physical efficiency of farm people unless these points were set- tled. But it must be remembered that this situation is but a repetition of others which have confronted us hitherto : the nation is large, constituted of different kinds of physical and climatic regions, and occupied by populations of divers races and cul- tural conditions which, together with physical conditions, go to determine what health and physical validity of the various re- gional people are to be. It would be unsafe to make sweeping generalizations regarding morbidity and the causes of mortality until there is certain ground for doing so. It will be fortunate if a few points of emphasis can be discovered which are common to the rural sections of the nation. The Mortality Reports of the United States give death rates ' The Survey, 37 : 436. RURAL HEALTH AND SANITATION 143 for 189 distinct causes (1916), some of which contain subdi- visions. These 189 causes are grouped into 14 classes of diseases, 13 of defined and 1 of poorly-defined diseases. The rates for each of the 26 states of the registration area are tabulated rela- tive to cities and the country. It is possible, from a study of the tabulations, to discern if there are any diseases peculiar to or characteristic of the country; to answer the question: Are there any specifically rural diseases? First, making a comparison of city and country regarding the 13 general classes, it is to be said that in the case of only one of these classes do a majority of the 26 registration states have a higher rural than urban death rate. This class embraces 17 diseases of the nervous system, and in 14 states the rural death rate from these causes exceeds that of the cities, but in the other 12 states the variation runs as strongly in the opposite direction. The 14 states are, with the exception of Maryland, all northern states and are scattered across the continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Only one other general class of diseases contains as many as 12 states having an excessive rural death rate. This class comprises the 4 diseases of the skin and cellular system. Here Missouri is the most southern, and also the most westerly state, except Washington. Ten of the 26 states have a rural mortality rate greater than the urban rate in the general class, malformations ; 9 in the class of circulatory system, with its 9 diseases; 8 in the class of 3 dis- eases of early infancy ; and so on down. In the case of the four- teenth class, pertaining to ill-defined diseases, all but 9 of the states have a rural death rate in excess of that of cities ; but here, clearly, this is merely the record of the inability of country doc tors to diagnose the disease or even of the evidence of the ab- sence of physicians altogether. Again, a comparison of the 26 states relative to 17 diseases containing the more important causes of death as well as those supposed to be "country diseases," results in nearly the same way. The rural death rate is higher than the urban in a ma- jority of the states only in the case of malaria, influenza, and apoplexy — in the latter case the states numbering 15. This dis- ease causes about one-eighth of all deaths in some rural districts, such as those of Connecticut and Maine. The country in only 144 RURAL SOCIOLOGY 6 states maintains a higher death rate from typhoid fever than the cities of those states. Although not peculiarly a southern disease, it destroys about twice as many negroes as whites in several southern states; although Kentucky is the only southern state in the list of 6. All but ten of the 26 states have a higher rural death rate from malaria, the rate being especially high in Missouri, Kentucky, North Carolina, and South Carolina. The rate is from two to three times as high among southern rural negroes as among rural whites. Only South Carolina has a lower mortality rate from influenza in the countiy than in the cities, the range in general elsewhere being from considerably to much higher. Tuberculosis in all of its forms ravages the negroes of the South, and less so in the country than in cities. The rural death rate in Kentucky is : for whites 164.6 per 100,- 000 and for negroes 460.9. Similarly, in Maryland it is 145 and 356, and in Virginia, 118 and 294. But in only 4 states does the rural rate exceed the urban. There is no evidence that digestive troubles, sometimes stated to be a rural disease, are characteristic of the country ; for rural death rates from diarrhea and enteritis (under two years) ex- ceeds the urban in only 4 of the 26 states, and from ankylostomi- asis, which includes hookworm, it is excessive in only a few southern states of the registration area. The rate for the former is high among southern negroes, though lower in country than in city, and the latter obtains chiefly among the rural whites of Kentucky and North Carolina and is heaviest among rural whites of South Carolina. Were there records of deaths from all of the southern states, perhaps the same situation might be found in the others. In no rural state does the death rate from syphilis exceed that of cities and generally it is only one-half or one-fourth as high. The accompanying table gives the death rate for city and country throughout the nation, from certain important diseases, showing in what cases the rural rate is the higher. Only in the case of typhoid, malaria, smallpox, whooping cough, and influenza is the rural death rate for the nation greater than the urban. These results may appear to differ in some respects from those of the analysis just made ; but it must be noted that the analysis was by states while the table is for the entire regis- tration area of the nation. RURAL HEALTH AND SANITATION 145 DEATH BATE, CITY AND COUNTRY, FROM CERTAIN IMPORTANT DISEASES, 1916, PER 100,000 POPULATION * Bate in Registration Area Diseases Cities of 10,000 and Over Country and Places of Less Than 10,000 Typhoid 10.7 0.7 t 12.8 3.5 9.7 16.5 19.1 154.6 133.1 92.8 164.0 165.1 71.5 121.3 15.6 4>8 Smallpox t 0.2 Measles 10.3 Scarlet Fever 2.8 WhooDinff Coueh 11.4 Diphtheria and Croup Influenza 11.7 34.6 Tuberculosis (all forms) .... Tuberculosis of the lungs . . . I2&I; 111.2 71.1 Organic diseases of the heart. Pneumonia (all forms) Diarrhea and Enteritis (un- der 2) 1375 111.3 53.7 Acute Nephritis and Bright 's Disease fif7.6 ' J * Mortality Statistics, 1916, pp. 23 S3. I t Less than one-tenth of 1 per cent per 100,000. In attempting to summarize the facts presented in this survey of death rates according to diseases, the following points are in order : According to the number of states, the rural districts ex- hibit an inferior health status only in 1 out of the 13 general and defined classes of disease — nervous disorders — and in only 3 of the 17 more important diseases as causes of death, namely, malaria, influenza, and apoplexy, the last being a nervous dis- order. According to population in the registration area, out of 15 important diseases the rural death rate is higher in 5, namely, typhoid, malaria, smallpox, whooping cough, and influenza. Malaria and influenza appear in both lists of separate diseases. All of these, except nervous disorders, are infectious diseases whose causal conditions are well understood. Malaria is asso- ciated with undrained areas where mosquitoes breed to carry the germ from person to person. Typhoid is transmitted among persons by excreta carried in water and foods. Smallpox, in- fluenza, and whooping-cough are communicated by personal presence and contact. Some of the weak places in rural conditions appear inci- dentally in several connections in this chapter but the chief 146 RURAL SOCIOLOGY ones may be summarized: (1) Intermarriage, in many localities, eventuates in defective human stock. The surveyors of White County, Illinois, call attention to the great number of feeble- minded and crippled persons in that county. The population is pure American and intermarriage has occurred for generations until practically all are related. (2) Ignorance of the nature of diseases and of the hearing of conditions upon it. — This probably is the great cause of back- ward health conditions. The White County survey cites the cases of ignorance of the nature of tuberculosis. A tubercular mother kept her infant in her bed and fed it food out of her own mouth. Practically all privies were filthy beyond description, yet the owners refused to improve them when the danger was pointed out. The surveys of the Rockefeller Foundation found that 142,230 out of 287,606 homes surveyed to Jiscertain causes of hookworm had no latrines, most of those existing were of the open-back type, and only .6 of 1 per cent had sanitary latrines. The United States Public Health Service found similar condi- tions in its surveys of rural counties, and states that for the whole rural population included in the surveys 26 per cent of the wells are polluted and 25 per cent more are so situated as to be easily polluted from stable, cow-lot, or privy. "Typhoid fever, diarrhea, dysentery, and cholera arise from drinking filthy water. Boiling will render any water safe for drinking pur- poses." (3) Poverty. — Social workers and scientists recognize that poverty is a fertile condition of ill-health because it means in- sufficient housing, food, clothing, fuel, medical attention, and general protective measures. As a result of his experience in. the sanitary work in Cuba and Panama, Dr. Gorgas said that if he could choose only one sanitary measure he would select that of doubling wages. Another leader states: "The employer who raises the pay of his help does more to stop tubercvdosis than all we doctors can do. ' ' The United States Children 's Bureau finds that infant mortality ranges from twice to three times as high where the fathers* incomes are $500 or less than where they are $1,250 or more. This is all the more true where mothers are forced out to work. There is considerable poverty in the country, although it is only partly the cause of the poor food and congested housing RURAL HEALTH AND SANITATION 147 that may result in anemia and the transmission of disease. The White County Survey found that "75 per cent of the people of White County was lacking in milk, meat, butter, eggs, home-made bread, and vegetables. While no one was found to be actually hungry, there were large numbers of undernourished and anemic people." Lack of intelligence, inability to prepare proper dishes, customs of the people, and poverty are the assigned causes, poverty being reckoned as only a very minor cause. Perhaps this is quite representative of many sections and families through- out the nation. BURAl, HEALTH IMPROVEMENTS Fallacies and guiding principles. — In the attempt to suggest how rural health may be improved, the difficulty of finding a guiding principle is met. This difficulty arises from several reasons. First, there is a great variety of conditions which determine what the health of the different rural sections shall be. Physical features, such as topography, climate, rainfall and humidity, and existence of mosquito-infested areas present the widest range of variations between north and south, east and west, plateau and lowland, forest and prairie. The diseases which trouble one district may scarcely appear in another, and in the midst of such diversity it is difficult to devise a uniform regimen. The cultural conditions are likewise determinative of health situations and almost equally variable from region to region. A section that is steeped in superstition and habituated to attempting to prevent sickness by the practice of magic is far removed from either a fairly intelligent or an advanced one, so that the measures suited to one may not be appropriate to another. Second, the enormous number of death-causing diseases, differ- ing so widely in character, renders it practically impossible to find a remedial common denominator. Were all diseases of nearly similar character, a uniform program for prevention and elimi- nation of all would be feasible. Were there any diseases peculiar to and characteristic of rural districts generally, the problem would be reduced in complexity; but, as was shown previously, there is not more than one or two diseases to which the country is uniformly more subject than the city. 148 RURAL SOCIOLOGY Third, the situation is further complicated by the fact that among hygienists and sanitarians sometimes opposing beliefs as to what would constitute truly preventive and remedial measures exist. Further, there is a considerable following of Christian Scientists and some others who either oppose certain measures to limit diseases, such as vaccination against smallpox, or who stress them lightly, placing emphasis, instead, on their own peculiar beliefs and treatment. Nevertheless, some approach toward clearing the ground may be made by considering some fallacies in the field of sanitation and hygiene which are held widely, not only by the unscientific and untrained people, but often by physicians and sanitarians. One of these is the belief that disease is in the environment and the consequent remedy prescribed is to doctor the environment. Outside of what are called occupational diseases, where the ' ' gen- eral conditions" are stimulative and provocative, and of tuber- culosis from cows, the original source of all infectious diseases — the ones we have most hope of controlling — is in persons, not in things. Disease germs would soon perish from food, water, milk, manure, and such — the chief routes of infections — were they not developed and harbored in the bodies of persons. Further, there are no "general bad surroundings," only particular bad sur- roundings. Dirt and rubbish, which is disorder, that is things out of their places, may or may not be conveyors of disease. Dirt is harmless unless it contains excreta from bodies of in- fectious persons. The corollary of this is that, when compared with other measures, it is a waste of energy, time, and money to attack the environment in general as a means of eliminating disease. Second, there is a widespread belief among the laity and doc- tors that ' ' general good health ' ' prevents disease and that physi- cal weakness invites disease; therefore, it is thought that the proper regimen for preventing infectious disease is exercise, diet, proper clothing, food, and temperature. It is to be acknowledged that all of these measures are good as agencies of strength, life, eflBciency, and comfort; but it is not so evident that they be- stow invulnerability to disease. For it is most apparent that strong, healthy children along with the weak ones "catch" measles, whooping-cough, scarlatina, and other children's dis- eases and that no intelligent physician would subject his child RURAL HEALTH AND SANITATION 149 to exposure to such maladies under the belief that its health and vigor gave it immunity. The records of influenza show that the strong were equally liable to it along with the weak, and that the choice men of the nation constituting the expeditionary force fell as easy a prey to it as the weaklings not fit for mobilization. So little is bodily strength regarded as an immunity against in- fluenza that many of our highest health authorities predicted that the disease would continue to return year after year and to move through the population until all who had not secured immunity from it by means of antitoxin, administered or devel- oped under a former attack of the disease, would be stricken with it. Third, children when young, it is held, suffer less injury from having children's diseases than when older, and since — it is contended — they must have them anyway they should be ex- posed to them early. This belief is general and some "good" physicians support it. But there is no proof that young children suffer a smaller mortality rate from such diseases than do older children. In fact, the evidence is quite to the contrary, for the death rate among children is much higher in the earlier than in the later period of childhood. Again, children are not bound to have those diseases. Many persons in late life have not had them and every child could escape them if contact with infectious children could be avoided. In 1918, Shorewood, Wisconsin prac- tically eliminated children's infectious diseases from the public schools by putting into effect a system of isolating cases first and diagnosing them afterwards; placarding on suspicion; and sub- stituting in large part educational propaganda for the exercising of police powers. When it is remembered that feeble-minded- ness and other dread results may follow from attacks of measles and other children's diseases, it is evident that to push children into taking diseases is as heathenish as is the infanticide prac- ticed by the mothers of India who used to throw their infants to the River Ganges. Fourth, the belief is general that hygiene, as mere hygiene promotes health. This means that certain kinds of diet, ventila- tion, exercise, temperature, etc., prevent inroads from infectious diseases. Only recently has this teaching been subjected to scien- tific doubt. The fact that there is little or no agreement among hygienists on the details of hygiene is a ground for doubting the 150 RURAL SOCIOLOGY efficacy of hygiene to prevent disease. There are no detailed standards as to how long to sleep, how much to eat, the duration and speed of work performed, or the temperature at which to live. It cannot be said what is too much or too little for any given person — except after long experiment — much less what is the golden mean for all. Each individual is a variant from others, and racial distinctions enter into consideration. What suits the Eskimo is inappropriate for the Mexican. Authorities disagree fundamentally concerning diet and there are now no authorities on ventilation, because what was once taught on the subject is now thoroughly discredited. Ventilation appears to promote comfort and working efficiency, but not to promote or prevent infectious diseases. While there are many uncertainties and fallacies regarding what to do to promote health, there are some things which may be stated with some degree of positivity. First, it would be well for public effort to restrict itself for awhile to the preven- tion of infectious diseases. The whole field of disease is so ex- tensive that a health organization, to cope with it adequately, would equal in extent the present governmental agencies. Be- sides, the infectious diseases are better understood and so the paths of effort are easier to chart. Again, the public is already acquainted with methods of combating infectious diseases and such effort has both the sanction of public opinion and the neces- sary authority. Only a few of the non-infectious diseases can be avoided, and these account for only 1 out of each 1,000 deaths, while the infectious diseases, which may be avoided, account for over one-sixth of all deaths, tuberculosis alone accounting for about one-twentieth. Second, public effort to improve rural health should be guided by the thought that persons are the sources of infectious dis- eases and that danger to others lies in the transfer of excreta from infected persons into the bodies of others. The recognition of this basic idea of spreading infections will result in the devel- opment of public health activities toward the supervision of in- fected persons. It will be seen that an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure, for if the sources of contagions are properly guarded, if the sick persons are properly isolated and supervised, contaminated excreta from their bodies cannot reach others by way of water, milk, food, flies, or contact; and hence RURAL HEALTH AND SANITATION 151 the occurrence of a widespread epidemic is rendered impossible. Steps necessary to accomplish this isolation and supervision will then be taken, whether in the form of quarantine, hospitals, com- munity nurses, or sufficient organization. Third, it will be necessary for both individuals and communi- ties to block the principal routes for the transmission of disease germs until the complete supervision of infectious persons has been accomplished. After society has established such effective system, attention to the routes of transmission, to water, milk, food, etc., as sources of infections, will be needless. How im- portant the disposal of human excreta is may be observed by the procedure of the United States Public Health Service, as denoted in these quotations from its survey of rural health. "The most serious fault usually found in the rural town or village is the unsanitary metliod of disposal of human excreta at unsewered homes." "Each home surveyed is given a sani- tary rating. In the score the maximum numbers of points al- lowed for excreta disposal is 50 ; for water supply, 30 ; for screen- ing of homes, 10 ; and for general cleanliness of the premises, 10." "General cleanliness" applies to dirt, and dirt is disorder, things out of place ; ' ' leaves, waste paper, rags, ashes, offal from poultry and hogs — with potentialities of danger slight as com- pared with those contained in what is described as the most dangerous of all dirt with which persons are likely to come into contact in the course of their daily lives, viz., the waste matter from the bodies of human beings. ' ' ^ Farm homes will, therefore, protect the water supply in wells and springs from surface contamination. Unless wells are sunk beneath strata impervious to surface drainage for the source of water and are so encased as to be proof against such drainage they should be far removed from barnyards, latrines, and other depositories of infectious germs, and located on up-hill slopes from such places of infections. They should likewise be effectively curbed and provided with a pump to eliminate the germ-infected bucket. In like manner, springs and other sources of the home water supply should be duly protected. In case of doubt as to its purity, the drinking water should be boiled. The first consideration relative to food is that it should be handled with thoroughly clean hands, as the hands are the chief ' Rural Sanitation, pp. 29 and 34. 152 RURAL SOCIOLOGY means of transmitting infections by contact. The keeping of foods in clean, cool places and in clean containers is highly de- sirable. Milk is an important disease route because tubercu- losis germs from diseased cows and persons handling the milk may be transmitted thereby. The hands and clothes of milkers should be clean beyond all doubt, all utensils and containers should be disinfected by steam or boiling water, and the milk should be kept at a temperature as near freezing as possible to prevent the multiplication of bacteria. Absolute safety calls for pasteurization. The fly is a transmitter of at least 18 different kinds of germs, some of the diseases being the deadliest enemies of man. In this list are "tuberculosis, typhoid, scarlet fever, the dysenteries, cholera, tetanus, eye contagions, anthrax, glanders, infantile paralysis, diphtheria, meningitis, leprosy, bubonic plague, car- buncle, infectious wounds, erysipelas, and the eggs of parasitic worms." Although flies breed in many kinds of materials, 95 per cent of them originate in horse manure. Therefore, if stable manure is duly guarded against them, the menace of disease from flies is almost eliminated. The simplest remedy is to keep the stable clean and to cover the manure pile with a coating of straw. A better device is to place the manure within a screened container until hauled for spreading on the land. Other means are: depositing the manure in fly-tight bins or pits or treating it with chemicals, such as powdered hellebore or powdered borax to kill the eggs. Since contact between persons is probably the greatest route for the transmission of human excreta, it is necessary to guard all kinds of contact as far as possible. This covers the care of the hands, the disposal of sputum and secretions from the nos- trils, protection against mouth spray in conversation and public places, kissing and caressing. Tuberculosis, for example, is transmitted chiefly by means of sputum and mouth spray. One tubercular person, it is estimated, has thrown off from the lungs as many as 40 billion disease germs in 24 hours and the average number for tubercular persons is estimated at 4 billion. Stand- ing face to face to engage in conversation with diseased persons is dangerous. The mouth spray given off by infectious persons in talking, singing, and coughing projects the germs through the air and is a menace to others. The wide understanding of these RURAL HEALTH AND SANITATION 153 facts and the exercise of due care and cleanliness in bodily mat- ters will serve to mitigate the perils. But after all, it is almost impossible for the individual alone to become so fully informed regarding all the dangers and condi- tions of health and the adequate precautions to take as to be able to protect himself. Only organized society is capable of exercising such complete control over the whole situation as to safeguard life. Useful agencies for promoting health education. — In consid- ering the public means by which rural health is to be advanced there is space to give attention only to the more outstanding ones. Perhaps logically the first one to be mentioned is educa- tion — education of the public and in the schools on vital health matters. The necessity for general enlightmenl is made appar- ent by the rural ignorance as to the causes of disease and by the consideration that the success of health betterment efforts depend on educational processes. The rural health surveys made by the United States Public Health Service demonstrated the widespread ignorance among rural populations concerning the causes of infectious diseases, although it is not to be concluded that they are greatly more unintelligent in this domain than are urban people. Even the wealthier classes of farmers who lived in handsomely constructed houses and were progressive in some directions were as ignorant as others in this. To determine the state of intelligence, a special inquiry as to the causes of typhoid fever was made, the heads of a large number of households being asked, what, in their opinion caused it. Among 83 homes in which typhoid had occurred within the preceding year, 64 heads of houses said they did not know, 12 that it was due to water, and the rest gave wrong replies. In the case of 2,512 homes in which there had been no typhoid during the year, 951 replies stated ignorance, 581 alleged water, 253 said germs was the cause ; the remaining replies being scat- tered among scores of allegations including fate, frogs, mental suggestion, and "damn laziness."^ The report of the surveys is of the opinion that this attitude shows that practising physi- cians have very little effect in educating the public. Considerations and plans to promote health usually terminate ^Loc. cit., 40-41. 154 RURAL SOCIOLOGY in an appeal to education. Because of the differences in the population to be reached, the habit among farmers of leaving to chance the protection of the health and lives of their families, and the further habit of thinking that sanitary and most other matters come solely under their own authority, rural sanitation depends quite largely upon the observance and practice of sani- tary principles of the individual citizen. Little advance is to be expected until rural people understand the principles of sani- tation and the details of sanitary measures, which, in turn, de- pends on education. The sanitation taught in the schools is not likely to be con- vincing so long as polluted wells and unsanitary privies are maintained so commonly in the schools. And since what the schools maintain is determined by adult patrons and authorities, effective sanitary instruction awaits the development of intelli- gent cooperation on their part. Should the establishment of a whole-time county health or- ganization be looked to as the means of advancing rural sanita- tion, it is to be remembered that the plan involves heavier taxa- tion and that rural residents will not respond until they become intelligent regarding the need for and advantages of the plan. Hence, it is found that in whatever direction the glance is east for a solution, it is met by an appeal for an educational effort of some kind. Doubtless the schools are to be the primary agents for the promotion of this kind of education. National prohibition is to a considerable extent the result of temperance teaching in school physiologies, and the right sort of hygienic teaching might be expected to bear equally important results for health during the next generation. But this teaching should be of a practical kind rather than theoretical as now. Dr. Hill, the eminent sani- tarian, advocates the postponement of theoretical hygiene until high school or college. Further, he believes the practical hygiene should be taught during the first six grades of school. Habits are more easily formed in that age period and, besides, the ma- jority of the children are out of school by the end of that time. There are two outstanding object lessons in the field of pro- moting rural health by education along scientific lines. One of these consists of the experiments made by the United States Public Health Service. In its sanitary survey of 15 rural coun- RURAL HEALTH AND SANITATION 155 ties, the Service sought to determine to what extent rural people would receive and carry out instruction in making sanitary im- provements. Sometime after the first survey, in which the in- struction had been given by means of home consultation and public addresses and demonstrations, a resurvey was made to ascertain what improvements had resulted. It was found that an average of 14.5 per cent of rural homes had installed sanitary privies, the highest percentage, 59.09, being attained in Tusca- loosa County, Alabama; an average of 9.25 per cent of homes had made marked improvements in the construction of privies, though the latter were still unsanitary, the highest percentage of attainment, 27.0, occurring in Lawrence County, Indiana ; an average of 62.8 per cent had cleaned and disinfected their privies, 7 counties of the 15 grading 100 per cent; 9.1 per cent of homes had made improvements in their water supply, the best record being in Wilson County, Kansas. The experiment demonstrated that a widespread interest in sanitary measures may be developed and that many homes will respond to instruc- tion in methods of improvement. Results attained from these efforts of the Service in Yakima County, Washington, illustrate the large benefits to be secured by such means. The rural sanitation campaign was put on there in 1911. During the campaign, the county established a whole- time health officer, paying a salary of $5,000 a year and increas- ing the annual appropriation for health work by about $6,500. Previously the death rate from typhoid fever in the county out- side of North Yakima City was 25 per 1,000. During the year 1911 the rate fell to about 11, to something over 3 in 1912, and was practically obliterated in 1913. In terms of prevented sick- ness and death directly and indirectly related to typhoid, the investment made by the county was one of the best it ever made. Could these rural surveys of the Public Health Service be ex- tended to each of the 3,000 counties of the nation, great good would be accomplished. Then making it permanent, so that the work of instruction would go on continuously, would increase its efficiency. The price of one dreadnaught, now about $45,000,- 000, would finance the work for a period of 15 years. With only about $500,000 a year at present the work must proceed slowly. The other illustration of rural health improvement is found in the study and treatment of hookworm by the International 156 RURAL SOCIOLOGY Health Board of the Rockefeller Foundation. In 1910 this Board, in cooperation with Boards of Health of the southern states, undertook an educational health campaign. By means of demon- strations, illustrated lectures, the distribution of literature, and other agencies, the attempt was made to arouse and convince the inhabitants that hookworm is a serious menace to health and that it is possible to eradicate it. During 1912, dispensaries were established at five or more points in a county where for five weeks or longer afflicted persons might present themselves for examination and treatment. They were encouraged to do this by press, teachers, physicians, and the example of influential people. Such dispensaries were placed in more than 700 of the more heavily infected counties and paved the way for the third stage in the development of the work of the Board, namely, the promotion of intensive work in the form of a house-to-house canvass of all inhabitants of a community. This intensive method was used in 55 counties, 35 of which had employed the dispensary method. Under this latter plan, 63,882 persons had been examined, of whom 37.5 per cent had hookworm infection. It was estimated that the dispensary method had reduced the disease about 11 per cent ; and, although the intensive method had been in use too short a time for com- puting its full effects, the Board feels it is reasonably certain that it had lessened the disease by a still greater percentage. This battle with hookworm illustrates the tendency of the newer sanitation in dealing with infectious diseases, gives a good idea of the great inertia of society relative to making health im- provements, and holds out grounds of hope for betterment. Soil pollution is the chief factor in the transmission of hookworm dis- ease from person to person. Since almost half of the 287,606 homes that were examined by the agents of the Board in 11 states had no latrines, so that the human excrement was deposited on the ground, thus to be communicated to the bodies of persons by flies, insects, or direct contact, the great menace to health is apparent; and because curing people with hookworm disease is of little value unless their reinfection is prevented, the problem of disease elimination is centered in removal and prevention of soil pollution. Consequently much of the effort of the Interna- tional Health Board has been turned in that direction. It is sought to arouse an understanding of the necessity of sanitary RURAL HEALTH AND SANITATION 157 latrines and to secure their installment. One effective device used to get latrines built was to publish in the newspapers a list of the heads of families who had installed standard latrines. Another device was to post a large map of the community con- taining the location of each home. As each family completed the sanitary program prescribed, a circle was drawn about the home. This created widespread attention, provoked competition, and exerted public pressure in the direction of complying with the standard. The work of this Board has helped stimulate the 11 states to make larger appropriations for health work. Their combined appropriations for that purpose in 1910 was $216,000; in 1915, $512,000. The health fund of North Carolina increased from $12,500 to over $150,000 and that of South Carolina from $24,000 in 1910 to over $75,000 in 1917.^ Health supervision of schools. — It is most desirable that there should be an extension of the health supervision of schools and provision for school nurses to all rural parts of the nation. A large part of the time of children is spent in the schoolroom and the conditions obtaining there are, as a consequence, of the great- est importance for their health as children. The physical condi- tion of children at the time of entering school and during the school years is a large determinant of their rate of progress in the educational process. The school furnishes a central place where it is relatively easy to detect infirmities and defects, both mental and physical, and to initiate efforts for their correction. Finally, the congregation in one place of representatives from many homes serves as an exceptionally effective agency for the spread of infectious diseases and a sufficient reason why ample supervision should be provided. In the most progressive cities, health supervision includes the work of the school physician, nurses, dentists, and bath attend- ants, matters of open-air schools, school lunches, and the sanitary inspection of school buildings. Sanitary inspection attends to drinking water, toilets, cleaning, lighting, seating, and any other matter which affects the vitality of children. Health supervision seeks to discover and remove pupils who have acute infectious ailments; the detection and correction of uncleanness; the dis- covery and report to parents or guardians of physical and mental ^Annual Beport of the 'BockefeUer Foundation, 1914 and 1915. 158 RURAL SOCIOLOGY defects which may retard school progress; and the detection and removal of detrimental sanitary conditions in the schoolroom and on the school grounds. Certain minimum requirements are essential to secure ade- quate health supervision of schools: A health organization suffi- cient to administer health matters for the entire small town and country population. Second, a physician for each 20,000 — some authorities say 10,000 — of the rural population who would be employed all the time to examine the children of the county schools at least once a year for grave physical and mental defects. Third, a sufficient number of rural school nurses, acting as assist- ants to the physician, to perform minor examination and inspec- tion services, cooperate with and direct teachers in their school health work, and to do the follow-up work in the homes that is essential to make inspection and supervision highly effective. That rural school nurses secure results from their follow-up work is observed in the rural schools of Grand Forks Countj^, North Dakota, where the service has existed since 1914-15. In that school year, 2,413 school children were examined, the total defects including 82 per cent of the entire number. A year by year reduction ensued until in 1917-18, with 2,618 examined, the total defects amounted to only 28 per cent. Health examination of rural, as of urban, children logically should extend beyond the school and comprehend pre-school ex- amination. Why should impeding defects of eye, ear, or spine await entry into the school for recognition and correction? It would be far better to make children normal and valid in body and, if possible, in mind at the earliest possible moment in life, so that their lives would be freed from unnecessary suffering and the beginning of their school life would occur under the most favorable conditions. This is being recognized by informed peo- ple, and such pre-school examination will be established in the not distant future. Hospitals and dispensaries. — There is unquestioned need for adequate hospital and dispensary facilities for country people. Formerly hospitals were regarded as places to which the sick were committed when hope for their recovery was abandoned. Now, however, they are viewed as places where superior care is given the sick, and as the logical asylum for all persons with any considerable illness. Not even the homes of the rich can com- RURAL HEALTH AND SANITATION 159 pete Avith good hospitals in the care of the ill. But unfortunately, rural inhabitants either have not arrived at this understanding or, if they have, they are generally unable to secure hospital facilities. However, there is a growing tendency in the country to patronize hospitals and it is highly desirable that measures be taken to place these institutions within the reach of rural inhabi- tants. State health laws. — Rural communities are at a disadvantage because, even in states having excellent health laws, various fac- tors necessary to their successful operation are lacking. Sugges- tions for the successfid operation of such laws might well include the following points. First, sufficient appropriations to put state departments of health on a business basis. Often they are forced to act on an amount of money equal to the economic value of only two or three of the lives of the multitudes lost because of ineffectual administration. Second, an all-time health officer whose remuneration is suffi- cient to attract efficiency and training and whose tenure of office is co-extensive with the services performed. The office of the coroner and county physician where they exist might well be merged with this health office. Such an officer would see that health laws are enforced, devise means and secure cooperation for the improvement of sanitary conditions in rural districts, and stimulate the reporting of vital statistics. Third, provide for the adequate collection of rural vital sta- tistics. Sanitary advancement depends on the existence of such statistics, and so the promotion of rural health awaits their com- plete reporting. Many states have good registration and admin- istration laws and yet, with their state and county boards and secretaries for reporting and administering, they do not live up to these laws. Thus, North Dakota has a first-class code of health laws and provisions for reporting births and deaths, yet the fact that it reports a death rate of 5.9 per 1,000 in 1912, whereas the United States regards a report of less than 7 per thousand, except for populations of young adults, as untrustworthy, is an indication that that state is remiss in reporting to the extent of about 40 per cent. Its reported rates of mortality from typhoid, tuberculosis, diphtheria, and croup are absurd because the rates for the nation range from 40 to 350 per cent higher. The failure 160 RURAL SOCIOLOGY of such states as North Dakota to report vital statistics is due probably to the rural nature of the population, the general ig- norance of the importance of vital statistics, and the fewness and negligence of physicians and health officers. Where the popula- tion is widely scattered over a large country area, some districts being without health officers, physicians, or recording clerks, both ignorance of the value of statistics and inability to secure ade- quate reports are to be expected. It is aU the more excusable when it is believed that 99 per cent of urban residents generally lack the fundamentals which make the registration of vital statistics possible. It might be possible in rural states to have all rural mail car- riers made sub-registrars. It would be relatively easy for mail carriers to register births, to notify health officers, and to issue burial permits. It is also to be hoped that the registration of diseases will be made possible, since diseases are even more im- portant indices of the health of a people than deaths. Fourth, securing an educated sentiment to work for better health conditions. Some important means to develop such senti- ment are: health talks in the press, directing talks and papers through civic organizations, securing "Health Sundays" and "clean-up" movements, and forming boys into "sanitary guards ' ' in the schools. Fifth, obtain the cooperation of physicians. The selfishness and ignorance as to the value of sanitary measures and of vital statistics on the part of many physicians is a great obstacle to realizing a healthier community. Perhaps the compulsory pub- lication of morbidity in city and country with the names of the reporting physicians and the number of cases reported might arouse emulation. Since the public health depends upon such reporting, even more forceful measures might be developed. Development of health centers. — The American Red Cross has initiated the establishment of health centers. According to its statement, such a center "represents the latest step in the evolution of community health work, and measures the demand for efficient conservation of effort in bringing together important but hitherto independent health campaigns, such as those for the prevention of tuberculosis, venereal diseases, mental diseases, in- dustrial diseases, and above all, the vitally necessary modern effort for the conservation of child life. In turn, it offers new RURAL HEALTH AND SANITATION 161 possibilities for properly relating the volunteer activities to the official work of the city, county, state, and federal authorities. ' ' While the health center offers much as a means of coordinat- ing existing health agencies and of emphasizing prevention, it holds out promise for the small community. ' ' The smaller place may begin by equipping some little room with a supply of first- aid materials, a stretcher, a wheel-chair, etc., a few books on pub- lic health work and the Red Cross literature on the subject. It might also maintain a loan closet of bed linen, extra clothing, and in some localities cooking utensils." Where a trained nurse can guide the effort of Red Cross members, much emergency work can be undertaken and meetings for health discussions held. As headquarters for obtaining prompt information as to "medical, nursing, and hospital facilities and resources available in an emergency," the Center will perform valuable services. TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION 1. Ib economy or happiness the greater reason for seeking to improve health conditions f 2. Do yon know of anyone in perfect health t Is old age a disease which may be banished f 3. Do you favor Sundberg's or Bubin's formula for measuring the com- parative civilizations of societies f Whyf 4. If cities are overcoming the difference between their death rates and those of the country, are the causes to be found in the improve- ment of sanitary conditions or in securing an inherently better physical stock? 5. Is the rural death rate of the country lower than that of cities gen- erally because country people are inherently more fit than city inhabitants f 6. Bnrvey and grade a dozen rural homes relative to sanitary conditions and compare the results with the findings of the Federal Public Health Service. 7. Do the death rates from typhoid and malaria among whites and negroes indicate that the whites have a greater inherent immunity against those diseases or that they live under better conditions t 8. What is meant by preventive methods of improving health? Are all diseases equally susceptible to the use of prevention? 9. Why is it more important to center attention upon infectious indi- viduals than on sanitary conditions in general? 10. What attitude does your community take on that matter? Is it "behind the times"? 11. How do your fanners deal with the fly problem? 12. Is it better to urge upon Congress the making of provisions for the work of the Federal Hural Health Service or of building another dreadnaught? 13. What does your community do for the health of school children? 14. Is your state in the registration area? If not, why not? 162 RURAL SOCIOLOGY REFERENCES Allen, W. H. — Civics and Health; Ginn and Company, 1909. Annual Eepokt State Board of Health of Virginia, 1919. Ayers, S. H., and G. B. Tatlok — A Simple Steam Sterilizer for Farm Dairy Utensils, Farm. Bui., No. 748. Bishop, F. C. — Flytraps and Their Operation, Farm. Bui., No. 734. , The Stable Fly, V. S. Public Health Service Reprint, No. 540. , Flies and Pests to Man and Animals, U. S. Public Health Service Reprint, No. 683. Bulletin State Bd. Health or Kentucky, March 1914. Bulletin Dept. Health of Virginia, 1919. Carter, Dr. H. E. — Prophylaxis of Malaria, TJ. S. Public Health Service Reprint, No. 454. Chenery, W. L. — ■' ' Waste and Industry, ' ' The Survey, 46 : 545-8. Control of Communicable Diseases, TJ. S. Public Health Service Reprint, No. 436. Cox, Dr. J. W. — Bui. No. 12, Pub. Health Lab., University of North Dakota. Davidson, Wm. C. — Sanitation and Sewage Disposal for Country Homes, Eng. Exper. Series, University of Missouri, Vol. I, No. 3. Deardoeff, Neva R. — "International Conference on Child Welfare Stand- ards," The Survey, 42: 269-273. Derivaux, Dr. E. C. (and Sparks and Taylor) — Malaria Control, U. S. Public Health Service Reprint, No. 476. Fisher, Irving — Beport on National Vitality, Washington, 1909. GoLDENBERGER, Dr. Joseph — Pellagra, Its Nature and Prevention, U. S. Public Health Service Eeprint, No. 461. Gillette, J. M. — Constructive Rural Sociology, Chap. XIII: Rural Health and Sanitation. , A Study in Social Dyjiamics, etc., American Statistical Association, Vol. 15, 345-379. Glasson, W. H. — Sural Conditions in the South, American Statistical Association, 13 : 77-9. Hamilton, Dr. Alice — ' ' The Program of a State Board of Health, ' ' The Survey, 37: 456-9. Hatgood, M. F. — Organising a County for Intelligent Health Work, Ameri- can City (Town and County edition), 21: 29-30. Health Almanac of U. S. Pub. Health Service. Health Center, American Red Cross, Washington, D. C, Sept. 1916. Hill, Dr. H. W. — The New Public Health; Macmillan, 1916. HoAG AND Terman — Health Work in the Schools; Houghton Mifflin Co., 1914. Howard, L. O. — Remedies and Prevention against Mosquitoes, U. S. Public Health Service Eeprint, No. 444. ,How Insects Affect the Health of Rural Districts, Farm. Bui., No. 155. HoLLis, Mabel M. — "Medical Inspection in the Eural Schools of North Dakota," College and State, N. D. Agr. College, Oct. 1919. Lumsden, Dr. L. L. — A Sanitary Privy System for Unsewered Towns and Villages, U. S. Pub. Health Serv. Bui. No. 89. , Tfee Sanitary Prvvy, Farm. Bui., No. 463. Malaria Control, U. S. Pub. Health Serv. Bui. No. 88. Metz, C. W. — Some Aspects of Mosquito Control through Mosquito Eradi- cation, U. S. Public Health Service Bui., Eepr., No. 500. Miller, K. E. — Development of Country Health Work, U. S. Pub. Health Serv. Bui., Eepr., No. 470. , Safe Milk for Small Towns, U. 8. Pub. Health Serv. Bui. No. 497. RURAL HEALTH AND SANITATION 163 "Model Manure Bin for Limiting Breeding of Flies," Scientific American, Dec. 18, 1915: 537. Morse, Josiah — ' ' Disease as a Destroyer of Labor Values, ' ' Forward, I : 13-17. National School Service, Feb. 15, 1919. NoETH, C. E. — ' ' Sanitation in Bural Communities, ' ' Annals American Academy, 37: 371£f. Pearson, R. H. — Care of Milk on the Farm, Farm. Bui., No. 63. Phelan, John — Readings in Bural Sociology, Chap. VIII; Macmillan, 1920. Phelps, E. B. — The Treatment of Sewage from Single Homes and Small Communities, U. S. Public Health Service Reprint, No. 504. Physical Examination of the First Million Draft Eecrvits, Bui. No. 11, Office Surgeon General, U. S. A. Pope, G. W. — Practical Methods of Disinfecting Stables, U. S. Public Health Service Reprint, No. 480. Production of Clean Milk, Rural Child Welfare Series of TJ. S. Children's Bureau, Nos. 1 and 2; Farm. BuL, No. 602. Rockefeller Foundation, Annual Reports. Sural Sanitation, TJ. S. Public Health Service Bui. No. 94. Sanitary Privies, Illinois State Dept. of Health. Sanitation of Rural Workmen's Areas, U. S. Public Health Reprint, No. 487. Selective Service System. Sec. Rep. Provost Marshal Gen., IT. S. Sparks, Dr. J. E. — See under Derivaux. Stiles, C. W. — ' ' The Rural Health Movement, ' ' Annals American Academy, 37: 367£E. Stream Pollution, V. S. Public Health Service Reprint, No. 87. "Surveying the Health of Hoosier Farmers," The Survey, 37: 436. Taylor, G. B. — See under S. H. Ayers. Taylor, Dr. H. A. — See under Derivaux. Tenth Annual Rep. Pub, Health Lab., University of North Dakota, 1918. TowNE, E. T. — Social Problems, Chap. XVII; Maemillan, 1918. The Sanitary Privy, Bui. Pub. Health Lab., University of North Dakota. V. S. Mortality Statistics. 1910-18. IT. S. Statistical Abstract, 1917. VOGT, Paul L. — Introduction to Rural Sociology, Chap. VIII. Warren, Dr. B. S. — U. S. Public Health Service Reprint, No. 506. Weber, J. J. — A County at Work on its Health Problems, State Charitable Aid Association, New York City, 1917. White County {III.) Health Survey, Illinois State Board of Health, 1916. PART IV ECONOMIC CONDITIONS AND PROBLEMS CHAPTER IX PHYSICAL INFLUENCES AND AGRICULTUEAL SOCIETY General influence of physical environment. — According to modern scientific conceptions, the physical environment or set of physical conditions surrounding all forms of life have had the most profound effect upon the development of those forms. The teaching of evolution is that all of the forms of life on earth today developed from some common initial and simple form mil- lions of years ago. The environment exercised a selective influ- ence in the process of evolution in favoring those individuals best adapted to live according to the conditions it imposed. Temperature, rainfall, fertility of soil, the abundance of the food supply, and the frequency of the preying enemies, all exer- cised their repressive and selective function. So man, it is held, emerged out of the midst of some ape-like ancestors and came to dominate living things by reason of his superior brain power and cunning. And the various races of man were likewise shaped and given their distinctive color, head form and physiognomy, form and color of hair and eyes, stature and other physical characteristics by the conditions present in the several environments in which they developed. In historic times we are able to observe the influence of physical conditions on human populations. The amount and density of population is ultimately conditioned by fertility of soil and the supply of food made available thereby. The direction movements of popu- lation take are largely determined by mountain ranges, mountain passes, and river valleys. Social organizations are indirectly affected by physical conditions; for a continental population of considerable density is more capable of supporting a highly differ- entiated organization than is a restricted and sparse one. The cultural and recreational life of a people may also be in- fluenced by physical conditions. This is especially observed in the fields of custom and sports. The eating and living customs 167 168 RURAL SOCIOLOGY of the Eskimos dwelling under arctic conditions are far different from those of equatorial and tropical peoples of a similar cultural stage of development ; and the sports and games of our southern people are quite dissimilar from those of the inhabitants of Can- ada or northern Minnesota and Maine. Thus, in South Carolina, when a large snow fell a few years ago, the schools and business places closed for a time so that everyone might take advantage of the unusual occurrence; whereas sleighing is not merely a sport in the far north but an economical agency, and skiing and curling are common sports. Physical conditions in the United States and agriculture. — There are certain physical conditions in the United States which exercise a direct influence on agriculture and, we may be allowed to infer, upon agricultural society. One of these is soil. We have soils that are rich, medium, and poor by nature. Their distribution largely accounts for the distribution of the popula- tion of the nation. Mountains, hills, pure sand without subsoil near the surface, and very stony land constitute districts where farming is almost out of the question, although such regions may grow valuable forests. Outside of such areas there is scarcely any soil so poor that, providing the necessary precipitation and temperature are present, crops, given proper fertilization and cultivation, cannot be produced. Temperature is a physical factor which is influential in agri- culture largely by determining the length of the growing season. The latest and the earliest killing frosts decide the length of the growing season. The Federal Department of Agriculture has published maps indicating very minutely these seasons for the different regions of the nation. The line north of which the average length of the growing season is less than 100 days runs through northern Vermont and Maine and encircles most of the western mountain districts. That north of which the season is under 120 days runs through northern parts of Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, New Hampshire, Ver- mont, and Maine. That north of which the average season is under 150 days extends from southeastern New Mexico and ex- tends irregularly through southeastern Colorado, from south- western to northeastern Nebraska, northern Iowa, southern Wis- consin and Michigan, central Pennsylvania, and central Massa- chusetts. In the mountainous parts of the eastern states, the PHYSICAL INFLUENCES AND AGRICULTURE 169 lines are so irregular as almost to defy description. The line north of which the length of the average growing season is less than 200 days extends from northwest Texas through northern portions of Oklahoma, Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, South Carolina, and southern North Carolina ; that for less than 240 days lies to the north of southern Texas, Louisiana, Missis- sippi, Georgia, South Carolina, and all of Florida. Practically all of California outside of the mountain districts is in this class of seasonal length. The crops that are grown fit into these condi- tions. Thus, winter wheat has not yet been grown successfully in the far north while spring wheat is the dominant crop. In the extreme south and on the Pacific coast the temperature is such that semi-tropical vegetation flourishes. The amount and distribution of rain and snow are vital fac- tors in determining what shall be produced. The most fertile soil is fruitless without an adequate supply of water and poor soils with an abundance of this produce more than do the best soils with a scarcity. Twenty or more inches of precipitation a year, if properly distributed in time, are sufficient to produce crops successfully. Even less than this may be sufficient, given the best kind of time distribution. A line drawn from northwest Minnesota slightly to the south- west across the country divides the area of less from that of more than 20 inches a year, the eastern area having more and the western less than that amount. The Atlantic coast, the east- ern Gulf regions, and the lower Mississippi and Ohio valley re- gions have generally more than 40 inches of water a year. Much of North and South Dakota have less than 20 inches, yet the eastern portions of those states seldom suffer crop failure. This is due to an exceptionally fortunate seasonal distribution of rainfall. The accompanying graph illustrates the close depend- ence of the yield of small grains on the amount of rainfall during the principal growing months of May and June. Wind currents and proximity to the sea have a large influence on annual precipitation. Thus, western Oregon has an annual precipitation of 60 inches or more, because the westerly winds blow against the high mountains, precipitating the moisture on the western side. Southern California has a scant rainfall, be- cause the cyclonic movements of the atmosphere do not pass that way. The western mountains serve to cut off air currents com- 170 RURAL SOCIOLOGY ing from the Pacific Ocean, and so generally reducing the annual precipitation in the mountain areas of the west to from 10 to 15 inches, although minor areas may receive as much as 20 inches. The prairies to the east of the western mountains are likewise cut oif from Pacific sources of moisture and also are not prop- erly located so as to receive the benefit of the cyclonic movements originating over the Gulf of Mexico, the latter moving to the north and being responsible for the large precipitation of south- eastern and eastern United States. Eelation op Kainfall in Mat and June to Yield Per Acee — North Dakota, 1890-1916 * Upper line: Crop index of wheat, oats, barley. Lower line; Precipitation, May-June, inches. * C. M. Hennis and Rex Willard, Farm Practices and Grain Farming in North Dal.ola, Bulletin No. 757, U. S. Department of Agriculture, 1919, p. 28. The influence of this total complex of physical conditions on agricultural production may be observed in respect to the crop response of certain dominant crops. Thus, a produce map of the nation pictures an area where corn and winter wheat are the chief crops, another where cotton is king, another where spring wheat predominates over other crops, one for rice, chiefly in PHYSICAL INFLUENCES AND AGRICULTURE 171 Louisiana, areas in Florida and California where semi-tropical products thrive, and so other more or less well defined crop dis- tricts. Cotton, for example, demands a growing season of seven months, and, while a tropical plant, it seems to thrive best where the approach of a colder season drives its energy into fruit and fiber instead of further growth. Corn, except in the case of northern varieties, requires about five months in which to grow ; also plenty of water in the form of short, abundant showers, and much heat, continued through the night. Oranges and lemons must be free from frosts, the new bloom occurring on the trees along with the growing and ripening fruit. Physical environment and rural society. — ^But some consider- ations arise in connection with this discussion of crop response. First, it would be a mistake to think that physical conditions alone determine the dominaney of crops. In all the examples given, the crops denoted are not the only ones which grow well in the areas where they are leaders. Thus, corn does about as well in the cotton districts as does cotton, and the reason why it is not equally produced is to be found in historical and social directions. The negro slave was most profitable when raising cotton. After the Civil War, the negro was still the labor force of the South and of course continued to know more about cotton culture than about anything else. In addition, the crop-lien sys- tem was developed among negro farmers — a system that, once firmly rooted, has been found difficult to uproot or to modify. Also, corn is a competing crop with cotton. Second, there is some question as to the extent of the influence of physical conditions through particular crops on the community itself, as community. Thus, is a community based on cotton- raising made to differ as a community by that fact from one based on producing corn or wheat or stock-raising? If a cotton- producing community became a corn-producing one — something entirely possible — would the community character change funda- mentally thereby? No doubt some things would be changed, such as the following: (1) Crop interest, that is interest in corn production instead of cotton production. This might lead to a change in organizational articulation with corn-growers rather than with cotton-growers. (2) A change in methods of cultiva- tion. This might allow more leisure time and so be conducive to heightened education and a consequent reduction in child and 172 RURAL SOCIOLOGY woman labor. (3) Keeping of livestock, since corn is available for animal food. Variation among physical conditions in agricultural regions may be conceived to have some of the following social and, hence, community consequences. (1) They determine the yield. Some areas are so poor in fertility that production is meager, consequent income small, existence niggardly, and community spirit and development backward. Yet there are communities in such areas that are alert and progressive while on the other hand there are those in rich areas which are retarded; again calling to mind that physical conditions are not alone determina- tive. (2) In irrigation communities the necessity for team work to dig and repair ditches, regulate the flow of water, and to guard the water supply against encroachments, together with the smaller farms and consequent compactness of population lead to an exceptionally high development of cooperative spirit and to community solidarity. The outcome is likely to show itself in improved schools, churches, roads, and the like ; the tendency being to approximate urban conveniences and satisfactions. (3) The exclusive raising of small grain in the north together with long winters afford a large amount of leisure, thus offering scope for increased sociability, longer school terms, and the develop- ment of farm organizations. Hired labor is also of the seasonal type predominantly and therefore extra-community. (4) The occurrence of mountains, hills, and narrow valleys in northern New England along with small farms has led to unprofitable farming and to many abandoned farms. The uplands produce splendid grass and therefore abundant pasture, but being re- strictive of the use of haying machinery it is difficult to secure winter forage for livestock. The farm family ekes out an exist- ence by keeping a few cows, and the community life is likely to be meager. (5) Shut-in communities of mountain and hill regions, with their resultant isolation and cultural in-breeding, often manifest retardation or even decadence. This type of community can be found in the mountainous districts of many of the older states. (6) In ultimate terms, the climate of the South predetermined that slavery should be established there and that, after emancipation, the majority of the negroes should re- main there. Where the same farming area is occupied by both PHYSICAL INFLUENCES AND AGRICULTUEE 173 whites and negroes, instead of developing one community a kind of double community results, each population keeping to itself in respect to most matters. TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION 1. Name the sciences, physical and social — including history — that are not built on the conception of evolution. 2. Does evolution say that man descended from a monkey or from types of animals cognate to the apes? 3. What movements of population in the United States have been directed or modified by physical configuration? 4. Do the majority of people in this nation live above or below an altitude of 1,000 feet? 5. What effect had the opening of prairies to agriculture on the area per farm, on kinds of production, on prices of products, and on land values in the older sections of the nation? 6. Are the mountains of the western half of the United States a blessing or a curse, when viewed with respect to agricultural production? 7. Why is it said that the New England hills will furnish productive soil long after mucli of the so-called good land of the country is ' ' worn out"? 8. Does the influence of physical conditions on agricultural production become less or greater with improvements in means and methods of farming? REFERENCES AoBE, A. — Crops and Methods for Soil Improvement ; Macmillan, 1912. Bowman, I. — Forest Physiography ; Wiley, 1911. BsiQHAM, A. P., AND PoE, C. H. — Geographic Influences in American His- tory; Ginn and Company, 1903. BUEKETT, C. W. — Cotton; Doubleday, 1906. Cabvek, T. N. — Sociology and Social Progress, Chaps. X-XIV; Ginn and Company, 1906. Chisholm, G. G. — Handbooh of Commercial Geography; Longmans, 1911. CfiAiG, Wallace — North Dakota Life: Plant, Animal, and Human, Bui. American Geographical Society, p. 15ff, July, 1908. Cyclopedia of American Agriculture ; Macmillan, 1917. Part I, The Agricultural Eegion. Part III, The Soil Environment. Part IV, The Atmosphere Environment. Davenpoet, H. J. — Economics of Enterprise, Chap. I; Macmillan, 1913. Fettee, F. A. — Principles of Economics; Century Co., 1904. GiDDiNGS, F. H. — Inductive Sociology, pj). 35-40; Macmillan, 1901. Huntington, Ellswoeth — The Fluctuating Climate of North America, Annual Eeport of the Smithsonian Institute, 1912: 383-412. Kino, F. H. — Physics of Agriculture. Published by the Author, Madison, Wisconsin, 1907. LiBBT, O. G. — "Physiography as a Factor in Community Life," Journal of Geography, 4: 209-214. Mill, H. R. — Realm of Nature; Scribners, 1905. POE, C. H. — See under Beioham. 174 RURAL SOCIOLOGY Ripley, W. Z. — The Maces of Europe; Appleton, 1899. Small, A. W., and Vincent, Geo. E. — Introduction to the Study of Society, Book III; American Book Company, 1894. Smith, J. R. — Industrial and Commercial Geography ; Holt, 1913. Smith, R. E. — Wheat Fields and Markets of the World; Modern Miller Co., St. Louis, 1908. Vincent, Geo. E. — See under Small. CHAPTER X AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION IMPORTANCE OF AQBICULTUEAL PRODUCTION Like other kinds of communities, the rural community centers its interest very largely in its fundamental occupation. The dominating occupation of agricultural districts is the produc- tion of foods and other materials which are grown by processes of culture. Because agricultural production has such a large place in the scheme of life generally, in that of the world at large as well as in that of rural society, it will be worth while to devote attention to various features of its importance. We arrive at a due appreciation of things when we have observed their comparative value. In this discussion of the importance of agricultural produc- tion, both the wider and narrower meaning of the term produc- tion is involved. Economies, as a science, uses the term gener- ally to cover all the processes applied to a commodity up to the time it is in the hands of the final consumer. In this sense pro- duction covers the making, transportation, and selling of com- modities. Producing butter would include keeping and milking cows, caring for the milk, making the butter, taking it to the country store, and, if it were not sold locally, the shipment, haulage, and sale at some distant point. In the narrower sense, production signifies the mere working up of material into a form fit for consumption or use. Producing butter, in this sense, would stop with getting the butter ready for marketing. Attention to agricultural production. — The Great War, in which nearly the whole world has been involved, has centered at- tention on the importance of agriculture to the world, as it has pointed it towards the significance of many other activities and factors. Indeed, serious claims have been made in favor of each of many factors as the chief one in importance toward the win- ning of the war. Chemists have argued that success hinged on 175 176 RURAL SOCIOLOGY chemistry, physicists that it turned on a knowledge of hydraulics and projectiles, meteorologists that a knowledge of the currents of the air were as essential, and so on for the exponents of various sciences. Others have stated that success would go where the most munitions could be produced, others that the side having the last man and others, the final dollar, would win; and some have argued convincingly that victory in the war was a matter of producing enough food for the fighting hosts. At any rate, the question of food production loomed larger the longer the war lasted. It was brought home to everyone that fighting men have to be well fed before they can fight well, that munitions- makers must be adequately supplied with food in order to be efficient, and that all the rest of the population have to be amply nourished if the morale of the contending nations is to be kept healthy and vigorous. In other words, we have learned that in the time of a great emergency the production of foods is a first essential, and the further conclusion is inevitable that it is equally important in ordinary times. While the Great War riveted consideration to the problem of producing foods as a life-and-death matter, before the war be- gan there had been a developing interest in that direction. Many able students of affairs pointed out that the United States must improve its methods of farming and secure a greater volume of food materials, or the rapidly increasing population would in the not distant future go hungry or have to ship in supplies from elsewhere. The importance of greater and better farming was likewise urged for other reasons, such as the pros- perity of the farmer, the support of rural life and institutions, the keeping of boys and girls on the farm, etc. Relative importance. — Besides being untrue and unscientific, it is always unwise to claim undue importance for any one social factor. Society, after all, is pretty much a great family where justice and the happiness of all is best secured by giving to each member the exact credit his services deserve. We want agricultural production to receive all the recognition it should have but we do not desire that it shall be made to seem so essen- tial that other things which are really important and necessary shall be unduly overshadowed and crowded out. It is often said that "everyone rides on the back of the farmer." By this it sometimes meant that the farmer is the only AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION 177 one in society who is really worthy ; all the rest are parasitic or incidental. We have already concluded that farming is a prime necessity in times of emergency and all the time. But this does not mean that it is the only calling that is essential to society. Society is like a complicated machine, such as a watch, in which there are many factors and functions, every one of which is a prime essential. The mainspring of a watch is necessary because the watch would not run without it, but the balance wheel is just as essential because the watch would not run right and so would be useless as a timepiece without it. So for every other portion of the watch, except, perhaps, some of the jewels and adornments. The idle and luxurious rich and the hoboes in society may be representative of these portions of that mech- anism. Evidently the farmer alone could not win the war or, in times of peace, run modern society. He is only one of many important agents in war and in peace. His products are indispensable but they alone would not cross the continent or ocean, aim guns or drive projectiles, make laws, preserve order, preach, teach, manu- facture goods, manage financial systems, publish books and papers, or do other things essential to modern society. Raising food is a first essential in the sense that all must have food to live at all, but also in this sense the miller, packer, canner, and others stand very close to the farmer. The farmer is only one of a great number who produce food. He merely does the first act in the drama of food-production, the other acts being essential. Importance in national life. — Regarded from several angles, the farmer and agricultural production are significant factors in the existence and life of the nation. For one thing, the farmers are a large part of the nation. There are many millions of farm families, each one of them a producing unit. This means about so many distinct and independent industrial con- cerns. No other one line of production is represented by so many going concerns. It is exceedingly significant that about 40 per cent of the national population in 1920 was agricultural. This of course signifies that about the same proportion of the pro- ductive energy of the United States goes into the raising of foodstuffs and the producing of other raw materials. Further, this large population produces an extraordinarily large product which is of vast importance to the other industries 178 KURAL SOCIOLOGY of the nation. A billion-bushel wheat crop, a three-billion-bushel corn crop, and kindred statements are impressive, especially when compared with the amounts other nations grow. We wonder what could be done with such vast quantities. In terms of money, the agricultural products exceed those of any other industry, at their highest point amounting to $25,000,000,000 a year. Some of the materials are consumed on the farm, mostly by livestock, but the greater part finds its way to manufacturing plants to be worked up into a form directly available for food or other use. In 1914, the various manufactories of the United States produced commodities valued at over $24,000,000,000. Par more than half of these commodities, according to valuation, originated on the farm.^ Without this raw material from the farms, the industrial life of the nation would shrink to less than half its present volume. Again, farm products feed the people of the United States and furnish the materials on which the commercial businesses largely depend. We have already observed the significance of agri- culture as a food-producer. Let it be remembered that our farmers furnish the materials for the bulk of the foods which our 105,000,000 inhabitants consume. These materials, together with others which are not foods, constitute the bulk of the com- merce of the nation. Most of the buying and selling by manu- facturers, wholesalers, and retailers and most of the shipping within the nation, and the larger portion of shipping abroad is on the basis of materials originating on the farm. It would be impossible for the wheels of commerce to go round, certainly with their present momentum, without farm produce. Since agricultural production involves two fifths of the popu- lation of the United States and since it furnishes the basis for the larger portion of the other industries and for the commerce, it may be said with truth that agriculture is the primary business of the nation. It furnishes much of its wealth and is the foun- dation and sinew of most of its wealth processes. And when we remember that wealth is the necessary condition of a high civili- zation, that it is the means by which education, art, religion, and the higher satisfactions of life of every sort are secured, it becomes apparent how our national life hinges on agriculture. Importance in rural life. — What has hitherto been said con- ' statistical Abstract of the United States, 1916, p. 180. AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION 179 cerning the significance of agricultural production for the life of our nation and of the world will prepare us to appreciate its importance for the inhabitants and the aifairs of rural communi- ties. Is it possible to think of any worthy activity or purpose in the country which does not directly depend on the condition of farming? Perhaps we can best appreciate the situation by thinking of the results of a series of crop failures in a farming region. There are some areas in the United States where crops may be an almost entire failure for several years in succession as a result of a shortage of rainfall. As a consequence, many families are forced to leave their farms and go elsewhere ; and for those who remain, debts pile up ; livestock has to be sold at a sacrifice; that which is kept is half starved; equipment on the farm and in the home deteriorates; table fare suffers in variety and quality, clothing gets shabby; dues for lodges and organi- zations lapse, subscriptions and gifts to religious and charitable objects are reduced to the minimum; houses, farm buildings, and fences look shabby; and the spirit of dejection settles upon the people. To the extent to which agricultural production fails, the life of the farming community in all of its aspects suffers a decline. On the other hand, where we find agricultural regions which produce abundantly year by year, we observe the appear- ance of thrift and the spirit of optimism. There are bank accounts instead of indebtedness. Social organizations and in- stitutions do not lapse for lack of funds. Buildings and equip- ment are kept in a condition of efficiency. Worthy objects receive encouragement. Livestock looks fat and healthy and the food of the family is wholesome and abundant. Thus, we observe that agricultural production is a prime condition in the life of the rural community at large, in its institutions, its organizations, the welfare of its families, and the spirit of its population. Importance as a business. — Agricultural production is a busi- ness just as is retailing goods, manufacturing, or banking. And as such it may be viewed in various ways. It may be thought of as a money -making enterprise, as a means of getting a living, as a calling, and so forth. In thinking of it as a money-making enterprise, we may ask : Is it a safe business investment ? Will it yield an average income? Is there an opportunity to make a great fortune in a short time ? To these questions the reply may be made that in the United 180 IIURAL SOCIOLOGY States farming is not a business in which large fortunes are made by production directly, nor can great fortunes as they are known in the industrial and commercial world ever be obtained. There is a considerable list of men in this country whose yearly income runs into the millions of dollars. We may find a few farmers whose incomes are derived exclusively by means of farming who receive twenty -five or fifty thousand dollars a year, and a still larger number with incomes of five and ten thousand dollars. But the great majority of agriculturists have to be content with from five hundred to twenty-five hundred dollars. This is derived from their labor, investment, and rent and produce received on the farm. Perhaps it does not differ mate- rially from the incomes received by the majority of retailers of goods and the owners of small industries throughout the nation. According to reports of Federal income tax returns for 1916, farmers were the lowest class of those paying taxes on incomes. While 20 per cent of brokers, 18 per cent of mine owners and operators, and 19 per cent of lawyers and judges reported tax- able incomes, only 1 in 400 farmers were taxable.^ A consid- erable number of farmers have become comparatively wealthy through fortunate land investments and rise in value of land. During the decade ending 1910, land values for the whole United States rose 118 per cent. In some states, the rise in value was remarkable : in Colorado, 302 per cent ; Montana, 330 ; Oklahoma, 334 ; Washington, 421 ; New Mexico, 470 ; and Idaho, 419. But this is land speculation and not agricultural production. Besides, it is doubtful if land values in those sections will continue to advance very much further until the values of land generally have undergone a readjustment. We may say, then, that farming is a business which offers something like an average income to the owner and worker. Further, it is a safe investment in most sections of the nation. The value is there and if the title to the land is good there is practically no danger of losing the money put into it. As a means of getting a living, farming is probably the most secure of all the vocations. This means that for the great majority of human beings, having ordinary ability and equip- ment for work, it offers an adequate and safe mode of sustenance. ' Report of analysis of income tax report for 1916, Chicago Herald and Examiner, June 15, 1918. AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION 181 The farmer is pretty certain to get a living for himself and family and it is fairly assured as long as health and energy are unimpaired. The same is not equally true of a great many of the occupations which inhabitants of cities follow. With many kinds of these workers, should business or salary fail, livelihood at once ceases. This is all too true of multitudes of the wage earners of the cities. Agricultural production may be viewed as a desirable or undesirable calling according to the tastes and standards of the individual. Those who love nature and outdoor pursuits, are not averse to physical labor, have a taste for simplicity and genuine- ness, prefer independence to subjection or coercion, and are satisfied with living well rather than being ambitious for wealth, distinction, or position, will find in farming a satisfying occu- pation. It demands hard work, especially at times. The crops and the stock are likely to require the farmer's presence con- stantly. There is little opportunity to rub elbows with one's fellows or to push through crowded throngs. The many attrac- tions of the city are conspicuous by their absence. But there is independence of action and time for deep meditation. Ability finds its spur and outlet in real planning and management. The man of a scientific turn of mind has abundant opportunity to experiment in the direction of plant and animal breeding. With the abundance of accessible papers and books today, the farmer may become a well-informed and balanced student of the great problems of the times. Farming is not all good nor all bad. It has its rewards and its deficiencies. But all in all, it is a safe and desirable calling for those who, by nature or education or by both, are constituted for it. METHODS OP INCREASING PRODUCTION Under this consideration, we face an important issue for farming people as well as for the nation and world at large. Can production of farm products be increased? By what methods could larger results be secured? Looked at from the interest of the farmer, how much should be undertaken in this direction ? These are some of the questions to be considered. Desirability. — It is folly to deny that some increase of farm products, particularly of food materials, is generally desirable. The discussion presented in the preceding division amply war- 182 RURAL SOCIOLOGY rants this statement. Most of the ^eat industrial nations, such as Great Britain and Germany, no longer raise their necessary supply of provisions and have to be fed by nations which have an excess. Our own rapidly increasing population, due to the great growth of cities, threatens to overtake our own supply of food at no remote date with the present rate of agricultural production. If the social life of the country is to be improved and made all it should be, there are many communities where the farmers must obtain larger incomes in order that the desired changes may be made. These statements present the general reasons why the farm should be made more productive. Perhaps the farmer does not respond to the argument that he should raise more because the world and the nation need more food. He may say: "That is not my concern. I am not a missionary or a philanthropist. Unless it pays me to raise more, I am not interested in raising more. Manufacturers and store- keepers are in business to make money. Why should I do more than they to help the world ? ' ' We are bound to sympathize with this attitude of the farmer and will have something to say about it near the close of this chapter. But we are certain the farmer will want to increase his crops to help out his neighborhood, if, at the same time, it is possible to do so without injuring his business. The life of himself and family are invested in the country. Their lives are no bigger or richer than country conditions permit. Only weak or ignorant persons are satisfied with a narrow existence if a richer one is possible. Consequently, the farmer is bound to be interested in improving his methods of farming if it will help his family to a larger life. Question of increase. — Measured by yields, farming in the United States must appear deficient when compared with that of European nations. This is the standard by which critics of American agriculture usually measure it. Results in bushels and tons are easy to see while some other essential factors may be hidden. But we should be fair to the farmers. Our agri- culturists may have had the best reason for not raising as much wheat or barley per acre as those of England or Holland. There- fore, if we compare results here with results of European farmers, it is not to condemn our farmers for using lax methods but to show what might be done if conditions demanded it. AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION 183 The statement is commonly made that farming in America has stood still as to yields for a long time or else has actually lost ground. The accompanying graph represents the average yield for 10 leading crops combined for a period of 43 years. These crops represent about 95 per cent of the area of all cul- tivated crops. It will be seen that during the latter part of the period since 1895 the yield is far above the 100 line representing the average for the whole period most of the time. It is possible that fluctuations of rainfall have something to do with the variations, and that the apparent increase in yields are due, at least in part, to that fact. Yeaely Avekaqe Yield Per Acre or Ten Leading Crops Combined tor A Period of 45 Years, Ending 1909: 100 the Average for the Period * * U. S. Dcpt. Agr. Crop Eeporter, Jan., 1911. When we center attention on production of foodstuffs alone, there is not much question as to the trend. The per capita production of foods produced on farms between 1899 and 1915 did not keep pace with the increase of population. Six classes out of a list of eleven classes of foods declined in per capita production. These six classes comprised meats and dairy 184 RURAL SOCIOLOGY products which make up 37 per cent of the average diet, the cereals corn, wheat, and rice — which compose 31 per cent of such diet, fish forming 2 per cent of the diet, and potatoes, which, together with sweet potatoes, contribute 13 per cent of the aver- age diet. The decline in per capita production of these foods was not large, to be sure, but it must be recognized that it was present.^ This failure of meat production to keep pace with the growth of population is further illustrated by the following graph : Trend op Population and Livestock in the TTnited States 1870 TO 1919 * 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1919 * Louis D. Hall, "Federal Supervision of Livestock Market,' partment oj Agriculture, 1919, p. 241. Yearbook of the De- Extensive faiming. — American farming has chiefly been of the extensive rather than the intensive type. Extensive farming consists in tilling large areas with the employment of relatively small amounts of labor and capital per acre. It is largely ex- ploitive, seeking cheap crops without attention to the effect on the soil, and has accompanied frontier conditions. Sometimes small farms employ the extensive method of agriculture. This is the case with many of the small farms in the South, where one crop is raised year after year. The size of the farm determines whether the farming is chiefly of the extensive or of the intensive type. In the United States the average size of farms has not changed much since 1880. • Yearbook Dept. of Agr., 1916 : 18-80. AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION 185 Decade by decade since then until 1910 the average farm, meas- ured in number of acres, has been : 133.7, 136.5, 146.2, 138.1. European farms, where the intensive type of farming prevails, comprise, on the average, but a few acres. It is apparent, there- fore, that we are changing our method of farming but slightly. There is a vast difference between the yields made under ex- tensive and intensive farming. The average annual wheat yield in the United States is less than 14 bushels per acre while that of England is 32, Germany 28, Holland 34, and Prance 20. The average yield of corn here is 28 to 35 bushels, but in corn raising contests, no matter where held, a yield of 100 to 125 bushels is commonly obtained. It is apparent that the average now is about that of 1910, since the number of farms increased but 1.4 per cent during the succeeding decade, the increase being chiefly in the western states where new farms were in process of creation and development. Such figures show to what extent extensive farm- ing dominates our production. The extensive type of farming employs the single crop system to a large degree. This system consists in the raising of one crop to the exclusion of all others. The principal crops found on single crop farms in the United States are : cotton, wheat, corn, hay, tobacco, rice, sugar cane, and hops. Generally speaking, the equipment required for conducting a single crop farm is less than for any other type of farming. On the ordinary one-horse cotton farm of the South the cost of buildings, labor, stock, and farm implements will average about $8 per acre. On the ex- clusive wheat farm with moderate equipment the cost is about $20 per acre. With corn as a principal crop, the cost is about the same. The extensive method of farming, including the one crop system, is likely to result in soil deterioration. This is con- spicuous where soil and climate lend themselves to the develop- ment of one crop. We have almost exclusively cotton-growing regions in the South, com regions in the North Central states, and wheat regions in portions of Minnesota, the Dakotas, Mon- tana, Washington, and Oregon. In the wheat regions, soil deterioration may be observed as illustrative of extensive and one-crop farming. When the soil was new, large yields of 20 to 40 bushels an acre were usual or frequent. But in a few years the fertility declined until the yield fell to 10 or 12 bushels an 186 RURAL SOCIOLOGY acre. Such farming is not profitable, save with enormous acreage or exceptionally high prices. Inferior plants, fruits, and stock. — There is some indication that our quality of plants and animals is not always of the best. With respect to crops, most regions stand in need of a better or a better adjusted article. The abandoned rice fields of the Atlantic coast need a crop that will pay; an ideal clover is desired in fruit growing sections; hardier forest trees for orna- ment and windbreak are demanded in the northwest; the south- em farmer needs a better type of cotton as well as a cotton which will resist disease, and better corn; the northwest wants hardy alfalfa and grains which will resist drought and rust; while the southwest and west are in search of crops which are adapted to droughts and alkali soil. These are but examples of needs for the development and adjustment of plants to the particular conditions of soil and climate.^ The situation relative to farm animals is presented by Mr. "Wilson under the following points. Mr. Wilson argues that our stock is frequently not adapted to its environment. We import the English, French, and Belgian breeds of horses to all states and conditions of soil, climate, and pasture, supposing that they are well-fitted to thrive. What is needed are types of horses fitted to the various physical regions of the United States, and it will require time and study to develop such varieties. About the same statements are to be made concerning the breeds of dairy and beef cattle. Our importations from England and Europe are not well-adapted to the conditions of the very diverse physical regions of this continent. America has not yet devel- oped its own types of cattle, and it appears that our progress in cattle is much slower than it is in the case of plants. We do have good native varieties of grain, but we are only emerging from the importing stage relative to farm animals.^ DIRECTIONS OP IMPROVEMENT Soil. — It is often said that if the farmers of the United States were to apply all that agricultural experts know about scientific production the amount of materials produced could be doubled, *D. F. Houston, Tear Book, Department of Agriculture, 1916, 35ff. ' James Wilson, ' ' Needs in Animal Industry, ' ' Encyclopedia of American Agriculture, 3 : 374-5. AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION 187 at least, on the area now in improved farming land. Warren says that if the farmers applied what they know about improved farming they could increase the yield 50 per cent in three years.^ For purposes of illustration, let us glance at some of the methods by which production could be increased. We have seen that soil tends to "run down" under the ex- tensive type of agriculture generally used in America. Lack of attention to the soil may result in these evils: (1) Fertile soil may be carried away by wind and water. The amount of fer- tility thus lost may exceed that lost by cropping. The remedies are sodding, terracing, and using cover crops. (2) Failure to hold moisture. The cure is drainage, tillage, and application of humus-making material. (3) Loss of ability to develop soil organisms. The remedies are the use of lime and those just given under (2). (4) The loss of lime and nitrogen in the water which drains off. In this case those elements have to be replaced by some fertilizing process. (5) Loss of some plant food, such as lime, nitrogen phosphoric acid, and potash. If any element needed is lacking or if it is not present in soluble form, the crop is diminished thereby. Applications of lime, fertilizer^ manure, and humus, or proper drainage and tillage, may remedy these defects. (6) Loss of organic matter. This may cause the soil to "bake" or to lose its water. Also, since nitrogen in the soil is produced largely by the organic matter — by decomposition and the fixation of free nitrogen — the absence of the latter causes the depletion of nitrogen. Organic matter is also necessary for the proper dissolving of the mineral elements of the soil needed by the crops. The best remedy is to replace the lacking organic matter. (7) In arid regions where irrigating water is applied, there is danger from accumulating alkali, an over supply of water being especially bad. Drainage promises some relief from this condition. A soil which is extremely "rich" and which never has been used for agricultural purposes may lack some element needed in producing crops. This is the case with the peat lands of northern Minnesota. These soils appear to be lacking in phosphorus. The Government Experiment Stations are now studying the problem and it is announced that progress has been made toward discovering a remedy. 'G. F. Warren, Farm Management, p. 183. 188 RURAL SOCIOLOGY In general it may be said that the application of barnyard manure is the best soil-recovering process. This fertilizer con- tains practically all the elements which soil is likely to lack. Complete fertilizers are also useful in lieu of the manure. Par- tial fertilizers, phosphorus, potash, and lime are good to replace some especially lacking element. Some examples of what soil improvement will do toward in- creasing production may be useful. At the Rothamsted Station, England, a soil had produced 12 bushels of wheat per acre for over 60 years. After the application of a complete fertilizer, it yielded 30 bushels.^ The Cornell, New York, station reports this case. A piece of laind was producing 1824 pounds of clover hay per acre. After an application of lime and manure, the yield was 4976 pounds.^ The Nebraska station reports that, before seeding the land to clover and alfalfa, 34 farms in that state had a yield of 34.5 bushels of corn per acre and that after the field was plowed up and put to corn the yield was 68.2 bushels.^ The last illustration raises an interesting question. It is often stated that the mere growing of legume crops on land serves to replenish the soil with nitrogen. But it seems to be demonstrated that legumes when cut take as much nitrogen from the soil as is left in their roots and that if they are to be greatly beneficial they must be plowed under.* But it is doubtful economy to plow under a crop after spending a year in growing it. It would be better to pasture it, for the roots would remain in the ground and the stock would return to the land, besides, from 40-50 per cent of the material eaten. The soil would, by this method, recover its fertility in a short time.° Improvement of seeds aad plants. — The study of heredity and breeding has assumed great importance during recent years. Because agriculture deals with the development of organic life, these studies are significant for it. Not only are great scientists devoting experimental effort to breeding, but good farmers are ' Hunt, The Young Farmer, p. 74. "Agee, Crops and Methods of Soil Improvement, pp. 16-17. 'Bulletin of the Agricultural Experiment Station of Nebraska, Vol. XXIII. *J. E. Greavea in Scientific Monthly, May, 1918, 458ff. ' Warren, lac. cit., p. 190, AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION 189 contributing to the work. All of our great crops, com, wheat, rye, barley, and oats, may be greatly improved. Some advance in the type of corn has been made, as a result of widely conducted experiments. A high yielding strain of corn having remarkable adaptability to dry weather conditions has been developed in Texas. A few years ago the Bureau of Plant Industry was able to obtain one and a half times the ordinary yield from a variety of corn better adapted to Virginia condi- tions than the com which had been in use there. Sweet corn has been experimented with and some new strains have been produced which have higher yielding power and excellent quality. Kaffir corn, imported at a cost of about $5,000, produces well in dry regions, the annual crop being valued at over $15,000,000. Wheat has also been improved through discovering the adapta- tions between particular kinds of grain and certain regions. Systematic studies have shown that this country can be districted so that varieties of wheat especially adapted to certain districts can be planted and will give better results than under present methods. It is also proven that much of the semi-arid districts is available for growing certain kinds of wheat. New varieties of wheat have been introduced with splendid results, macaroni and durum having come from abroad. It is estimated that it cost about $10,000 to introduce durum wheat and that the annual crop value is about $10,000,000. Considerable has been done with oats, rye, and barley to make them more valuable. The study devoted to cotton has been chiefly to prevent losses from diseases rather than to improve the producing power. Wilt-resistant varieties have been obtained through selection, with the result that large annual savings have been made. Animals and dairying. — Enlarged production from animals and dairies must be in the direction toward extending the in- dustry of stock-raising and dairying, better breeding and feed- ing, and eliminating animal diseases. Great advance has been made during the last few years toward securing the widespread use of better stock of cattle, hogs, horses, sheep and other farm animals and fowls. This is illustrated in the case of sheep and cattle. In 1850, the average weight of a fleece of wool was 2.4 pounds; in 1910, it was 6.9 pounds. Formerly cattle were 190 RURAL SOCIOLOGY marketed in their fourth, fifth, or even sixth year ; now they are marketed in their second and third year.^ Dairying has in- creased all over the United States because of its advantages and economies. Selling produce to the cow enhances the price of the feed. Feeding crops instead of selling them serves to pre- serve the fertility of the soil. Interest in the improvement of animal breeds has been spread and intensified by means of the various testing and breeding associations. Nevertheless, that- greater improvement is possible is to be observed from such facts as these. The average American cow produces 3,100 pounds of milk a year, while the Duchess Skylark Ormsby yields 27,000 pounds. The average American hen lays 50 or 60 eggs a year, but Lady Eglatine has an output of 314.^ Pests and diseases. — Great advances in agricultural produc- tion could be made if all the diseases and pests which afflict plants and animals could be eliminated. Almost every kind of plant grown is subject to one or more kinds of pests and our animal friends are the objects of about as many ailments as are human beings. A few years ago it was estimated that insect pests caused a loss of nearly $800,000,000 a year by destroying crops of all sorts, forestry, and animal products. This does not include the indirect losses such as wages, cost of attempts at protection, injury to enterprises, etc. The average annual direct loss of agricultural products cannot be less than 10 per cent, and it is likely much greater. This represents an amount of food and other materials which is well worth saving. Progress has been made in finding enemies of some of the pests which destroy plants and crops and in combating the diseases to which animals and fowls are subject. But the larger number of plant diseases due to bacteria and of the pests which destroy crops remain uncontrolled. What a blessing would come with the discovery of a means of combating chintz-bugs, rust, boll weevil, and the many other enemies of plant life ! Think of the satisfaction to be gained by detecting successful preven- tives to the many diseases which destroy animal life in such vast quantities 1 We have said nothing about weeds. The destruction of farm 'Hunt, The Young Farmer, pp. 173-4. 'N. J. Splllman, American Academy for the Advancement of Science, 1916. AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION 191 crops from this direction is enormous. A rough estimate places the annual loss to the farmers of the United States from this cause at over $100,000,000. Weeds use up available plant food, consume needed moisture from the soil, often harbor insects, and promote plant diseases. In some portions of the United States the fields have been completely captured by such weeds as the sow thistle, French weed, and quack grass. It is obvious that farm production would be extended greatly if these pests were eliminated or controlled. Their control is dependent upon the adoption of adequate agricultural methods and cooperation be- tween farmers. BUSINESS SIDE OF INCREASING PRODUCTION There is a business side to the increase of production which cannot be overlooked. Whatever other objects besides profit or making money there are in farming — and there are others — the item of profit cannot be disregarded. The other purposes and aims of life are more or less conditioned by this factor, and, consequently, on their account it is important. Since so much turns on this element, it will be well to consider some business points involved in increasing production. A full discussion of the principles involved is beyond the range of our purpose. What is said here is for the purpose of illustrating the necessity of considering such issues. Adjustment to physical regions. — There is always a best region in which to produce any given crop or animal. For example, the statement is made that mules are grown in the South to greater advantage than horses because it appears that where lime is lacking in the soil the grasses are less suitable to rearing horses. Again, wheat demands a cool, moist period in its earlier stages of development and it does not do the best where these conditions are wanting. So on for other products. But horses are produced in the South, wheat in regions not well suited to it, and corn in areas where the yield is less than it would be for some other crop. It is a scientific problem to discover these matters of best adjustment of product to soil and climate. But it is also a business proposition, for generally it is not good business to produce a certain article where something else could be produced more abundantly. 192 RURAL SOCIOLOGY Relation to markets. — Agriculture today is carried on for markets, chiefly, very little of the entire food produced, at least, being consumed on the farm in its raw form. This makes farm- ing dependent on markets, and the nearness and remoteness of these from any given farm has much to do veith what the farmer should produce and do. Says Warren : ' ' Next to soil and climate conditions, the freight and express rates and cost of handling produce are the most important factors in determining the type of farming. . . . The farm value of hay in Massachusetts is 226 per cent of the Iowa price, corn 166 per cent, oats 157 per cent. Wheat is so little grown that no farm price is quoted. The Massachusetts farmer can grow wheat and can get perhaps a fifth more than the Iowa price, but he can get two and one fourth times the Iowa price for his hay. He would be very foolish to grow wheat." ^ It is apparent, then, that market relations may determine whether a farming section should grow what the physical condi- tions would make the first crop or must produce what perhaps would make a second best crop. This is a part of the business of farm management and the farmer must be a student of marketing conditions as well as have a knowledge of what his soil and climate are best fitted to grow, in order to decide what crop or crops he should give attention to. Intensive or extensive farming. — Should American farming be of the intensive type? A gi-eat deal is said which would indicate that only very intensive agriculture should be pursued on this continent. This is a ready conclusion to arrive at when one has observed the evils of extensive production. But first conclusions are not always wise. Anyway, this question is one for study before making a decision. Some deep students of agriculture state that extensive farming has been the best type for American conditions up to the present time. Dean Davenport of the Agricultural College of Illinois writes to that effect. He says that no agriculture has ever been so productive as ours per farmer involved in the operation. Other systems of farming have been more productive per acre but not nearly so fruitful when the individuals carrying on the process are considered. It has been the expedient and wise 'G. F. Warren, Farm Management, p. 52. AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION 193 system for our fanners because we have had abundance of new land to be taken up and put under cultivation. Land has been cheaper and more plentiful than labor and as a consequence a farmer could get more produce by tilling a great deal of land than he could by spending the same amount of labor and capital on a much smaller piece of land. The question farmers now have to answer is this: Have con- ditions changed so that we should substitute intensive for extensive production? Or should we make our farming more intensive but not as much so as that obtaining in most European agricultural districts? We can help with a reply by stating a principle which obtains in agricultural production. With an increasing population and a lessening supply of agricultural land, the prices of farm products rise and the values of land increase. On the other hand, the value of labor relatively decreases because of the abundant population. When land is cheap and labor high, extensive agriculture is the best type to employ. But when land becomes high and labor relatively cheap, that type of agriculture becomes unprofitable. It then becomes necessary for agricul- turists to devote more attention to obtaining larger yields per acre in order to make up on their investment. This means the application of more labor, capital in the form of fertilizers and equipment of all sorts, and managing ability to a given field. Relative to the United States we see that the supply of rich and easily tilled public lands is about exhausted. Hence land is becoming scarce and we know its value has increased enor- mously in recent years.' We likewise observe that our popula- tion has become great and is rapidly increasing, and that it is gradually overtaking the amount of food we produce as a nation. Is not the conclusion inevitable that our farmers must put into effect a more intensive type of production? If our treatment of the situation is true, which it is well known to be, then there is no other solution of the problem. But what degree of intensive ' The increase in value is out of proportion to that of semi-manuf aetured products, to the cost of labor, capital or management on farms, or even to increased prices from farm produce, although prices of meats, dairy prod- ucts, and cereals rose more rapidly than those of other foods. Scott Nearing believes it is largely a case of monopoly value. {Annals, March, 1915.) 194 RURAL SOCIOLOGY farming should be adopted will have to be determined by intelli- gent farmers and agricultural experts. The open-minded farmer. — To talk of the open-minded farmer in connection with increasing agricultural production may seem queer. Yet it is likely that to get farmers to adopt the open-minded attitude toward improvements in agricultural methods would be the greatest step toward securing greater returns from the farm. Many farmers now have this attitude, but it is likely that the majority do not have it. The writer has known of many cases where farmers sneered at the methods of agricultural experiment stations. They said the large yields these stations reported were obtained under conditions which farmers could not duplicate ; that the experts had all the time and money they wanted for doing their farming but that farmers had little of either. As a consequence, these farmers absolutely refuse to read or listen to what farming experts said. We do not wholly condemn the farmers for this attitude of mind, for there is some truth in their contention. It is probable that the majority of the farmers are not able to put all or most of what experts recommend into effect at once. But they could adopt some of the recommendations with good results if they only thought so. There can be no progress in farming unless farmers are ready and willing to learn, and since our experi- mental farms are for the purpose of discovering better ways of farming they are bound to be the best sources of information. More and more farmers will become ready to learn. These farmers will be the successful ones and will ultimately drive the poor agriculturists with the closed minds out of business. This occurs in industrial and commercial lines and there is every reason for believing it will take place in agriculture. Fortu- nately, more and more of our young people are attending schools and courses of agriculture and becoming, ready to adopt new methods. This is the basis of hope for the future advance of agriculture. TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION 1. Compare the methods of producing agrrioultural products with those used in mining, manufacturing, selling. 2. Is the farmer likely to receive injustice, economically, because he pro- duces primary materials? AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION 195 3. Compare the importance to society of agriculture, manufacture of foods, selling foods and clothing, selling ladies' hats, blacking boots and shining shoes, keeping a hotel for dogs, keeping a bath- ing establishment for cats, manicuring nails. 4. Is any function that society demands for its existence, whether the function is counted as little or lowly, as important as every other function 1 5. What reasons are there for looking far into the future relative to our production of food from farms f 6. Has Burbank's contribution to the production of foods been as great and valuable as commonly believed t 7. What has your farming region done toward demonstrating that farm- ing can be made more productive? 8. Does your state have any laws intended to increase production? 9. If you were a farmer, would you increase your crops if you believed that low prices follow large crops generally? 10. What does the United States Department of Agriculture do in the way of helping to prevent pests and diseases? 11. What birds in your region aid the farmer by preying on pests? REFERENCES BowspiBXD, C. C. — Making the Farm Pay. Bull. Aqr. Exper. Stat. Nebr., Vol. XXIII. BuTTEEPiELD, K. L. — Chapters in Sural Progress, CJhap. Ill, University of Chicago Press, 1907. Carver, T. N. — Principles of Agricultural Economics, Chap. III. Cook, O. P. — "A Community Crop," Journal of Heredity, 11: 174-7. Cromwell, A. D. — Agriculture and Life, Chaps. X-XII. Crocker, Orin — "Civilization vs. Pood Supply," The Nation, 110: 704ff. Cyclopedia of American Agriculture, Vols. III-IV, Macmillan, 1917. Davenport, Eugene — Country Life, edited by J. P. Lichtenberger, pp. 45-50. Parmers' Bulletins for particular crops. Greaves, J. E. — "Does Crop Rotation Maintain Fertility of the Soil?" Soiffntific Monthly, 6: 458-466. Hall, L. D. — "Federal Supervision of Live Stock Market," Yearbooh V. S. Bept. of Agr., 1919 : 239-248. Houston, D. P. — '"Crop Improvement," Annual Eeport, Yearbook Dept. Agr., 1916: 35ff. Hunt, T. P. — The Young Farmer, Some Things He Should Know, Judd, 1912. Nbaring, Scott — "The Becent Increase in Land Values," Annals, March, 1915. Spillman, N. J. — American Academy for the Advancement of Science, 1916. Statistical Abstracts U. S. Taylor, H. C. — Agricultural Economics, Chaps. II, III, and VI; Mac- millan. Thompson, W. S. — "Population: A Study in Malthuaianism, " Columbia University Studies, Vol. LXVI, No. 3. TOWNE, E. T.— Social Problems, Chap. XVI; .Macmillan, 1918. VooT, Paul L. — Introduction to Sural Sociology, Chap. Ill; Appleton, 1917. 196 RURAL SOCIOLOGY Waldron, C. B. — "Factors in Hardiness," College and State, North Dakota Agricultural College, Feb. 1919. Waeeen, G. F. — Farm Management, Chap. II; Macmillan, 1918. Wilson, James — "Needs in Animal Industry," Cyclopedia of American Agriculture, III: 274-5. YearhooTc of the U. S. Dept. of Agr. Fig. — ^Use of Land, 1918, opposite p. 436. CHAPTER XI NATIONAL WELFARE AND A NATIONAL LAND POLICY The term "land," as used by economists, connotes much more than the common use would involve. It comprises not only agricultural lands but also sites for industries and commercial establishments in urban centers, mineral deposits, forests, water — in so far as it is used in production — ^water-power sites, and, in general, whatever is comprised within the phrase, natural resources. In this chapter the emphasis will be placed on agri- cultural land; but some consideration in addition will be given to forests, mineral resources, and water-power sites to the extent that they touch and influence farm life and conditions which in turn have an extensive influence thereon. SOME REASONS FOR A COMPREHENSIVE LAND POLICY The more intelligent citizens. Congress, and some of our states are devoting serious attention to land problems and land settle- ment matters. A serious study of the land problem and the more important questions involved in it leads to a discovery of a number of reasons why an adequate and far-reaching national land policy should be formulated and established. Some of the more important of these deserve consideration and will serve to illustrate the importance and gravity of the land question. 1. During the course of the Great War the various nations involved began to look ahead to the time when their armies would be demobilized. The question arose as to what could be found for the returned soldiers to do, what would be best for them to do, and what effect their return to civil life would have on labor, industry, agriculture, and other interests. The United States had called about 4,000,000 men to the colors and their places in industry in general had been taken by others. How to locate them in civil life again without producing serious indus- trial dislocation and personal hardships caused grave concern. Many minds agreed that a part of these difficulties would be 197 198 EURAL SOCIOLOGY met through securing an outlet to the land for those who desired it. All were agreed that the nation should seek to repay in a handsome manner those who had nobly offered their lives for it. Beyond this it was believed that certain beneficial results from settling soldiers on the land would follow. Secretary Lane be- lieved the following results would accrue: immediate work for soldiers; protecting the labor market against a great labor surplus; immediate markets for the products of re-established industries; decentralizing population by checking its flow to cities; getting approved Americans on the soil; bringing iinder cultivation great areas of undeveloped and now useless land; securing a wide distribution of model farm settlements "in which the social side of human nature is given consideration. ' ' 2. A widespread and well-founded opinion obtains that the disposition of natural resources is vital to the general welfare. This has arisen from observing the results of our own improvi- dent methods of giving away natural -treasures, from the histori- cal effects of land speculation and land monopoly, and from the results of experiments in modern nations of the control and distribution of land. Man is a land animal in that land is necessary to reproduction of the race, to the production of the necessaries of life, and to his existence. Unlike air and much of the seas, land can be monop- olized by many or few individuals, with the result that its use is restricted and unfair control of its products brings hardships to the many. This is all the more serious today, since civilization has reached a point in its development where the problem of land ownership is becoming critical. For until recently, com- panies and persons could find land near at hand that was wholly or mostly unappropriated ; whereas now, practically all the areas in the north temperate zone, the home of the chief civilizations, have been appropriated and filled in. Most of the aiustocracies of the past have been the outcome of land monopoly and the fall of some of the great nations of history have been largely due thereto. The speculative phase of land ownership also suggests evils. The scarcity of land, its frequent ownership in large tracts by a few, and the increase in population lead to a heavy demand and much fictitious increase in land prices. In Great Britain, where the land is in the hands of a relatively few landlords, 12,000 NATIONAL WELFARE 199 persons owning one fourth of the land area, and where a great housing scheme has been undertaken by the government without provision for purchase at a fair price, land values had risen — by 1919 — from 50 to 100 per cent since the war. Throughout the United States holding land — often out of use — for advanced prices has obtained. In southern California, 279 individuals own over 5,000,000 acres, much of which is held at speculative prices. Often lurid advertisements concerning worthless land victimize the unwary. Some of the evils partly or wholly due to land monopolization are: the development of aristocracies with their attendant evils; the stimulation of the growth of cities due to the failure of many to preserve a foothold on the land; the increase in the cost of living by withholding land from production ; the raising of agri- cultural rent and the increase of tenancy, with a consequent depression of farm wages. 3. The disposition of land has a bearing on production. With our immense and rapidly growing population, the production of raw materials and especially of food to supply our future needs has provoked some concern. The national population promises to be near 162,000,000 by 1950 and 275,000,000 by the year 2000. Should the same relative decrease in exports of foodstuffs con- tinue that occurred between 1880 and 1910, by 1950 the popula- tion will almost have overtaken its productive capacity. The decrease in the exportation of certain foods is shown in the accompanying table. PEE CAPITA VALUE OF CERTAIN UNITED STATES ARTICLES OF EXPORT, 1880-1910 • 3-Year Period Wheat Flour Meat and Meat Products 1879-81 $3.20 .70 1.20 .50 $ .72 .83 .58 .53 $2.25 1889-91 1.83 1899-1901 2.33 1909-11 1.58 * From data in U. S. Statistical Abstract, 1916. During the period the average per capita value of whea- exported declined to less than one-sixth its early figure, that oJ flour between 35 and 40 per cent, while that of meat and meai products nearly held its own.^ 'For a fuller consideration of Production and Population, see Chap. IX 200 RURAL SOCIOLOGY Food production of a nation is the outcome of the area culti- vated and the quality of its agriculture. It is known that there is much unused and unreclaimed land in our nation and the time is near at hand when pressure must be placed on bringing such land into use. The great industrial nation, Great Britain, desires to follow this method of increasing its production of food. During a century its consuming population has grown and its food pro- ducing population has decreased during the last half of that period. Its agricultural laborers decreased from 800,000 in 1891 to 580,000 in 1911 and its visible arable land declined from 13,800,000 acres in 1891 to 10,200,000 in 1913. It is estimated that food production there was only about 45 per cent of the amount required for the period 1909-13, but that by putting all unused land to use the greater part of its sustenance could be produced. 4. The execution of an adequate national land policy would do much to stabilize labor and prevent the recurrence of unem- ployment and casual labor. Under the discussion of farm labor, it will be found that seasonal industry in both city and country is the great cause of seasonal labor. One of the great needs is to fill in the gap during the period of suspended industry with some form of state employment. This could be secured under a government plan to develop unused and unreclaimed agricul- tural lands for settlement purposes; which would involve clear- ing, leveling, breaking, ditching, the erection of buildings and fences, the construction of highways, and other forms of work. It could also be furthered by the development of natural forests, mineral lands, water-power sites, and national highways. In practically all of these concerns, the idea would be to push the work of development to the greatest extent during the periods of slack employment in agriculture and industry generally and to slack it when work became plentiful. 5. That land settlement development would mitigate tenancy is probable. In our future study of tenancy it will be discovered that both the exhaustion of the supply of available land to be homesteaded and the increased price of farms have contributed to the growth of tenancy. Any plan, therefore, which provides available areas for farms and at the same time establishes a system of purchase and credit which make it possible for men of NATIONAL WELFARE 201 little means to become land owners will assist in reducing tenancy. And these things an adequate policy will secure. 6. A well-developed land policy doubtless would contribute something toward the removal of farm isolation and to the pro- motion of community building. No one doubts that the lack of companionship and of the privileges of a developed community is regarded by country dwellers as a real privation and handicap. Whatever promises to mitigate rural loneliness will prove a genuine blessing. Now, a land settlement plan which provides for developing farm colonies as real community centers strikes at the evils of isolation. To be sure, this would afifect only a small part of country dwellers because only the new farmers would be so organized; but it is conceivable that the new idea might spread into the older agricultural sections and that at some future time the system would become almost or quite uni- versal. While the plan is not likely to become universal in the near future, it is well worth while to make it as widespread as possible. USED AND USABLE LAND IN THE UNITED STATES Land supply and farming. — ^Farming differs from almost every other form of industry in one particular, namely, the amount of land surface it requires and the limitation of the supply. The great majority of commercial and manufacturing enterprises require less land surface to carry on their business than the average truck gardener. Only the very largest manu- facturing plants cover more territory than the average farm in the United States. Some businesses obtain space by building into the air, others — the various forms of mining — get room to operate by digging into the earth. But the farmer cannot get more space to farm by building into the air or going into the earth. He must have land surface and much of it. Further, this surface has to be of a given quality or it is useless for agriculture. As a consequence of this requirement on the part of agri- culture, the amount of available land for the purpose of farming is always threatened with exhaustion. The supply of surface in most European nations which is fit for plant culture has been exhausted for centuries. It was once thought by settlers on our 202 RURAL SOCIOLOGY eastern coast that this continent offered an inexhaustible supply of land and resources of all sorts, but we are beginning to feel the pinch of cramped quarters with respect to farming territory. Sometime during the course of its development a nation finds that its population has reached tlie limits of the amount of food USE OF THE LAND PRESENT (1910) cities, RdB.. Etc., 2 Jeaert. 2)(N Total Land Area of 1,903,000, IMPROVED LAND, 478,000,000 ACRES In Crops, 319,000,000 Acres In Pasture, 84,000,000 Acres In Fallow, Lanes, Farmsteads, Etc., 76,000,000 A. FOREST AMD WOODLAND, 600,000,000 A. In Farms (Pastured) 98,000,000 Acres In Farms (Mot Pastured) 93,000,000 Acres Mot in Farms (Estimated) 409,000,000 Acres RANGE LAND & UNIMPROVED PASTURE 745,000,000 ACRES In Farms, 210,000,000 Acres Mot in Farms (Estimated) 536,000,000 Acres DESERT (Mot Grazed) 40,000,000 ACRES CITIES, ROADS, ETC., 40,000,000 AC31ES POTENTLA CItIei,8ds.,Etc.,Z^ I>eiert,2!( the United States 000 Acres IMPROVED LAND, 860,000,000 ACRES Improved Land(19I0) 478,000,000 Acres Irrigable, Unirrigated 80,000,000 Acres Drainable.Now Is Forest, Grass, Etc.60,000,OOOA. Dry Farming & Upland Pasture, 82,000,OOOA. Woodland(Suitable for Crops) 200,000,OOOA. FOREST AND WOODLAND, 860,000,000 A. In Farms, 60,000,000 Acres (Eastern States, 1EO,000,OOOA. Not in Faima, (Western States, 160,00a,000A. RANGE LAND £ UNIMPROVED PASTURE 616,000,000 ACRES Eastern States, 16,000,000 Acres Western States, 600,000,000 Acres DESERT (Not Grazed) 38,000,000 ACRES CITIES, ROADS, ETC., 40,000,000 A. or more NATIONAL WELFARE 203 it can produce from its own soil ; and this means, of course, that it has reached the limits of its supply of farming land. In developing the thought of a national land policy, cogni- zance must be taken of the disposition of land in the United States at the present time and of the amount of land ultimately available for the various purposes. The accompanying combined graph and table, entitled "Use of the Land," presents the essen- tial features.^ This estimate of the Department of Agriculture differs in minor respects from that made by the Department of Labor, but the differences are of slight importance. Agricultural land and population.— Of the 1,903,000,000 acres of land comprised in the 48 states and District of Columbia, only about 850,000,000 are regarded as fit for agricultural pur- poses, the remainder being mountain, desert, and forest land not suitable for pasture. Only 478,000,000 acres of the total avail- able area were "improved" in 1910 — that is, actually used for agricultural purposes. The 372,000,000 acres remaining com- prised about 30,000,000 acres of irrigable but unirrigated land ; 60,000,000 acres subject to reclamation by the drainage of swamps and flooded areas; 82,000,000 acres which "dry farm- ing" methods would recover; and 200,000,000 acres now in woodland and cut-over areas which could be reclaimed for crops. Out of the potential area, were it all reclaimed and used, could be carved something like 3,000,000 farms, thus almost doubling the present "improved" farm area. However, it is likely that the combined demand for forests and pasture will prevent the employment of this entire area for cropping purposes. In this potential agricultural area, the United States possesses an assurance that its population need not encroach seriously upon its ability to produce its own food for some time to come. The possible population the nation could support, were all the arable and grazing land, including that in Alaska, duly employed can only be roughly approximated. The following points will illustrate the nation 's ability in this direction : a. It is likely that our present productivity ability is sufficient to care for a population of 150,000,000. This statement is based on the fact that the United States furnished its Allies sufficient food from April 1, 1917, to April 1, 1918, to support over ' Yearbook U. 8. Dept. of Agricultwre, 1918, opposite p. 437. 204 RURAL SOCIOLOGY 21,000,000 men — men who consumed not only more food but also food richer in proteins and fats than that of the population at large — while at the same time it was conducting war and caring for its own population.^ A further support of this conclusion is gained from a study of our excess export of foodstuffs over imports. For the five-year period prior to the disturbing influ- ences of the Great War, the average value of agricultural products exported was 52 per cent of all exports. There was shipped out of the country $286,000,000 worth of such products in excess of the value of those imported. Thirty-six per cent of the value of all agricultural exports consisted of wheat, flour, corn, and meats.^ b. The application of scientific methods of farming, without resorting to the small-plot intensive .methods of Europe, should enable the present area farmed to produce twice the present amount of produce raised. This is a fair statement. By build- ing up the soil through the use of fertilizers. Great Britain and Germany produce from two to four times the yield of wheat per acre produced in the United States. The restoration of our run- down soil could easily double our crop yield, while permitting the continuance of extensive methods of farming. c. By bringing into use the 372,000,000 acres of undeveloped land in the states and the 65,000,000 acres of potential agricul- tural land in Alaska, the preceding estimated amount of popula- tion, 300,000,000, could be greatly increased. Just what this increase would amount to cannot be stated definitely. Were this new area as good and fertile as the present area in use, and were the same improved methods of farming applied to it as was supposed to be applied to the present area, it is clear that nearly twice the 300,000,000 population could be supported. However, the land to be brought in is not uniformly as good as the present area farmed and this aggi-egate estimate would have to be scaled down. The new land would probably produce from 50 per cent to 75 per cent ac much as the better land, giving the ability to support in the neighborhood of half a billion people. The preceding estimates are suificient to show that the United States has it within its power to provide for its population for a ' U. 8. Food Adminigtration Statistical Division Information Service, Bulletin No. 1304, Table 6. 'IT. S. Statistical Abstract, 1908-13. NATIONAL WELFARE 205 long time to come. But that ability is conditioned on a proper and adequate utilization of all its resources in the shape of productive land. Prom this point of view, the development of an adequate land policy is a matter of fundamental importance. Thinking of the matter in terms of ultimate needs, that is, the demands our population will make for food in the not too distant future, several or all of the following possible methods of read- justment will have to be put into use : First, lower the rate of increase of population. Second, bring about a better adjustiaent of its inhabitants to the resources of the nation. Third, adopt a better system of the distribution of wealth so that what is produced goes to all more equitably. Fourth, develop the national domain of agricultural land up to an efficient standard of production. This means the improve- ment of farms and a more intensive cultivation. No doubt to do this and to make agriculture more efficient in every way, the United States must develop a more intelligent, just, and far- reaching policy relative to farming and farm populations. Fifth, gradually put into effect a simplification of living — a saner and more economical standard of living. This would abolish expenditures which are for ostentatious exhibition, reduce waste of useful materials so that they would go further, and probably enhance life by making it more sane and stable. While we may not be greatly cramped as yet, it is wise policy to begin to develop a competent system of economies and living before the crisis arrives. Certainly it is high time that our nation paid more attention to the better adjusting of its popu- lation to its resources and to bringing about a fairer system of distributing its great wealth among the many. A NATIONAL FOEESTKY POLICY The farmers of the nation are quite as much interested in the development of a forestry policy, as a part of a national land policy, as are any other portions of the nation. For, in the first place, both the depletion and the distribution of the forest supply affect the cost of lumber products which the farmer uses. The farmer is a large and constant user of material from the forests in the buildings, fences, implements, and machines of the farm, and even in the toys of his children. And it is interesting to 206 RURAL SOCIOLOGY note that a recent estimate of the amount of lumber annually worked up into toys alone places it at 50,000,000 board feet. Second, farmers are interested in the comfort and safety of the nation, and wood products enter as an important item into both. The rents and housing conditions of the masses in cities are governed to a considerable extent by the lumber supply; and in the time of such national emergencies as war, forest materials are most crucial factors. Third, lumbering and logging are related to the seasonal labor supply, in which the farmer is vitally interested, since he is a large user of such labor. The estimates as to the amount of forest lands in the United States vary all the way from 465,000,000 to about 600,000,000 acres, the variations being due largely to differences as to what is to be called forest land. The following estimate of the Depart- ment of Labor, for example, places the total amount of forest land of every sort at 565,000,000 acres and places the requisite area for national needs at 450,000,000 acres, some 90,000,000 acres of which would consist of the woodlots on farms. The remaining 115,000,000 acres would be released for agricultural purposes. Almost ten per cent, on the average, of the area in farms would consist of woodlots, the percentage varying from 5 in the West-Mississippi prairie states to 20 in New England, South Atlantic, and Gulf States. The Mountain zones of the nation will comprise about half of the 360,000,000 acres of the potential forest area outside of farms, 10 per cent of which will lie in the southern Appalachians and 80 per cent in the moun- tains of the western states. The other 180,000,000 acres will embrace the forests outside the mountain zone and the timber tracts between farms. Such a plan provides a distribution of forests to meet the needs of the various portions of the nation and to obviate the expense incident to long hauls. According to W. B. Greely, United States Forester, the forest domain has been reduced from an original 822,000,000 acres containing 5,200 billion board feet of timber to 463,000,000 acres containing about 2,214 billion board feet of timber of merchantable sizes. This forest area is made up of the following classes of forestry: "137,000,000 acres of virgin timber; 112,- 000,000 acres of culled and second growth timber large enough for sawing, 133,000,000 acres partially stocked with smaller NATIONAL WELFARE ^07 growth, and 81,000,000 acres of devastated and practically waste land."i While the nation has an ample supply of forests for ordinary purposes now, it met great difficulty in securing general con- struction material and certain special materials such as high grade hardwood during the recent war. It is said by forest experts that had the national emergency come fifteen years later, the Government would have been severely embarrasssd. Great sections of the nation which formerly had an abundance of timber now depend on distant sections for larger portions of their lumber and other forest products, being forced to pay for long-distance transportation. We have practiced "timber mining" instead of "timber culture" and now face shortages in certain forest products, and greatly increased prices. The forests are being used up much faster than timber is being grown. We cut and destroy about 56 billion board feet or 26 billion cubic feet of timber material a year and grow only about 6 billion cubic feet. But "the true index of timber depletion is not quantity but availability."^ In 1850, when the source of lumber supply was near the place of its use, the cost of transportation was about $3 a thousand board feet. Now when the bulk of the lumber lised has to be shipped from the South and the Pacific Coast, the cost is probably $10 a thousand and promises to be 50 per cent more. How this destruction of the original supplies of timber has occurred is depicted in the graph on page 208. It is seen that in 1850 the Northeastern states furnished about 55 per cent of the total amount of lumber cut and that its percentage declined rapidly until it reached the 10 per cent point in 1914. The forest supply of the Lakes states was just beginning to be developed in 1850, when the cut there was about 10 per cent of the total. But these states developed their lumber industry rapidly, contributing aboiit 36 per cent of the nation's supply by 1890, then suffered rapid exhaustion of supply, since the percentage cut was only 10 in 1914. When their supply began to promise a decline, the forests of the South began to be * Greely, Timber Depletion and the Answer, U. S. Dept. of Agr. Circular 112, p. 3. ' Greely, loc. cit. 208 RURAL SOCIOLOGY drawn on heavily. Their output equaled that of the North- eastern states by 1890, that of the Lakes states about 1900, and rose to between 45 and 50 per cent of the total cut in 1914. The lumbering industry of the Pacific Coast states has developed rapidly since 1900, now supplies 20 per cent of the lumber cut, and promises to be our main dependence in the near future. Lumber Cut by Geoups op States, in Pee Cent op Total, 1850 to 1914 * Per Cent 60r 50 40 30 20 10 1850 / iLo-f. i;i^ ■^ / ^\j / / \ ^ ./ ^ "^ ^ s ^ ><:|£«te_ -^ c ^ Paeige ^ sisis^ 1914 Per Cent 60 50 40 30 20 10 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 * McKaye, Employment and Natural Resources, Department of Labor, Washington, In all the older forest regions, lumber mills have been closing down and moving elsewhere for a long time. It is estimated that the supply of yellow pine in the South will be exhausted within 10 years, and that the next five or seven years will witness the death of over 3,000 manufacturing plants. Wood pulp mills have ceased to multiply in this country, American capital is going to Canada to develop that industry, and paper made from pulp has become scarce and costly. Other industries dependent on forest supplies are threatened and their products are limited. An adequate forest policy would change the situation in due time. The forest area of New England is nearly that of France, namely, about 25,000,000 acres; yet France grows 50 per cent more products yearly than does New England and previously to the Great War she approached the point where almost all of her domestic needs could be met. On the other hand, New England, NATIONAL WELFARE 209 with but a fraction of the population of France, was importing from other sections a third of its required forest products and was engaged in further destroying its forests. "Timber mining" has taken place with resulting destruction of the forests because the forest industry has been wholly in the hands of private individuals and corporations, considerably over 90 per cent of such industry being so owned and conducted. The reasons these enterprises mined and so destroyed forests are: the desire to secure the results of their investments during their lifetime; the great menace of having the forest property de- stroyed by fire; the taxes placed on standing timber; and, in some sections, such as the Northwest, the payment of 6 per cent interest on timber lands. It is expected that forest destruction will continue until the Government either becomes owner of the forests or provides regulations that will conserve our supplies by proper lire protection and timber growing. An adequate forest policy would help stabilize labor and give to forest laborers the advantages and blessings of a home and community. The forest industry in the United States requires the labor of hundreds of thousands of "lumber- jacks" during a portion of the year. A recent writer says that the lumber-jack is "womanless, voteless, and jobless." This is true because he has to move constantly to keep with the migrating industry, and because the job is seasonal. Hence the lumber-jack has com- monly been a hobo, made such by the nature of his work. Were the forest industry put on a proper, stable basis, con- sisting of timber culture instead of timber mining, all this wovdd be changed. For then the worker would be able to establish a home and to dwell in modernized communities. Proper methods of forest culture would create permanent working circles or units within the forests, each one containing two kinds of forest communities. The sawmill community will be localized and per- manent. The logging community will be only relatively per- manent, as it may have to move about within the circle from time to time as the larger timber is cut out. But the conserva- tion and culture of oncoming timber will insure it permanent work within the given circle. However the construction of high- ways and the use of motor trucks will go far toward making it possible to maintain a permanent community to which loggers could retire at night. Then with the presence of cultural insti- 210 RUEAL SOCIOLOGY tutions and self-government, the homeless and undesirable type of lumber- jack will disappear. That this plan is not theoretical is proved by the case of Europe. In Switzerland 10,000 acres of forest and 3,000 acres of agricialtural land supports a prosperous community of 1,500. Reforestation in certain courtes of France has increased popu- lation from 1,600 to 14,000. It is estimated that in Europe as a whole 80 per cent of the woodsmen live in their homes on small holdings near the forests they work. An application of timber culture to the permanent forest area of the nation would give a yield of 60 billion feet of lumber alone and employment for 700,000 men. Together with their families, they would constitute a population of about 3,500,000. Besides, there would be a large additional force employed to plant trees, make and repair roads and buildings, make improvements, and do other work. The experience of Europe shows that individual owners will not adopt timber culture voluntarily. Hence, it is certain that the Government must regulate cutting and planting of timber or else own the forests. CONSKBVATION OP MINERAL AND WATER POWER RESOURCES In common with other classes in society, the farmer is inter- ested in having incorporated in a national land policy provisions for the proper conservation and utilization of mineral resources and the power resident in water-power sites. The chief mineral in which the greatest interest and necessity attaches at present is coal. The methods employed in mining coal have been as wasteful as have those in the forest industry. Reputable engineers estimate that over a half of the bituminous coal deposits thus far mined have been wasted. This has oc- curred chiefly from the fact that the mining business has been a speculative one and that the Government gave the coal lands away and has exercised little regulation over the coal industry. But a regard for the future needs of the nation in view of the exhaustible nature of the coal supply requires that a national policy be developed and adopted which will secure economy in methods of coal production as well as stability and continuity of employment to the miners. The national Government should cease to sell its coal deposits in the states and Alaska and either NATIONAL WELFARE 211 mine them itself or lease them under such terms and with such royalties as will insure the interest of the public. Further, it should insist that coal mined should be transformed into electric energy at the head of the mines, so far as possible, for distribu- tive purposes, thus doing away with the wasteful cost of trans- portation. The great permanent source of energy for heating and power resides in the water power of streams and in connection with them. The supply of coal will fail ultimately but this source is undying. It is estimated that about 60,000,000 horse power can be developed from the streams of the nation and that by com- pounding flood waters a far greater total would be possible. So far, only about 8,000,000 horse power has been developed. The mining of coal demands a great expenditure of human labor and the fatalities and casualties connected therewith are enormous. But the development of water power requires only the initial labor of constructing the plant, thus conserving labor and eliminating great mortality and many accidents. Unless the Government retains in its own hands the control of the water- power sites, there is abundant reason to believe that any stabiliz- ing results on labor used in the construction of plants or in compounds will be dissipated and that the public 's interest in the price of energy produced will be lost. SOME HISTORIC AND PROPOSED liAND POLICIES The United States has had no very definite and constructive policy relative to the allotment of its vast public domain, yet there are several phases of development which may be discovered. These have been called disposal, retention, acquisition, and devel- opment. The disposal phase included the allotment which obtained down to about 1840 of large and small parcels to individuals and companies by contract, credit, or cash sales ; pre-emption by settlers until 1891; homesteading by settlers after 1862; exten- sive grants made to states and corporations. The area given to railways mounts into the hundreds of millions of acres and probably equals a domain as large as the Original Thirteen States. The retention and reform phase in the disposition of public lands began about three decades ago. The Government was 212 RURAL SOCIOLOGY urged to retain ownership of the public domain and has exercised retention of national forest areas, chiefly on the divides of west- ern mountains, national parks and monuments, portions of Indian Reservations not allotted, and Alaskan coal lands. The acquisi- tion of forest land began with the Weeks law of 1911 and several areas have been purchased, such as the White Mountain reserve in New England and that of the southern Appalachians. At the present time, the plan calling for the development of the public domain is being advocated and practiced. Instances are seen in Government irrigation projects authorized by the reclamation act of 1902 and the construction of the Alaskan railway to the Montanuska coal fields and to connect the Yukon valley with the southern coast. The public domain now comprises about 427,000,000 acres, of which over 90 per cent is in the Mountain and Pacific states. Prior to the Great War, several nations had developed con- structive and progressive national land policies. The small king- dom of Denmark, where a half of the farmers were tenants and the land was chiefly in large estates, enacted land, educational, and cooperative legislation about 1890. The result is seen in the fact that tenancy has shrunk to 10 per cent, the large estates have passed into small farms, annual farm exports have risen from $12,000,000 to $125,000,000 as the effect of renewed spirit and cooperative farming and marketing, and emigration out of the nation and migration from the farms have practically ceased. Australia and New Zealand also sought to control their lands for the public. The New Zealand method is illustrative of pro- gressive modes of procedure. Large estates, chiefly grazing lands, it was found, militated against farming and national develop- ment. From 1878 on it was sought to break up large holdings by placing a tax on holdings of 500 acres or more, graduated according to size of holding. This did not succeed, because graz- ing sheep on natural grass was so profitable. Then the policy of compulsory sale was adopted. With a sufficient demand on the part of settlers, large estates of freehold land might be purchased by compulsion. In this way some 200 estates were purchased by the state up to 1910 and about 5,000 farmers settled on land. Again, the Government withdrew from sale large areas purchased from aborigines and allotted the land to settlers on the basis of lease, chiefly, instead of ownership. NATIONAL WELFARE 213 As a result of the two policies, the population increased rapidly between 1890 and 1910, the number of farm workers more than doubled, the number of farms almost doubled, and agricultural exports increased from $45 to $74 per capita. A phase of land settlement in Australia consisted in the estab- lishment of ready-made farm colonies. This means that the Government planned communities instead of isolated farms and that the farms were made ready for occupancy and immediate farming occupations by the settlers. Both New Zealand and Australia have expanded the operation of their laws to meet the needs of returned soldiers. The various provinces of Canada have likewise sought to furnish soldiers with agricultural land. Most of the capital required for purchase of the land and for improvements is furnished by the Dominion and the Provinces. The interest rate is relatively low, the time of payment long, amortization prevails, and, in default of farm- ing experience, preparatory training is required or nearby dem- onstration farms for observation and advice are established. Up to 1922, the Canadian Government had settled 27,000 re- turned soldiers on land and loaned them $85,000,000.^ Great Britain has also sought to increase the number of its farms and farmers by increasing allotments from 1,500,000 to 2,000,000. Other necessary provisions accompany the effort. Some of the states of the Union have initiated land settlement plans. California, in particular, has made a valuable beginning. In 1917 an act to create a land settlement board was passed, authorizing the purchase by the state of areas not in excess of 10,000 acres together with the necessary water rights and rights of way. Land allotments were to be in the shape of small farms of about 20 acres and of two-acre farm labor tracts. The board was empowered to do everything necessary to prepare the area for actual farming operations, such as subdivision, clearing, leveling, ditching, fencing, erecting houses and buildings, making roads, etc. Appropriations were made for the purchase of the lands. Within ninety days after the opening of the colony at Durham, the sites were all sold and the colony was in operation. Professor Ellwood Mead is largely responsible for the California plan and its chief features were borrowed from Australia. These features are : residence of farmers and farm laborers in a central ' Grand Forks Eerald, N. Dak., Jan. 21, 1922. 214 RURAL SOCIOLOGY village, the establishment of cooperative marketing associations, provision of agricultural experts to direct farm operations, stand- ardizing breeds of cattle, small initial purchase price and long- time amortization payment plan with reasonable rate of interest. While this is a good beginning, especially considering the fact that a second area at Delhi is in process of development, as yet it barely touches the land situation in California. Also it appears that no provision is made to guard state purchasers against speculative land prices; and the state has done nothing to break up the enormous holdings which are held for speculative pur- poses and which prevent the development of family farms, although it is reported by the State Land Settlement Board that the large grain farms of California are in process of breaking up. Wyoming has moved toward a plan of land settlement. It proposes cooperation between the state and the nation to develop irrigation communities, the national Government to conduct and operate the irrigation system, the state to care for subdividing, selling, and settling of the land and to furnish capital and advice to settlers. Otherwise, the lines of the California idea are fol- lowed. As a result of the problems of employment which promised to result from the demobilization of men at the termination of war, many bills have been introduced in Congress providing for some form of land settlement. Secretary Lane of the Interior Depart- ment has sponsored the Mead plan of farm colonies as a national scheme. He proposed that irrigable, drainable, and cut-over lands be reclaimed through cooperation between states and nation, be prepared for actual farming operations as in Cali- fornia and Australia, and be allotted to soldiers. The Govern- ment would furnish the settling soldier 95 per cent of the capital for the purchase of land, not over three-fourths of the value of the improvements, and not over 75 per cent of the value of equip- ment. The settler would repay the Government for the land in forty amortizing payments at 5 per cent interest, for improve- ments in ten amortizing payments at 4 per cent interest, and for the equipment in five annual payments at 4 per cent interest. His ideas are represented in the Mondell Bill. The Secretary of the Interior would administer the plan. A somewhat similar but broader plan is embodied in the Kelley Bill. Under its provisions not only soldiers but other citizens NATIONAL WELFARE 215 may attain land. The administrative agency is the Soldiers' Land Board, consisting of the Secretaries of Interior, Agricul- ture, and Labor acting through a Director. To conserve natural resources and to make them a means of providing permanent and profitable employment and of promoting "real wages," the national Government is empowered to reserve any portion of the public domain and to have donated, to lease, purchase, or con- demn land for forests, mines, and water power. Labor employed in reclaiming land is to operate on the eight-hour basis and is to have benefit of the provisions of workmen's compensation, minimum wage, and other similar laws. Some interesting efforts have been made in this country and Great Britain in the direction of private settlement or coloniza- tion of land. These are attempts to get the poor of the cities on to the land. They are meritorious, but they operate on a small scale only and so promise little toward the solution of the land problem. A MODERN POLICY FOR AGRICULTURAL LAND SETTLEMENTS While there is little question that a modern and progressive land policy should include provisions for public retention, acqui- sition, and development of water power sites, forest and mineral lands as well as agricultural lands, limitation of space forbids consideration of other than the latter. It is hoped that the suc- ceeding points will be an aid to secure an intelligent apprecia- tion of what such a policy should provide for. Necessity for compressed statement may make the exposition appear unduly dogmatic. 1. It has become evident that a land settlement scheme should aim to provide allotments for others than soldiers. Demobiliza- tion has passed, the threat of an immediate surplusage of labor did not materialize, and soldiers have settled back into society without undue disturbance. To find a place for returning sol- diers has ceased to be a great problem. Nevertheless the interests of this class should have first place in our consideration. Their loyal support of the nation at a critical time deserves a generous treatment. Before demobilization, many of the men longed to take up outdoor life when returned to civil status. Many thou- sands of Canadian troops indicated a desire to farm and thou- sands are being settled on farms. The larger portion of settlers 216 RURAL SOCIOLOGY at Durham, California, are service men, and it is likely that a large percentage of our recent soldiers would still take advantage of liberal provisions for taking up productive lands and they should be given the preference. But with three million new farms possible, the demand by soldiers could be met and still there would be plenty of opportunity for others. It is desirable that tenants of farms, farm laborers, and inhabitants of cities who desire to live on the land should have a chance. The national welfare demands the building up of the largest possible pros- perous agricultural population. 2. It is of importance that all the available and widely dis- tributed arable land of the nation should be comprised in the scheme. To confine it to reclaimable irrigable land would be unfortunate, since this would represent but a small percentage of available areas, would postpone actual productive farming operations for years until reclamation was accomplished, and force settlers far from the centers of our national life and from relatives and friendships — all unnecessary hardships, since un- used but productive land exists in abundance near at hand. Hence, areas capable of drainage, cut-over lands, unused portions of farms, and abandoned farms should be included, also; but none should be so included which a careful investigation and classification of soils as to productivity demonstrates would not support a family in comfort or pay a living wage to the worker. It is further essential that farm land not included within defi- nite reclamation "projects" should be made available for settle- ment; understanding the term project to mean an area a few miles square purchased or set aside by state or nation which is to be devoted to the establishment of an integral and organic farm colony. Many tenant farms might be available for indi- vidual settlement and unavailable for community colonization. Numerous soldiers and other citizens could be indulged in their preference to locate near old associates. 3. The national Government should be the primary agent and ultimate authority in the formulation, promotion, and control of. a competent land settlement plan. It owns a great public domain, possesses final and full authority to exercise the right of eminent domain, and alone is competent to determine what is necessary to promote the national welfare. Hence it should formulate a national plan for land settlement, make suitable appropriations NATIONAL WELFARE 217 to carry it out, and. provide competent administrative agencies. But since the more immediate jurisdiction over most of the land areas comprised within states resides with state authority, the plan should provide for cooperation between the nation and the various states. Relative to administering the plan, it would appear that executive authority should be embraced in the De- partments of Agriculture, Interior, and Labor, rather than in one of these alone, since the interests of all are so vitally con- cerned with the disposition of land and its resources. It is understood that appropriations made by state or nation would be in the nature of a revolving fund to be used to develop the plan but to be returned ultimately to the governmental unit making the appropriation, since settlers are to repay govern- mental investments in land, reclamation, improvements, and equipment. 4. There should be some method provided by which the settlers would be guarded against having to pay too great a price for the land purchased. There would be a temptation for real estate speculators to unload their land on the government at excessive prices. Competent boards to appraise land and fix values would offer a safeguard. In New Zealand, a law that the selling price of land offered the Government should be the taxing value in case the Government did not purchase it had a whole- some effect. 5. The Australian, California, "Wyoming, and Canadian plans of land settlement contemplate the establishment of ready-made farms and farming communities. Each project represents such a community of ready-made farms and farm homes. The essential ideas of this community-colony plan are these. The farms and villages are planned in advance and made ready for occupancy and' operation. The village is the residence of farmers and is provided with warehouses, schools, stores, recreation facilities, dairies, possibly slaughter-houses and cold storage plants, and means for wholesale buying and selling. The farms radiate from the village, the smaller ones of, say, five acres clustering nearby, the larger ones lying beyond. Besides farms are small holdings — of about two acres each — for farm laborers and artisans. Coop- erative buying and selling of commodities and community owner- ship of expensive machinery and blooded stock for breeding purposes is provided for. Where colonies are located near market 218 RURAL SOCIOLOGY cities, motor truck marketing is contemplated so as to place producer and consumer in touch with each other. Economy and efficiency are secured by having houses designed by competent architects and building done at wholesale. Remarks are in order respecting two of these items. It would be a great economy and prevent much hardship to have the farm ready made and ready to operate when the settler purchases it. Reclaiming irrigable, drainable, or cut-over land entails heavy and expensive operations. Left to himself, the settler must do this at great disadvantage and with much waste of time and money, while at the same time trying to make a living. Living in a tent with a family, without conveniences, until he can con- struct a home, then to live off of the first few acres reclaimed for years until more can be reclaimed is a disheartening pro- cedure. It often means broken health, broken will, and failure. A central directing agency can do all of this pioneer work better and cheaper and the expense then added to the purchase price of the plant. The settler can then begin to produce to the full capacity of the farm, and his family to live a wholesome life. The development of such farm colonies is adding something to our conception of farm life, not only in realizing sociability for farmers but in effecting a more economical arrangement of farms relative to communication with each other and with the community center. It is not proposed that all farm communities should be exactly alike but that there should be a variety of tj'pes, each suited to particular conditions, such as fruit raising, grain raising, irriga- tion, and so on. 6. There are certain important conditions governing the purchase of a farm by settlers which should be understood. These relate to the kinds and time of payments, interest on de- ferred payments, and nature of the tenure conveyed to purchaser. The two bills before Congress mentioned above make provision for three kinds of loans by the Government to settlers: on the land, on improvements, and on equipment. (1) Each bill pro- vides that the settler furnish 5 per cent of the purchase price of the land at the time of making the contract. The remainder is to be divided into forty equal annual payments, including interest on unpaid principal. This is the amortization plan, the debt being liquidated at the end of forty years. In one case the NATIONAL WELFARE 219 interest is 5 and in the other 4 per cent. These are liberal terms and with average luck the settler should be able to pay out. (2) The Mondell Bill proposes that the Government shall furnish the settler not over $1,500 for improvements or not more than three- fourths of their value, the same to be paid back in ten amortized payments at 4 per cent interest. In the Kelley Bill the Govern- ment may not loan over $2,000 on improvements, nor shall any such loan exceed three-fourths of their value, the settler repaying the loan in forty amortizing payments at 4 per cent interest. The latter provision is the fairer, since settlers will have the hardest struggle to succeed in farming during the first few years and the early payments should be lightened as much as possible as a consequence. (3) The Mondell Bill provides for not more than $1,200 for livestock and equipment nor more than three- fourths of the value of livestock, nor more than 60 per cent of the value of equipment ; the loan thus made the settler to be re- paid in five annual installments with interest at 4 per cent. Additional loans not to exceed two-thirds of the cash investment may be extended to settler by the Secretary of the Interior, who, also, in an emergency, may extend the time of the loan. The Kelley Bill provides not over $1,000 for equipment to be repaid in five annual installments with interest at 4 per cent. The Board may defer payment not over two years in case of partial or total loss of crop by settler. These provisions are the most liberal of all those pertaining to land settlements among fifteen English-speaking countries, in- cluding the United States, and are to be regarded as just and adequate. In respect to tenure, a variety of provisions are made. British Columbia gives the soldier a title to the land ; Ontario, a patent after five years; New Zealand, a 66-year lease or a freehold; South Australia, a perpetual lease; Tasmania, a 99-year lease or right of purchase after ten years; and New South Wales, a perpetual lease, at 2i/^ per cent on the capital value, besides water rent. There are other variations, but these illustrate the more important methods of approach respecting tenure. Both the Mondell and the Kelley Bill provide that the settler shall obtain the full ownership of the land. But it is the opinion of the best students of land settlement policies that the tenure should not be outright ownership but a perpetual lease, with 220 RURAL SOCIOLOGY the right to convey the lease to others with provisions for receiv- ing indemnity for improvements made at settler 's expense. One of the chief objects of inaugurating a national land settlement system is to prevent the recurrence of the evils in our present land-holding scheme, such as speculation and monopolization, the growth of tenancy, and the like. To bestow absolute owner- ship means, in all likelihood, the recurrence of those evils. But the owner of a lease is bound to farm the land and cannot rent it to others. Neither can he sell the land to others interested in land consolidation and speculative schemes. 7. If land settlement is to be highly successful, some pro- vision should be made for giving settlers without any or due experience in farming a preparatory training. There are many persons who desire to be farmers and should settle on farms, who never have farmed. Practically all of the English-speaking coun- tries include this item in their settlement plans. They furnish demonstration or training farms where the inexperienced pros- pective farmer receives a preparation. This is also included in the California plan, and the Kelley Bill authorizes the establish- ment of demonstration farms in connection with projects. None is required in the Mondell measure, but it may be that the administrative agent has authority to provide for the necessary training. Without such required training, numerous failures, disappointments, and hardships are inevitable. TOPICS FOR READING AND DISCUSSION 1. History of land policies of the United States. See Kef. to Morman. 2. Private colonization of land. See Ref. to Ely. 3. Large land holdings in California. See Ref. to Land Holdings, Cal. 4. Work of the Soldier Settlement Board of Canada. See Eef. to Land Settlements, Can. 5. Lessons from Canadian experience in land settlement. See Eef. to Magnusson, pp. 115-124. 6. The graduated land tax. See Eef. to Cal. Commission. 7. Methods of forest land utilization. See Eef. to Magnusson, pp. 125-142. S. Wastes in the production of bituminous coal. The Dial, Vol. 67: 394-7. REFERENCES Adams, Romanzo — "Public Eange Lands — A New Policy Needed," Ameri- can Journal of Sociology, 22: 324-351. Alden, Percy — Democratic England, "The Land and the Landless," p. 238fE; Macmillan, 1912. NATIONAL WELFARE 221 Bakeb, O. E., and Strong, H. M. — "Arable Land in the U. S., " Yearbook of the U. S. Dept. of Agr., 1918: 433-41. Cox, Alonzo B. — Chairman Committee on ' ' Study Program of American Association for Agricultural Legislation, ' ' pp. 3-6. Ely, Richard T. — "Private Colonization of Land," reprint from Ameri- can Economic Review, Sept., 1918. Fay, C. R. — "The Small Holdings Movement in England," in Nourse, Agricultural Economics, p. 681ff. FoRDHAM, MoNTAQUE— 14 Short History of English Eurai Life; Seribners, 1916. George, Henry — ' ' Our Land Policy as it is and as it Should Be, ' ' iu Nourse, Agricultural Economics, 676-9. Graves, Henry S. — Private Forestry, Circular 129, U. S. Dept. of Agr. Gbeely, W. B. — Timber Depletion and the Answer, Dept. Circular, 112, U. S. Dept. of Agr., 1920. Haney, LEVi'is H. — "Land Eeform in Texas," in Nourse, Agricultural Economics, 681-3. HiBBAKD, Benj. H. — Effect of Our Public Land Policy, in NouKSE, Agricul- tural Economics, 674-6. Hovste, F. C— "Land Settlement and the Soldier," The Nation, 108: 426-7. Kelly Bill, The; Soldiers' Land Bill, 66th Cong., 1st Session, H. R. 7004. "Land for Returning Soldiers," The Searchlight, Aug., 1919. Land Settlement Bd. California, Bill creating, California Senate Bill, No. 584, 1917. Land Settlement, Agricultural Training and Loans for Returned Soldiers, and other material from the Soldier Settlement Board of Canada, Ottawa, 1919. Lane, Franklin K. — Work and Homes for Our Fighting Men, Report of the U. S. Dept. of Interior, 1918. Large Land Holdings in Southern California, Report of California Com- mission of Immigration and Housing, Sacramento, 1919. LuSE, H. H. — Social Welfare in New Zealand, Bk. II, Chap. II, and Bk. Ill, Chap. II; Macmillan, 1916. McKaye, Benton — Employment and Natural Resources, U. S. Dept. of Labor, 19. Maqnusson, Leifur — Disposition of the Public Lands of the United States with Reference to Wage-Earning Labor, U. S. Dept. of Labor, 1919. Mead, Elwood — "Work and Farms for Soldiers," Review of Reviews, March, 1919: 270ff. Mondell Bill — National Soldier Settlement Act, H. R. 487, 66th Congress, Ist Session. MoBMAN, Jas. B. — The Place of Agriculture in Reconstruction, A Study of National Programs of Land Settlement; E. P. Dutton and Co., 1919. National Land and Forest Policy, A. Circular No. 134, U. S. Dept. of Agr. Nourse, Edwin G. — "Land Policy and Land Reform," Agricultural Eco- nomics, University of Chicago Press, 1916: 674-83. Report of the Committee on Public Lands, U. S. Senate, No. 580, 65th Cong., 2nd Session. Report of Chairman of California Land Settlement Board, Sacramento, Sept., 1920. Showalter, W. J. — "How the World is Fed," National Geographic Maga- zine, Jan., 1916. Snyder — "Laws of Oklahoma, 1919; Taxation as a Means of Discouraging Large Holdings, ' ' in Nourse, E. G., Agricultural Economics, 679-80. "Soldiers Who Return Too Big for Their Jobs," Literary Digest, May 31, 1919. Strong, H. M. — See under Baker. 222 RURAL SOCIOLOGY Thompson, Warren S. — Population: A Study in Malthusianism. TowNE, E. T.— Social Problems, Chap. XV; Macmillan, 1918. "Transforming Fighters into Farmers," Literary Digest, May 31, 1919, and July 20, 1918. Urban and Sural Development, Eeport of Commission of Conservation of Canada, Ottawa, 1917. Tearbooks V. S. Dept. of Agr. CHAPTER XII FARMERS AND ECONOMIC ACTION: MARKETING AND COOPERATION ^ The farmers of the United States have organized during the past for taking both economic and political action. It is not always easy to draw the line between the two kinds of activities and organizations, for organizations having specifically political effort in view very largely aim at economic results, while those organized for economic action often resort to political pressure. Thus, in 1920, after the prices of corn, cotton, and other crops fell so far below their previous levels, every national organiza- tion of farmers of considerable importance used its influence on Congress to secure legislation to restore the prices and so protect farmers from something like a six-billion-dollar loss, and several organizations cooperated to this end. It will doubtless surprise most readers to discover that there are almost innumerable farmers' organizations and organizations to promote agricultural interests. The directory published by the United States Office of Farm Management and Farm Eco- nomics lists, in 1920, 265 national, 143 interstate, and 1,761 agricultural organizations of state scope. It is believed that the list is reasonably correct and complete. It is evidently impossible to review the work of all or any considerable number of such associations, but the mere mention of the number is sufficient to demonstrate the fact that farmers and others have organized to promote the economic and social interests of agricultural com- munities. As it might be supposed, these organizations relate to almost every conceivable phase of agriculture : production of livestock, poultry, bees, and fruits; marketing and financing; education; home economics; insurance; distribution; importing; breeding; promoting community welfare, and so on. If number of organ- ' Considerable portions of this chapter appeared in the Quarterly Journal of the University of North Dakota," Vol. IX, No. 2, under the caption: ' ' Marketing Farm Produce. ' ' 223 224 RURAL SOCIOLOGY izations eoimts for anything, the interests of agriculturists should be well taken care of. Since it is impossible to go into the activities of all the numer- ous organizations for agricultural improvement, it will be necessary to confine attention to some one or two phases of farmers' organized action for economic benefits. The two phases selected are marketing of farm products and the cooperative movement among farmers. These are not exclusive, since the latter has for its aim, to a large extent, the securing of results through improved marketing devices. These two phases, especially, deserve consideration. The sub- ject of marketing farm produce has commanded the attention of farmers for decades, and probably effort to overcome what they believed to be abuses in the system has been more extensive than that in behalf of any other or almost all other objects. It is obvious that what the farmers themselves believe to be of impor- tance should receive careful consideration by students of farm life. Cooperation, in so far as it relates to marketing, would necessarily receive attention. But, further, it is. a rapidly developing movement in this country, as well as elsewhere, and as such deserves study. Again, many students of agricultural matters regard it as the most promising line of action for correct- ing abuses in the marketing system and for bringing to farmers a larger measure of the results of their productive efforts. Importance of farm marketing. — If one wants to become rich it is useless to make money unless it is saved, and it is of little avail if the farmer produces great quantities of crops and other goods if he gets for them only what it costs to produce them. Efficient farm marketing is as essential as efficient farm production. If production of crops is to duly benefit agricultural communities, it must be supplemented by a marketing process which is thoroughly economical. The general social significance of farm marketing may be illus- trated. We may suppose that a farmer's gross income from wheat, only one of the crops he produces, is $2,000 a year, and that, under the present system of marketing, he receives only 60 per cent, let us say, of the retail price, whereas a more economi- cal system might yield him 70 per cent of such price. Now, let the system of marketing wheat be improved so that the farmer receives the 70 per cent, and evidently his income from that FARMERS AND ECONOMIC ACTION 225 commodity will be increased by the amount, $233.33. Were the same economy realized relative to all the other products he sells, his total income would be substantially enlarged, thus affording the ability to provide better conditions for his family and to assist in promoting all betterment undertakings of his com- munity. It may also be noted that in so far as there are more middle- men than are necessary to carry on the marketing process, they constitute a really unnecessary burden on society generally ; and that to the extent to which middlemen organize to take more than a fair profit, they become a privileged class and a detriment to all except themselves. Attempts to improve the marketing system may result in benefits to society, other than the economics aimed at. Thus, the establishment of cooperative marketing may stimulate other cooperative undertakings, not only of a business and monetary nature but pertaining to community interests generally. This has always been recognized wherever cooperative attempts pre- vail, whether in Denmark, Ireland, England, or the United States. The democratic cooperative spirit and attitude thus gen- erated soon spreads to other things and comes to pervade the community, constituting "not the least of the benefits of coopera- tion. There is a longstanding, widespread, and deep-seated belief among farmers that the farm marketing system is loaded against them, that prices are manipulated by the middlemen, and that, as it stands, the system is incompetent to render justice to farmers. Should we conclude that where there is so much smoke there must be some fire and let it go at that; or should we earnestly test out the situation and try to arrive at a well- grounded decision ? Of course, fair-minded students of the sub- ject can only choose the latter alternative. But it is to be admitted that it is a difficult task to really demonstrate beyond peradventure a conclusion in this field, because of the complexity of the marketing situation and the dearth of accurate informa- tion on many points involved. It will first be requisite to grasp the simple functions of the marketing system. Marketing functions essential. — The accompanying general- ized scheme of the farm marketing system indicates that five sets of functionaries are involved: (1) growers of produce; (2) local 226 RURAL SOCIOLOGY shippers who gather small lots together into larger lots and ship them to the wholesale market; (3) wholesalers of many sorts whose activities overlap and duplicate to a considerable extent; (4) retailers who receive relatively small lots of goods from the wholesalers and sell to the (5) ultimate consumers. It is appar- ent that this generalized scheme overlooks the various agencies which perform the services of cartage, transportation, and, rela- tive to imperishables, the manufacture of the raw produce into the various finished forms required by the consumers. However, with this in mind, we may think of three general sets of market- ing functionaries standing in between the growers on the farm at one extreme and, at the other, the consumers of the perishables and of the imperishables in manufactured form who live in cities and countrv alike. Local Growers Shippers Idealized Scheme or Fakm Marketing System Wholesale Market Retailers Gonanmera Jobber Shipper or Exporter Cold Storage Companies Auction CompanieB Speculators and Scalpers This scheme makes the marketing system appear very simple, so simple that it would seem that almost anyone should be able to see through it, to understand it, and never be in doubt about exactly what services each set of functionaries should perform and what their costs and profits should be. In this respect it is misleading, for the situation is not so easily comprehended. In this respect it is noteworthy that it has changed wonderfully in recent times. Before the advent of railways, methods of instan- taneous and widespread communication, and world markets the growers consumed right on the farm the most of what they pro- duced, made the most of the utilities used in the process of farm- ing and in the home alike, and bartered their farm products to local storekeepers for the few groceries and conveniences they could not make. Then the marketing system was really simple, FARMERS AND ECONOMIC ACTION 227 and most persons could comprehend and understand it. But to- day it is intricate almost beyond belief, with its meshes all over the world and with its hidden processes; consequently, only relatively few persons know it in detail and can speak authori- tatively concerning it. The producer may know the agent to whom he sells his produce, and the ultimate consumer of it, liv- ing thousands of miles away, may know tlie retailer of whom he purchases; but the other agents standing between these extremes, together with the transporters and transferers, are beyond their knowledge. Their operations are hidden from both grower and consumer. They may organize to secure greater profits from their transactions than justice warrants. There may be too many sets of middlemen. There may be too many in each set. The whole matter is obscure to the growers as well as to consumers. In many cases, the price the consumer pays is so much greater than that the grower receives that sometimes a suspicion arises that chicanery has been practiced. Whether or not the suspicion against the middleman system is warranted, there is ample evi- dence that it exists widely. Now, let us consider whether or not it would be possible to dispense with any or all of the three functions which we have seen that the farm marketing system performs. It is well to distinguish between the function which an agent performs and the agent itself. The function of a horse may be a desirable and necessary one, but the horse may perform his work poorly. The functions of the marketing system may be neces- sary while, at the same time, they are inefficiently or unjustly performed. If we can decide whether or not the functions of the middleman system are necessary, we are placed in a position to judge the system. There appear to be three essential services which must be performed to carry on marketing of farm produce in our compli- cated social system. First, the collection of the small lots from the many growers in each of the thousands of localities and their assembling for shipment to places where the different kinds of produce are needed by consumers. Farmers cannot locate or reach the consumers of their goods. They must be handled by some agency which knows where goods may be marketed. The system is one of markets rather than of individuals, and the collection of small lots into large ones is an essential step toward 228 RURAL SOCIOLOGY the markets of the world. Farmers themselves may organize to do the work of collecting and shipping, but Jn so doing they merely substitute one agency for another. The function is there and they perform it rather than permit others to carry it on. Second, wholesaling is an essential function of marketing. If it is impossible for growers to find buyers and send their products to them directly, it becomes necessary to assemble the goods in large quantities at points for storage. Here the goods must await demands from distant markets, be broken up into lots of the needed size, and shipped to those markets. Some agency is bound to do this work. If it is not done, products will perish on the farm and consumers will starve in the cities and on the farm alike. It is possible that farmers may associate themselves for doing this wholesaling work for their products. But this is only to exchange one agency for another, not to abolish the function. Third, the small and frequent needs of consumers must be met. This is the function of retailers. Consumers have not the money or the storage place to purchase products in large quan- tities. Many of the farm products are perishables and may be kept only under conditions requiring great expense. Conse- quently, most consumers buy daily and in very small lots. And, under the situation of world society and world markets, it is impossible to imagine any way by which the needs of the con- sumers may be satisfied without exercising the retailing function. Various kinds of agencies may carry on this work of retailing. Again, farmers may organize themselves for the purpose of doing a retail business, but they cannot obviate the function itself. Part of middleman system farmers most concerned with. — The marketing system and the "middleman system" are almost identical and coterminous, for the middlemen constitute the agencies for carrying on the marketing process. The various sets of middlemen who stand between farm producers and con- sumers of farm produce are local shippers, wholesalers, and retailers. It is important to inquire whether, as the seller of farm produce, the farmer is equally interested in all of these stages in the process of marketing. Of the three marketing functions, the wholesaler is much more important than the retailer in determining the farm price of agricultural products. This is because the farmer's surplus in FARMERS AND ECONOMIC ACTION 229 90 per cent of farm products — from the viewpoint of nutrition and not financially — is sold in wholesale markets. The prices in these wholesale markets, in turn, are determined in London, Liverpool, New York, Chicago, and other world markets. It is in the wholesale market that American farmers compete with farmers all over the world, and there the price of the surplus product is determined which in turn determines the price of the remainder. It is only as consumers of manufactured products, not as producers of raw material, that farmers are interested with the middleman process between wholesaler and consumer, for only indirectly are farm prices on this 90 per cent of farm products affected by retail prices. But they are vitally interested, as producers, with what occurs in the marketing process between themselves and wholesalers, for any increase in handling costs is likely to come out of their pockets. The cooperative fruit growers' associations of the Pacific Coast and other similar organizations of farmers for the marketing of farm produce recognize this principle, for in their marketing activities they extend their effort only to the wholesaler. Of course, in so far as they undertake the distributive function and sell consumers' goods to. farmers, they concern themselves with the other phase of the marketing process, namely, with that be- tween wholesalers and consumers. DEFECTS OF THE FARM MARKETING SYSTEM That there are defects in the system of marketing farm produce can scarcely be denied. Theoretically, we should expect to find such defects; for there are no parts of the social system which are perfect, and the economic system, of which the marketing system is a part, is very much subject to rapid changes and fluc- tuations, some of which serve to introduce excesses and duplica- tions. Practically, only the extreme doctrinaire and certain selfish interests would deny the existence of defects in the mar- keting system in general and in the farm marketing system in particular. Certainly the authoritative students of the subject are well aware of their existence. In considering these defects of the farm marketing system, we may notice them in general or take up particular cases as illus- trations of the general situation. Perhaps it is better first to consider some charges of price-fixing and market manipulation. 230 RURAL SOCIOLOGY Is the marketing system loaded? — Is the marketing system loaded against the farmer? This is an important question in the United States and Canada at the present time. Perhaps no assertion in the field of industry in general is more often made than that the "grain dealers," the "chambers of commerce," the "grain gamblers," etc., manipulate the markets to suit them- selves and so rob the farmers out of hard-earned profits. This is an old cry in American history, harking back to the time of the Grangers, the Alliance, the People's Party, sometimes dying down to mere vague assertions, at other times bursting out into violent and definite claims. World War conditions and the great slump in farm prices since the war have served to lash the sea of charges into a most violent fury. In seeking to find a reply to the question it must be noted that the phrase, "loading the system against the farmer," may have two quite different meanings. First, it may mean that the big grain dealers and millers "get together" and "fix the market" from time to time for their own advantage. This would be market manipulation by relatively a few men. Second, the phrase may denote the rise, multiplication, extension, and perpetuation among dealers large and small of certain abuses, none very large alone but all taken together exerting a large influence. That is, particular abuses, such as those under "classification of de- fects" given later in this chapter, may spread by imitation and sometimes collusion until they become hard and fixed usages and customs. Question of market manipulation. — Let us consider first the charge that the market is manipulated by the so-called gamblers, that is by a few men. ^The form this assertion takes is that these men depress the price just before any given farm com- modity is harvested and do not permit it to ascend much until most of that commodity is out of the farmers' hands. We may illustrate this difference in price levels by the cases of cotton and the grains. A study of the monthly price fluctuations for "middling up- land spot cotton ' ' in New York for twenty -five seasons shows that ' ' in sixteen seasons the low average price actually occurred dur- ing September, October, November, and December — the four months of heaviest marketing. Of the exceptions, in five seasons the low average price occurred in the month either immediately FARMERS AND ECONOMIC ACTION 231 preceding or following this period, and in two it occurred in July. There are only two glowing exceptions to this usual course of events, one being the season of 1907-8, when the lowest price was reached in April, owing to the general business depression prevailing and the prospects of extremely favorable acreage and condition reports preceding the heavy crop of 1908-9 ; . . . and the season of 1900-01, when the low average price was reached in May." The investigators suggest that the advanced price of cotton after the marketing rush may be largely the result of more efficient marketing methods on the part of the dealers who heed the law of supply and demand and so distribute sales during the time as needed by manufacturers.^ The price situation for corn and small grain in the Chicago market by months for a ten-j-ear period is depicted in the graph on page 232, the price being a monthly average for the ten years, and plainly reveals, the systematic difference in price levels before and after harvesting. It is noted that the lowest price level for all products repre- sented, §ave corn, is reached in August, and the highest level in March. For corn the lowest level is in January and the highest in August. The difference in price levels for the small grains in August and March, a period of nine months, is 11.1 cents for wheat, 8.4 cents for rye, 7.2 cents for barley, and 5.8 cents for oats; that for corn between January and August, a period of seven months, is 12 cents. On the face of it, the graph may seem to substantiate the charges that prices are fixed against the farmer. But a few considerations make this less certain. First, in so far as grain is carried by the dealers in storage during any considerable por- tion of the periods between lowest and highest price levels, the fixed charges go far to absorb the difference in price. Thus, suppose a dealer carries dollar wheat the full nine months, he entails something like the following charges and losses: storage one-half of a cent or more a bushel per month, 4i/^ cents ; interest at 6 per cent, 4I/2 cents; shrinkage at least 5 per cent a year, 3% cents; insurance a trifle per bushel, but something; besides the cost of keeping a place of business, etc. ; a total of some 12 'B. L. Newton and J. M. Workman, "Cotton Warehousing — Benefits of an Adequate System," Yearbook U. S. Vepartnuint of Agriculture, 1918: 399-432. 232 RURAL SOCIOLOGY or 13 cents per bushel. If this figuring is at all correct — and it is probably conservative — it seems that it would not be profitable to buy and hold wheat for that length of time. As to the item Average Price on Chicago Board op Trade or Wheat, Eye, Barley, Corn, and Oats tor the Ten-Year Period, 1904-1913 Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May Jnne July Aug. Stpt. Oct. Not. Dec 110 / N 100 Wheat ____^ / N \ \ X ~— -^ 90 \ y 80 Rye N 70 ^ \ -^ ~~~~ ""^ -^ ^ Barley N 60 X > CSJS /I ■ cojS- ^ ^ \, 50 ^ ^ Oats ^^ \, 40 \ ^ of shrinkage, it is to be said that shrinkage in corn amounts to over 17 per cent a year, the highest monthly shrinkage being from April to June when it runs on the average of 3 per cent per month. When graphs are made for each year of the ten-year period, FARMERS AND ECONOMIC ACTION 233 let us say for wheat, the regularity of rise and fall with the pro- cession of months disappears; for the lines rise and fall and cross each other in the most confusing manner. This fact sug- gests that there must be more than one factor at work to deter- mine price levels, and, indeed, there are a number of determining factors. Some of these are acreage, yield, — as conditioned by weather and pests — acreage and yield in competing countries, industrial conditions, amount of inflation and of circulating medium, rate of interest and insurance, condition of competing or supplementary crops, storage rates, transportation conditions and rates, rate at which the product is marketed, milled, or ex- ported, and crop prospects for the following year both at home and abroad. Did south-equatorial wheat producing countries, which harvest their crop in the midst of our winter, export great quantities, the price at that time would doubtless be depressed. If there is anything to the so-called law of supply and demand, some such regular ascent and descent of prices as are illustrated by the ten-year curves would be expected. The bulk of any product sold goes to market within a few months after harvest, producing a temporary over-supply and a depression of prices. Later, the demand begins to catch up with the offered supply and as the supply offered for sale grows less and less, the demand heightens and prices ascend. That the apex of the small grain prices is reached in May, some two months before the new grain goes on to the market, might be suspicious were it not remem- bered that crop reports exist and that prices in speculative mar- kets begin to be influenced in view of future supplies. There are two factors which appear to have a very decisive influence on determining the price of wheat. A graphic repre- sentation of the price of wheat, its acreage and amount of crop in the United States and of the world wheat acreage and world export for the period of years, 1909-13, indicates that the annual average price is more largely determined by the size of the crop in this country than by any other or all other factors. The United States has been the great wheat exporting nation and world prices respond to the amount of its surplus. How far this factor accounts also for the monthly variation in price has not been determined. The monthly amount of wheat marketed by farmers is closely correlated with the average monthly price of wheat. This is 234 RUEAL SOCIOLOGY shown in the accompanying table and histogram relating to farm price of wheat and amounts marketed, milled, and ex- ported. In the graph the scale on the left is in terms of per cent and relates to the amount marketed and exported ; while the scale on the right is in terms of cents and relates to the price of wheat. AVERAGE MONTHLY AMOUNT OF WHEAT MARKETED BY FARMERS, MILLED, AND EXPORTED, AND THE MONTHLY AND CUMULATIVE RESIDUE FROM MILLING AND EXPORT- ING, IN MILLIONS OF BUSHELS Month Amount Marketed Amount Milled and Exported Monthly Residue Cumula- tive Residue Farm Price (First of Month) Milled Exported July 81.2 96.2 108.5 93.9 71.0 50.4 36.8 29.7 22.6 22.6 20.0 14.8 42.5 42.5 42.5 42.5 42.5 42.5 42.5 42.5 42.5 42.5 42.5 42.5 3.3 8.6 9.2 9.3 7.1 7.0 5.1 3.2 2.5 2.9 3.4 2.2 35.4 45.1 56.8 42.1 21.4 0.9 — 10.8 — 16.0 — 22.4 — 23.8 — 25.9 — 29.9 35.4 80.5 137.3 179.4 200.8 201.7 190.9 174.9 152.5 129.7 103.8 73.9 92.5 August September .... October November December January February March April May 91.1 84.6 87.6 89.0 86.3 88.4 90.3 91.1 91.8 93.5 96.2 646.7 506.0 64.1 HisTOGKAM or Farm Price of Wheat, Amount Marketed, and Amount Exported, for Varying Periods July Aug. Sept. Oct. Not. Dec. Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May Jnne FARMERS AND ECONOMIC ACTION 235 It is noted that the average amount of wheat marketed for the years 1914-19 was 646.7 million bushels, the amount milled was 506.0 million bushels, and the average annual exportation was 64.1 million bushels. The latter two amounts together do not equal the total amount marketed. But the Federal record for exports do not claim to be complete and perhaps the differ- ence is to be found in unreported exportations. There was no record obtainable of amounts milled monthly, consequently the annual total amount milled was divided equally among the twelve months. A very recent report, for 1920 and 1921, indi- cates first, that the amount of wheat exported was proportionately larger and the amount milled was smaller than above indicated ; second, that there was considerable but not marked variation in the monthly amounts milled. However, the use of a monthly average will not affect the object we have in view.' The minus signs in the fifth column indicate deficits, these being made up, of course, from the accumulated residue shown in the succeeding column. The average cumulative residue for the nine months beginning with September represents the average amount of wheat carried in the markets during that period of time. Were it possible, it is desirable that the graphs should repre- sent the same periods of time. Data covering the monthly farm price and the amount exported for a ten-year period are obtain- able from 1909 on, but not for ten years preceding the war era, during which era all market conditions were so irregular and abnormal as to be unrepresentative. The national Government has not kept a record of the monthly amount of wheat marketed prior to the time represented. However an inspection of the marketing data shows that wheat went to market at about the same rate after government control of prices during the war as before. In the case of every monthly fluctuation of price save one the price line moves in an opposite direction to that representing the monthly percentages marketed ; and much the same is true rela- tive to the amount exported. It is a case of inverse correlation ; that is, large amounts marketed mean falling prices, while little wheat left to market and a consequent decreasing amount mar- keted spells ascending prices. That the causal relationship between price and per cent mar- ' Summary Current Business, Dept. Commerce, Jan. 1, 1922, p. 79. 236 RURAL SOCIOLOGY keted is significant is denoted by the fact that the mathematical expression of the correlation is .77; 1.00, it is remembered, de- noting complete causality while, .50 or below indicates little or none. From this we conclude that either marketing regulates the monthly price or that both marketing and price are determined by some prior common causal condition. It is the opinion of the writer that the former is the true conclusion. The farmers evidently do not hold their wheat long for higher prices, since, beginning with July, 43 per cent has passed out of their hands by the last of September, and 58 per cent by the last of October. Because of shrinkage in grains, interest on invest- ments, risks, etc., it is doubtful if farmers make anything on the average by holding grain for higher prices. Occasionally they win handsomely but quite as often lose disastrously. There appears to be no published data as to how long dealers hold staple farm produce on the average before final disposal of it. The charges made by agrarian agitators and reformers imply that the dealers buy at the lowest price level about har- vesting time practically all the produce and hold it until the price apex is reached somewhat prior to the next harvest, thus making as clear profit the difference between the two levels. We have previously learned that not all of this difference in the price levels of wheat is clear profit. While we are unable to determine the average time dealers hold produce, we can estimate the average amount of wheat held by grain dealers during the nine months between the low and high price levels. According to the last graph of the farm price of wheat, the low level is on September first and the high level on June first. Estimating, from data presented in the preceding table, the cumulative residue remaining from wheat marketed by farmers after allowing for that milled and exported, and averaging this residue for the period in question, it is found that only 18.2 per cent of the amount of wheat marketed by farmers is held during the nine months. From the foregoing discussion of the charge of manipulation of prices by a few men, the conclusion may be drawn that it is difficult to demonstrate beyond peradventure either the truth or the falseness of the charge. Certain facts such as the following tend to weaken the force of the charge : the determination of prices of all produce marketed by the offering of the surplus in FARMERS AND ECONOMIC ACTION 237 world markets, such world markets being beyond the control of any small set of men of a given nation ; the effect on prices of acreage and amount produced in the nation and the world, like- wise outside the control of a small class of dealers; the costs which enter into the storage of produce held by dealers for advanced prices. Yet it is to be remembered that we have given no absolutely conclusive proof that the markets are not loaded or manipulated, to some degree at least. Question of marketing abuses. — We will now turn to the other aspect of loading the marketing system against the farmer, namely the spread, systematization, and perpetuation of small insidious abuses on the part of middlemen. This, we found, is one meaning of controlling the markets against the producers of farm products. To what extent the abuses which exist in the marketing of farm produce cut down the price the grower receives is not known, but it undoubtedly is considerable. Thus before government regulation of railways, the freight rates were excessive, and it is widely believed that the Esch-Cummins Law has again made them so. Various sets of middlemen are able to reduce competition among themselves to a considerable extent by reaching an under- standing through their associations and thus prevent the rise of prices on farm produce and the fall of prices on consumers' goods. Price-fixing has sometimes been very abusive. Thus, dealers in dairy products in New York state by this practice made a profit of 120 per cent a year.^ Growers often lose heavily by unfair grading of their produce. If grain which is number 1 is placed in grade 2, the farmer may lose several cents a bushel. Even state inspection of grain does not entirely remove the abuse. During the year ending August 31, 1913, 232,512 cars of grain were inspected in Minneapolis by the Minnesota Inspec- tion Department. Reinspection was called for on 61,205 cars, 26.3 per cent. The grade was raised on 14,476 cars, 23.7 per cent of those reinspected. Appeal for rehearing was made on 46,665 cars reinspected and the decision was raised on 7,792 of them or 16.7 per cent of those appealed. In 1906, the North Dakota Bankers Association made an in- vestigation of the farmers ' complaint about the mixing of grades of wheat at terminal elevators. At Duluth it discovered the ^Th'e New Republic, October 14, 1916, p. 257, 238 EURAL SOCIOLOGY most highly developed system of converting low grade grain into high grade. This is the record of the terminal elevator there for three months. Grade of Wheat Bushels Received Bushels Shipped No. 1 Northe rn 99,711.40 141,455.10 272,047.20 201,267.20 116,021.10 59,742.30 196,288.30 No. 2 467,764.00 No. 3 213,549.30 No. 4 None TJeiected None Total 890,244.30 877,512.00 12,733.10 ma ted 890,245.10 The total price of the wheat bought was. sold " . ( < it II . $875,405.66 . 959,126.35 Profits by change in grade $ 83,720.69 Besides this there were the screenings or so-called dirt in wheat for which the farmer receives dockage at the local elevators. The committee of the Bankers Association testified that this amounted to at least three-fourths of a pound a bushel, and prob- ably as much as two pounds or more. These screenings were sold by the local elevators at $8 a ton.^ Where trusts operate, numerous abuses are likely to arise in marketing and manufacturing processes. The Federal Trade Commission reported that it discovered that the packing trust had absolute control of the supply of meats and by-products of slaughtering, and were reaching out into other fields to control the supply of poultry, fish, fertilizers, and canned vegetables and fruit. It controlled great banks, chambers of commerce, com- mercial clubs, railroad systems, terminals, stockyards, and facili- ties for feeding the livestock that had arrived at the markets. The number of cattle purchased and the price to be paid were fixed by secret agreement among the "big five" packing com- panies. Petty gouges were practiced wherever possible.^ As a result of the Commission's report, the President of the United ' Testimony before the Interstate Commerce Commission in the matter of "Relations of Common Carriers to the Grain Trade," pp. 1061-62. Made a public document: 59th Congress, 2nd Session, Document 278. "The Public, April 6, 1918; Chicago Herald ani Examiner, August 9, 1918, FARMERS AND ECONOMIC ACTION 239 States commandeered all stockyards, storage plants, warehouses, and refrigerator and cattle cars employed in the meat industry. Due to public pressure, a law was passed by Congress for the regulation of the packing companies in some of these directions. As to whether or not speculative buying and selling of agri- cultural products decreases farm prices or withholds from the farmer a legitimate share of the consumer's price is a mooted question. The organized farmers and their proponents usually hold that it does, while produce dealers and representatives of chambers of commerce generally maintain that it does not. The latter contend that speculative buying and selling steadies the market, thus protecting farmers from disastrous fluctuations in prices, and even decreases the cost of marketing. It may be admitted that the value of the steadying effect is apparent and that speculation in the form of hedging at least is necessary and useful. There is an aspect, however, that looks questionable. Considering the enormous volume of this speculative buying and selling, together with the great number of agents who carry it on and get their livelihood out of it, the common sense con- clusion is likely to be that it all goes to increase the cost of goods, even if it does not depress farm prices. Thus the estimates of the amount of speculative buying and selling of wheat alone in the Chicago market range from 15 billion to 90 billion bushels annually, whereas only 50 million bushels a year actually pass through that market.' Again, the Federal Food Administration found in Chicago that certain two carloads of eggs were bought and sold nine times without any thought of delivery.'' The ordinary inference is that such dealing either adds to the cost of products or else that the dealers and speculators are living off one another's fat. The latter inference is a difficult one to make, unless the further assumption is made that fresh lambs constantly present themselves in the speculative market to be shorn. The spread between farmer and consumer. — What part of the consumer's price does the farmer receive for his products? Some very exaggerated replies are made to this question. If we could answer it and also tell what portion of the consumer's price collectors, or shippers, transportation agencies, wholesalers, ' Nonpartisan Leader, June 3, 1918. 'Chicago Herald and Examiner, June 6, 1918. 240 RURAL SOCIOLOGY and retailers receive, we would be in a better position to decide on the merits or demerits of the marketing system. It is difficult to ascertain the cost of marketing farm products because of the great variation of prices due to seasons and regions and of the widely different methods of marketing them. But it appears that it costs less to market manufactured goods than farm products. Adams estimated that the average cost of marketing manufactured products is from 30 to 40 per cent of the consumers' price, while for farm products it is from 40 to 50 per cent. The average for staples is 20 to 25 ; for semi-staples, such as livestock, tobacco, hay, etc., 35 to 40 ; and for perishables, such as poultry produce, dairy produce, fruits, and vegetables, 60 to 65 per cent.^ G. K. Holmes believes the farmer gets about 50 per cent of the consumer's price for perishables; Weld esti- mates the same for Minnesota at 60 per cent and for the United States at 55 to 60 per cent.^ Roughly averaging these estimates for farm products of all sorts, it might be said that growers receive about half of the consumers ' prices. Besides the cost of transportation and the other items of mar- keting, there is a heavy one for wastage in the case of farm perishables. Adams says : "It is estimated that between 20 and 30 per cent of perishables as a class decay on the farm before they are sold. At least 25 per cent of the perishables which arrive at the wholesale markets is hauled to the dump-pile. . . . In warm weather Florida oranges lose 30 per cent in transpor- tation alone. . . . There is a loss of 17 per cent in eggs from producer to consumer. . . . The greater proportion of the perish- ables which are consumed in the cities are much inferior, because of partial deterioration, to what they were when they left the farm. It is not an overestimate, therefore, to say that between 30 and 40 per cent of the perishables which are raised on the farms are not consumed at all, but are a complete social loss.' When we -remember that perishables are 25 per cent of all farm products, we are able to appreciate how wasteful and costly our system now is, since nearly 9 per cent of all farm products are wasted. Now what are we to say? Does the farmer get too small a 'Adams, Marketing Perishable Farm Products, pp. 20-21. ^Weld, Marketing Farm Products, pp. 176-178. 'Adams, loc. cit., pp. 24-25. FARMERS AND ECONOMIC ACTION 241 portion of the consumers' price? He spends a season or a year or several years growing his products. They pass through mar- keting processes for a few days or months and sell for twice what he received for them. On the face of it, the system looks unjust to the farmer. But if all the functions are necessary and if none of the agents receive too much for their work, and if there are not too many agents, then the case is different. A few points are clear relative to the situation : Transporta- tion ordinarily forms a very small part of the marketing costs. Where the products do not undergo manufacturing processes between grower and consumer, the wholesalers take from 5 to 10 per cent of the retailer's price. Too many wholesalers, each making a comfortable living by handling produce, serves to run up the price. The most inefficient and expensive marketing specialists are the retailers. On the average, they take about 47 per cent of the consumer's price, almost as much as the farmer gets. Too many retailers, causing duplication and waste, ineffi- ciency in business, dishonesty at times, and demands made by consumers for frequent deliveries, small amounts of goods pur- chased at a time, etc., are some of the causes of the high retail cost. In estimating what they should charge, middlemen make a liberal allowance for interest on investment and for managing ability, and, since they commonly are organized, partly for the control of selling prices, they are in a position to obtain some or all of their demands. On the other hand, the farmers are not effectively organized to protect their interests. Consequently the interest the farmer is able to get from his invested capital is much lower than in business lines and he recovers little or nothing for managing ability. That the spread of price between farmer and wholesaler is sometimes too great is demonstrated by the experience of the Food Administration during the Great War. Mr. Herbert Hoover, who was Chief of that service, has made two generaliza- tions from the experience. First, the margin of prices between farmers and wholesalers is fully 25 per cent higher here than in European countries, a part of which difference is due to the wide separation between producing and consuming areas. Second, this margin was greatly widened during the war, and the same is true of the margin between wholesaler and consumer. The margin on wheat between farmer ^nd consumer rose to about 242 RURAL SOCIOLOGY $11 a barrel in 1917 but was reduced to and maintained at about $3.50 per barrel after the Food Administration took control. Relative to hogs, while the farmer gained $7.92 in his price between 1914 and 1920, the margin between farmer and con- sumer increased $10.82. During the first year after food con- trol restraints were removed, the consumer's price rose 30 cents and the farmer 's price decreased 90 cents. Probably one of the strongest proofs that the middleman system is wasteful and that farmers prices are unjustifiably low as a general thing lies in the fact that cooperative enterprises for marketing farm produce are growing so rapidly and are doing such an extensive business. Conceivably such a development might only denote that the farmers are following a delusion that such a line of action is profitable. But that the course of action is not the outcome of a mere delusion can be shown. Powell, who is one of the best authorities on cooperative enter- prises, states that the cooperative method of marketing citrus fruit in California "sometimes doubles the net returns to the growers without affecting the price which the consumer has to pay, ' ' and in general has reduced the cost of handling and pack- ing the crop one-half. Another instance is seen in the case of the Wisconsin Cheese Producers' Association. Before the ex- istence of this organization, the farmers who made and sold cheese paid cheese dealers a margin of from 4.7 to 9.3 cents in each dollar's worth of cheese sold. The Association was able to reduce the cost of marketing cheese to 1.4 cents on each dollar of cheese sales, the difference between 1.4 cents and the former figures representing the saving to farmers. Defects of the marketing system classified. — A discussion of all the defects of the marketing system, as viewed by expert students of the subject, is beyond our scope and limits, but a classified enumeration of them will demonstrate not only how numerous the defects are but also what undertakings would be necessary in order to eliminate them. Professor Weld has made such a list and his summary will be presented. "It should be borne in mind that the defects enumerated be- low do not by any means exist in the marketing of all products and at all places. Very high degrees of efBciency have been attained with regard to all the points mentioned in many cases, and what is true of one commodity may not be true of another. FAEMERS AND ECONOMIC ACTION 243 In a general classification of this sort, it is perhaps better to say that the following weaknesses frequently exist, or exist in some cases. ' ' The principal weaknesses of marketing at country points may be enumerated as follows: (1) Insufficient attention to varieties produced, to sorting and grading, and to quality of goods mar- keted; (2) careless packing and lack of uniformity in packages; (3) lack of knowledge of marketing conditions and prices on the part of farmers; (4) an unnecessary number of local buyers; (5) an abuse of monopoly power when there is one buyer and price agreements, and when there are several buyers; (6) poor business management on the part of local buyers, country stores, and farmers' organizations; (7) lack of honesty on the part of both farmers and local buyers; (8) poor roads from farms to country shipping points. "The principal weaknesses in connection with the wholesale trade are as follows: (1) Opportunity for fraud and sharp practices, including a general infraction of the principles govern- ing the relations between agents and principals; (2) lack of adequate inspection system; (3) congestion of wholesale districts and poor location with regard to transportation terminals; (4) lack of adequate price-quotation systems; (5) insufficient means of securing and disseminating information with regard to crop conditions, crop movements, market conditions, etc.; (6) lack of uniform methods, customs, grades, packages, trade terms, etc., in different markets; (7) control of auction companies by cliques of traders who handle commodities sold at auction. "Some of the defects of the transportation system are: (1) Delays in transit, causing late arrival of perishables in market ; (2) lack of refrigerating and other facilities for handling perish- ables at freight terminals; (3) ill-adjustment of rates between localities and between commodities ; (4) carelessness in handling ; (5) insufficient car supply during seasons of heavy movement; (6) lack of uniformity in adjusting and delay in claims for dam- age; (7) unfair icing charges; (8) lack of attention to the de- velopment of trolley freight service. "The defects in the retail system, the most expensive element of the marketing system, are more difficult to enumerate, but the following may be mentioned : (1) dishonesty in weights and mis- representations as to quality; (2) unsanitary conditions; (3) 244 RURAL SOCIOLOGY overstocking of eommodities with consequent deterioration in quality before sold ; (4) too liberal a policy with regard to grant- ing credit to consumers; (5) delay in payment for goods bought from wholesalers; and (6) unnecessary duplication of delivery and other equipment and service. There are many other weak- nesses in connection with poor business management. Certain reasons for the high cost of retailing can hardly be laid at the doors of merchants, but rather are due to the desire of consumers for expensive service, including prompt delivery of small or- ders, ete."^ IMPROVEMENT OF THE MARKETING SYSTEM Since the marketing system is so extensive and complicated and its defects are so numerous, it is evident that there can be no one complete remedy for it. We will be able in our allotted space to consider only the more important of the numerous pro- posals for overcoming the defects. A larger treatment of the subject may be found in treatises devoted exclusively to farm marketing. National market reporting system. — There are reporting sys- tems as to prices now but the reports available to the farmers of any given region are those of only a few markets of the nation. The systems are all in the hands of produce dealers, and as a consequence, some writers believe they are partial to the latter. What is needed, it is thought, is a national clearing-house system for information relative to both the prices of farm commodities in all markets and to the supplies of such commodities available for shipment and purchase in all parts of the nation. This would consist of a national bureau or agency, and probably state and county agencies. The central agency would be able to gather news of prices and location and amounts of commodities by means of the state and local agencies and to dispense information of prices and amounts of produce to be marketed at given markets to all or any of the local agencies. If, further, this central national agency were given authority to pool eommodities and to requisition such commodities for sale to the amounts guaran- teed by farmers and localities, there would be not only a market reporting but a bona fide marketing system developed in behalf of farmers. Such is now coming into existence in the form of ^ Weld, L. D. H., The Marketing of Farm Products, pp. 446-8. FARMERS AND ECONOMIC ACTION 245 the various Growers' Associations now developing in America. At least some sort' of a directive agency seems imperative to obviate glutting of markets by farmers receiving reports of favorable prices at some point. The experience of California cooperative growers' associations seems to demonstrate that suc- cessful collective marketing can be assured only where the growers are obligated to sell all or a certain portion of their produce through the common agency. Improving agricultural credit, — One reason why most of the crops that are sold go to market very soon after being harvested is that farmers lack capital or ready money. While it may be doubtful whether or not it is of real advantage to farmers on the average to hold produce for higher prices, yet so long as there is a reasonable doubt about it, the farmers should be in a position of advantage. There are two possible means of placing the farmers in this position of advantage. One means would consist of establishing state or national short time credit systems by which it would be possible for farmers to borrow money at reasonable rates for a season or a few years. In Prance such a system puts money in the hands of farmers at something like three per cent interest. It is desirable that our Federal Farm Loan system be amended so as to provide for short time loans. The other means would consist of the establishment of a system of bonding warehouses, such as now obtains for cotton in some of the southern states, in which the growers might store their produce until the desirable time to market, meanwhile receiving merchantable paper from the government up to a certain per cent of the value of the stored produce. Devices for bringing producer and consumer together. — During the last few years there has been much said and written about the advantages to be gained on both sides from bringing producers and consumers together for marketing purposes. The obvious object is to get rid of the middlemen and their costs. An indirect object would also be secured, as with any other device that facilitates marketing of farm produce, namely, the reduction of wastage on farms. Qur previous general statement of the amount of this wastage on farms is reinforced by a recent statement that in one Indiana county over half a million dollars were lost in one year in produce that never reached the market. 246 RURAL SOCIOLOGY There are numerous devices for getting growers and consumers into touch with each other and so obviating the middlemen. 1. Return to the old practice of farmers driving into town and peddling out goods. — This is a very cumbersome and costly method for the farmer. It is difficult for farmers to discover patrons in town and for patrons to discover farmers who want to bring things in. The method is only available for perishables for the most part and is therefore not a relief in respect to staples where the greatest produce values are. Distant farmers and those who farm on a large scale could not afford to take the time to peddle out vegetables and dairy products from door to door. While this method is being used on a small scale and will continue to be so used, it holds out little hope of general relief to producers and consumers. 2. Establishment of motor truck routes. — The motor truck has come into such wide use that it promises to compete with and in some respects displace the locomotive and the horse. It is now put to service not only where city pavements abound but wherever country highways are improved. Many look upon it as a likely agency to connect farmers directly with city con- sumers. Already it is being used by private concerns to dis- tribute goods to country patrons and to dealers in small places. Thus the Servu Company of Indianapolis operates 163 trucks, each a traveling store, which can supply 160 families a day. The company buys direct from the farmer, and under its system of dehydration has no losses in foodstuffs. The company sells below the current market price and the profits at the end of the year go half to its stockholders and half to the farmers whose produce it buys.^ Cooperative associations of farmers and co- operating communities employ motor trucks for the delivery of vegetable and dairy products to city consumers. The farmers deliver their produce to depots along the route. The United States Government has commandeered the motor truck for rural delivery purposes in connection with a large number of routes so that it is possible for town and city merchants and country dwellers to make a larger use of the parcel post in the trans- mission of goods. But the city consumer and country producer still have to discover each other and do the necessary bargaining. Interurban trolleys, where they exist, may serve to link the two. ^Monthly Labor Review, March, 1921, Vol. XII: 119. FARMERS AND ECONOMIC ACTION 247 3. The establishment of rmmicipai markets. — In many of the cities of Europe the municipal market is an institution where the farmers and consumers meet to make their mutually advan- tageous interchanges. In the United States they are not so well developed, although several- score of cities maintain market places, and some of the smaller cities have what they call market days, supposedly for the benefit of farmers, though in reality a kind of bait to induce farmers to go to town and bm-. Extensive studies of municipal markets in this country fail to demonstrate that they prove a great saving to city purchasers of country produce, as a general thing, although in some cases they do. Where the city rents its stalls to small dealers, to whom farmers sell their produce, the inevitable middleman costs intervene. Where farmers have to remain to peddle out their produce to purchasers in small lots, the time expense to farmers mounts up. Where there is but one market in a large city it is accessible to only the nearby inhabitants and necessarily receives a narrow patronage. But for the patrons there is the decided advantage of procuring fresh produce. 4. Marketing by mail. — Making use of the Post Office for marketing purposes is widely advocated as a means of elimi- nating the middleman. The Federal Government has recently sought to encourage marketing by parcel post in 41 cities by having the Post Office in each city obtain a list of farmers having produce to sell, and send this information to a list of consumers living in the city. The consumer and farmer then correspond and carry on the marketing process directly. The results of this plan are said to be promising, although it is found that wage earners do not use the method because they are accustomed to buy on credit. But it must be said that the work and inconvenience connected with this method of marketing farm produce must restrict its use to a relatively few people. Letter writing, bookkeeping, filling money orders, disappointment over failure to secure goods or over the quality of those received, are some of the obstacles the plan has to meet. A more hopeful method of parcel post marketing was proposed by the late Mr. Lubin. He would have a marketing bureau, established in connection with each consid- erable post office. Here farmers would file cards containing their names, addresses, and kinds and quantities of produce for 248 RURAL SOCIOLOGY sale. The cards would be colored, a different color for each commodity. Consumers would be provided with coupon books similar to the mileage books of railways. These they would purchase. Upon desiring to purchase, the consumer would look over the cards filed by farmers, select the one representing the desired kind and quantity, the clerk would tear off the price in coupons and mail the card containing the address of the pur- chaser with the coupons to the farmer. On receipt of same he would mail the article bought to the purchaser and the operation would be completed. The farmer would send his coupon to the post office and receive cash for the same. Mr. Lubin 's plan is to make the method as automatic as possible and to reduce letter- writing and bookkeeping.^ 5. Direct marketing by farmers' organizations. — The farmers evidently intend to carry their produce directly to city con- sumers, unless the latter hasten to help themselves. In the AU- American Cooperative Congress of 1921, President C. H. Gustaf- son of the Farmers' Union of Nebraska and President H. F. Baker of the Farmers' National Council and of the Michigan Potato Growers' Exchange indicated that "the farmers' organi- zation will be ready to ship directly to the consumers as soon as the latter have the necessary machinery for receiving the sup- plies. ' ' The former said that ' ' if the consumers did not organize it might be necessary for the farmer to come into the city and establish his own market. ' ' ^ Relative to these proposals looking toward bringing producers and consumers together, two remarks may be made in general. First, they are applicable to perishables for the most part, thus touching only the smaller section of the farm marketing prob- lem. Second, they demand too much time and trouble from both farmer and consumer to be extensively used ; so cannot serve as panaceas for even perishables. PoliticaJi action by fanners. — The farmers of America have sought relief in the marketing of produce by political organiza- tion at various times and in devious ways. This method of se- curing betterment of conditions is sufficiently discussed in a later chapter. Farmers Organized for Political Action. By many this mode of action is regarded as inexpedient because it arouses ' Senate Document, No. 240, 64th Congress, Ist session. 'Monthly Labor Review, 12: 119. FARMERS AND ECONOMIC ACTION 249 strife that eventually defeats the farmers' aims or because the legislation it seeks is "class-legislation." But it is to be noted that there is one mode of political action against which no one may legitimately allege objection, namely, the use of the various farmers' organizations in exerting political pressure on legisla- tures and Congress to secure desired legislation and on execu- tives for their administration. The objects of such political pressure would doubtless cover such fields of legislation and administration as these : prevention of marketing abuses and dubious practices ; the establishment of fair systems of grading and inspection ; the regulation of trans- portation rates. All of these objects are legitimate and lie within the range of historic functions of government. Their attain- ments would deprive no one of any real rights and would be of advantage to farmers and so, ultimately, to consumers. Standaxdizing farm products. — There is an evident advan- tage in having goods standardized when it comes to marketing them ; for then they can be graded, samples be used to represent the grades, and so any product subject to standardization may be sold in most distant markets. Farmers meet great disadvan- tages in the attempt to sell many perishables because they are not standardized. This is largely true of eggs, fruit, and vege- tables. But when they are disposed of ungraded, if they are to find their way into a wider market, someone must grade them. By doing this grading the farmer not only makes them available for distant markets, but probably saves something in the grading itself. Reducing the number of middlemen. — The number of kinds of middlemen engaged in marketing a product may be a sign of economy because specialization begets efficiency and efficiency usually reduces cost. This, however, is not always the case in marketing. The process could spare some of the sets or kinds of middlemen without loss. Further, within a given kind of mid- dlemen, as wholesalers or retailers, there is likely to be a greater number of dealers than the trade should support. This is true especially of the retail trade. Veblen estimates that a third of the retail trade is useless because it deals in articles which are not essential, those used to promote "fashionable waste and respectable discomfort." Of the remaining two thirds, perhaps two thirds is useless because it consists of duplication of plant 250 RURAL SOCIOLOGY and work. Only two ninths of the whole, therefore, according to Veblen, is useful and necessary. Could the appropriate and fair reduction in the number of retailers and other middlemen be made, the prices of commodities would be freed of a heavy burden and both producers and consumers would thereby be benefited^ Cooperation and cooperative marketing. — No subject related to farm life exceeds in interest the attempt of farmers to better their economic condition by means of cooperative enterprises. The field of facts related to this is so vast that the merest sketch is possible here. The earliest attempt made by farmers in this country was by the Granges during last century. When the Grange movement was at its height during the seventies, several of the state Granges undertook cooperation in several directions. By the purchase of inventions and the manufacture of plows, cultivators, and reap- ing machines and their sale to farmers at greatly reduced prices, the attempt was made to "bust" the various farm implement "trusts." Some of the ventures were successful for a time, but ignorance of the business, mismanagement, and "bad luck" soon closed out the undertakings. The South was more successful with small cooperative industrial ventures but they were local in character. Cooperative banks and both fire and life insurance were tried in various places. Some of the banks were markedly successful. Fire insurance associations appeared successful, but many disappeared with the decline of the Grange after 1875. Mutual life associations did well until the rates, which were set too low in the beginning, increased, when they almost entirely disappeared. Consumers associations started stores in many localities, but because they undertook to cut prices and so brought on a price war with the local merchants, and because they were not properly based on Rochedale principles, the most of them failed. The farmers of that time were too ignorant of true cooperative principles to make cooperation a success, they were not educated to loyalty and fell away easily, and the na- tional organization undertook to guide the movement when it was too late. More recently the Grange has undertaken and 'Veblen, Thorstein, "Farm Labor for the Period of the War," The Public, Vol. XXII: 918-22. FARMERS AND ECONOMIC ACTION 251 successfully carried out cooperative enterprises in various lines. The most successful example in Europe of successful farmers' cooperative undertakings is observed in the case of Denmark. The movement there had educational, political, economic, and social consequences of the greatest import for the people of that country. The movement began in 1895 with the establishment of a co- operative cow-testing system. Experts were employed by asso- ciations of farmers to test the milk producing ability of cows and to supervise the handling of the dairy business generally. The plan revolutionized dairying and the marketing of dairy products, enabling the Danish farmer to buy feed in the United States, maintain his herd on high priced land, and compete successfully with American dairymen in the English market. The leading nations of Europe have copied the Danish system and it has spread to the United States. Denmark also applied the cooperative principle to other lines of stock breeding and raising and to the marketing of its various products. In a period of 20 years prior to the Great War, its exports of butter increased 400 per cent, of bacon 900 per cent, of eggs 700 per cent, and of meat 1800 per cent. The cooperative movement resulted in the breaking up of the large estates and their formation into small farms, the increase of farm ownership and the decrease of ten- ancy, and the employment of the most efficient farm machinery and the most scientific methods in farming. Perhaps the organization of the citrus fruit growers of Cal- ifornia for cooperative marketing purposes marks one of the most successful instances of cooperation to be found anywhere. Since farmers there largely produce similar crops, it was found particularly easy to unite them for cooperative marketing, since such a membership is stable. The tendency in California has been distinctly toward the Rochedale plan of cooperation : namely, a one-man one-vote prop- osition and the distribution of the collective profits among the members according to the amount of produce handled for each. While the movement began with the organization of farmers into locals, these locals into district units, and these in turn into a state unit, it has come to be believed by the leaders in California 252 KURAL SOCIOLOGY that the primary organization is one of farmers into a district, the locals being matters of local cooperative convenience. The organization carries on grading and packing generally, and the marketing and necessary accounting always. Mr. Sapiro, attorney for many California cooperative associa- tions, says: "California experience proves that cooperation on a small scale is of very little value. Cooperation to be successful in operation as well as correct in principle must give the asso- ciation control of a substantial portion of the specific crop from a marketing standpoint. The control may range anywhere from about 25 to 75 per cent of the product, depending on competing marketing conditions.^ This means that the grower must so obligate himself and be bound to a substantial penalty in case of default. This large control of the product is not monopolistic, since the association is open to any grower and it does not re- strain trade; in fact, it often increases it. The Clayton law recognizes this, for it exempts from the anti-trust law "agri- cultural or horticultural organizations, instituted for the purpose of mutual help, and not having capital stock, or operated for profit. ' ' In 1922, Congress passed a law exempting agricultural cooperative organizations from the operation of the Federal anti- trust law. But farmers also are consumers and quite generally make use of their cooperative organizers to purchase supplies for farm purposes and to some extent for household purposes. This is done by subsidiary companies, as is also the case with the obtain- ing capital for building expensive warehouses. Mr. Colquette states that "the California cooperators have carried cooperative marketing practically to its logical and ulti- mate conclusion." It controls the market, eliminates profit- taking, and realizes a vigorous industrial democracy. This suc- cess has come not only as the result of organization according to the best form, but also as the result of the employment of experts at every point in the business where deeemed contributive. It uses the expert in the science of agriculture and of business to the utmost and does not higgle over paying its experts good sal- aries. The California plan is being adopted by the combined grain growers of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, is approxi- ^ Quoted by E. D. Colquette, Grain Growers' Guide, Winnipeg, Sept. 15, 1920, FARMERS AND ECONOMIC ACTION 253 mated in the cheese makers association of Wisconsin, by the dairymen of Minnesota, and the various powers' associations of the United States and Canada. The extent of agricultural cooperation in the United States is difficult to determine but some facts will serve to exhibit the large and growing hold it has obtained. In California, 60 per cent of the farmers are united in cooperative enterprises and 65 per cent of the crops of the State are sold through cooperative associations. "The crops handled range from eggs to oranges and from beans to walnuts." In 1919, the total value of the crops sold cooperatively amounted to about $350,000,000. Minne- sota is a close competitor of California in this field, the total annual volume of its cooperative enterprises being over $200,- 000,000. In 1919, 390 of the 1605 mills and elevators of the state were farmers' cooperative elevators which handled over 35 per cent of the grain. It has twice as many cooperative creameries (614) as any other state. Besides this, it has 450 companies devoted to shipping stock, 161 to fire insurance, 36 to manu- facture of cheese, 40 to potato warehouses, 950 cooperative tele- phone companies, 450 cooperative stores, and 200 miscellaneous cooperative companies. Not all of these are purely agricul- tural, but most of them are, and all involve farming. In 1914, 12 per cent of the livestock of the state was shipped through its 115 cooperative associations. The percentage must now be much larger, since such associations number 450, and more especially since it is estimated that, in 1918, 70 per cent of the livestock shipped to the South St. Paul stockyards by Minne- sota farmers was through the associations. It is estimated that the resulting saving to farmers amounted to $2,500,000. A notably vigorous and efficient cooperative association is the "Wisconsin Cheese Producers' Federation. It was organized in 1914 with 45 factories and handled 6,125,480 pounds of cheese. It embraced 120 factories in 1919, with a product handled amounting to 14,098,021 pounds. The amount of economy or gain to farmers from this and the California fruit growers' asso- ciations was stated in a previous connection. In western Canada, farmers were organized cooperatively in 1916 as United Grain Growers. The association handled over 300 million bushels of grain up to and including 1918, the amount handled in the latter year being approximately 30 254 KURAL SOCIOLOGY million bushels. The profits for that year were over 441 million dollars. The association owns 232 elevators and leases 111 others, owns and operates a large number of flour warehouses and 181 coal sheds. It has live stock offices at Winnipeg, Cal- gary, and Edmonton, and storage houses in Winnipeg and other places. During 1918, it handled 4,402 cars of stock. TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION 1. Are the farmers of this country over-organized or under-organized? 2. How do they compare with bankers, manufacturers, and retailers in number and quality of organizations? 3. Are there as many kinds of middlemen in the marketing of coal, lumber, or iron as in that of farm products? 4. Compare the portion of the marketing system the farmers are con- cerned with as producers with that retailers are concerned with. 5. In 80 far as trusts and monopolies are international in their relation- ships, might they be able to control market prices for staple farm products in a given nation? 6. Does the close inverse correlation between the amount of wheat mar- keted and the price of that commodity prove that the farmer is the cause of the latter? 7. How will it be possible to save the 25 per cent of perishables which go to waste in the process of marketing? 8. What farm crops are wasted on the farms in your section? 9. What would it mean to standardize potatoes, eggs, milk, onions? 10. Why do such a great proportion of cooperative stores established fail? Do promoters have any relation to the situation? 11. Report on the plan of the United States Grain Growers' Association as a cooperative enterprise. REFERENCES Adams, A. B. — Marketing Perishable Farm Products, Columbia University, 1916. Barnes, Julius H. — ^Address en world-industrial situation and farm mar- keting before Minnesota Grain Dealers' Association, The Country Grain Shipper, Feb., 1921. Bassett, C. E., and Jesness, O. B. — "Cooperative Marketing — ^Where? When? and How?" Tearbook V. S. Dept. of Agr., 1917: 385-93. Bassett, C. E., and Moomavc, C. W., and Kerr, W. H. — "Cooperative Marketing, and Financing of Marketing Associations," Yearbook U. S. Dept. of Agr., 1914: 185-210. Boyle, Jas. E. — Agricultural Economics; Lippincott, 1921. , ' ' Collective Bargaining in Farm Marketing, ' ' Quarterly Journal of the University of North Vakota, 10: 332-5. , Speculation and the Chicago Board of Trade; Macmillan, 1920. Branch, G. V. — See under More. Canadian Wheat Pool — "Analysis of Proposed Plan of National Council of Agriculture," Cooperative News, Saskatchewan; reprinted in Courier News, Fargo, N. D., Jan. 23, 1921. Cance, a. E. — Farmers' Cooperative Exchange, Massachusetts Agricultural College Extension Service, 1914. FARMERS AND ECONOMIC ACTION 255 Cance, a. E. and Ferguson, B. H. — The Cost of Distributing Milk in Sixteen Cities and Tottms of Massachusetts, Massachusetts Agricultural College Extension Service, 1914, Bui. No. 173. COLQUETTE, R. D. — Series of articles on ' ' The California Ideal, ' ' and coop- erative marketing, Grain Growers' Guide, Vol. XIII, Winnipeg, 1920. Cooperation Among Farmers, Bui. National City Bank, New York, Feb., 1920. Coulter, J. Lee — Cooperation among Farmers; Macmillan, 1914. Borland, C. R. — See under More. Doty, S. W. — Cooperative Live Stock Associations. Farmers' Bui. 718. Shipping Eggs by Parcel Post. Farmers' Bui. No. 504. Faber, Harold — Cooperation in Danish Agriculture ; Longmans. Ferguson, E. H. — See under Cance. Filley, H. C. — From Car Door to Consumer, Nebraska Agricultural Experi- ment Station, Circular No. 5. Floher, L. B. — Suggestions for Parcel Post Marketing, Farm. Bui. No. 703. Gates, L. F. — The Modem Grain Exchange, Board of Trade, Chicago, 1920. Gleaners' Clearing Mouse Association, and Gleaners' Cooperative Law; Gleaners' Building, Detroit. Havfboker, C. C, and Law, J. W. — Parcel Post Business Methods, Farm. Bui. No. 922. Hibbard, B. H., and Hobson, Ashes — Cooperation in Wisconsin, Bui. Uni- versity of Wisconsin. Hill, G. G. — Marketing Farm Produce, Farm. Bui. No. 62. Hobson, Asher — See under Hibbard. Hoover, Herbert — ' ' Some Notes on Agricultural Readjustment and the High Cost of Living, ' ' Saturday Evening Post, Vol. 192, No. 41. Jesness, 0. B. — Cooperative Marketing, Farm. Bui. No. 1144. Jesness, O. B., and Kerr, W. H. — Cooperative Principles and Marketing Organizations Among Farmers of the United States, Bui. No. 547, U. S. Dept. of Agr. Johnson, Geo. H. — Eos It Paid to Hold Wheat? and Wheat Prices Highest When the Farmer Sells. Address Geo. H. Johnson, Wales, N. D. Kerr, W. H. — See under Bassett. Kile, O. M. — The Farm Bureau Movement; Macmillan, 1921. Law, J. W. — See under Hawboker. LuBiN, David — Direct Dealing Between Producer and Consumer, Senate Doc. 240, 64th Cong., 1st Session. McElheney, V. R., Jr. — The Economic Value of the Auction as a Dis- tributor of Perishable Commodities. Macklin, Thec, and Nordman, Edward — "Where Cooperation Pays Out Big, Wisconsin Cheese Federation," LaFollette's Magazine, March, 1920: 48-9. Monthly Summary of Commerce and Finance, Dept. of Commerce, Wash- ington. MooMAw, C. W. — See under Bassett. More, C. T., and Branch, G. V. — The Commercial Grading, Packing, and Shipping of Cantaloupes, Farm. Bui. No. 707. More, C. T., and Dorland, C. R. — The Commercial Grading, Packing and Shipping of Potatoes, Farm. Bui. No. 753. Nordman, E. — See under Macklin. Perky, C. M. — Cooperation in the V. S., Cooperative League of America, 70 Fifth Ave., New York. Powell, G. Harold — Cooperation in Agriculture ; Macmillan, 1913. Ramsey, H. J. — Handling and Shipping Citrus Fruits in the Gulf States, Farm. Bui. No. 696. References on Cooperation, Bui. U. S. Department of Agriculture, No. 547. A selected list. 256 RURAL SOCIOLOGY Speculation in Farm, Products from the Viewpoint of Service, Letter by National City Bank, New York, Feb., 1921. Taylor, H. C. — Agricultural Economics, Chaps. XXVI-XXVIII ; Macmillan, 1919. U. S. Abstract Census of Manufactures. V. S. Statisiical Abstract. Veblen, Thorstein — "Farm Labor for the Period of the War," The Public, July 20, 1918: 918-22. Weld, L. D. H. — 'Studies in the Marketing of Farm Products, Studies in the Social Sciences, No. 4, University of Minnesota, 1915. , Marketing of Farm Products; Macmillan, 1917. Yearbooks V. S. department of Agriculture. YoHE, H. S. — Operating a Cooperative Motor Truck Route, Farm. Bui. No. 1032. CHAPTER XIII FARM MANAGEMENT Like the subject of farm marketing, the topic of farm man- agement is so large and complex that it is difficult to embody a satisfactory discussion within a few pages. Nevertheless its importance is so great that even a partial presentation will be better than none at all. It will be understood that what is said in this chapter is only intended to introduce the reader to some of the more important features of farm management. ITS NATURE AND SIGNIFICANCE 1. Meaning. — We doubtless have heard certain farmers re- ferred to as "poor" managers or as "good" managers. It is said that one farmer does not "get along" because he is such a poor manager and that another is prosperous because he is a good manager. We understood these statements or "sensed" them to mean the laying out of the work on the farm, the looking ahead and planning. Farm management concerns itself with how to raise a series of fairly successful crops, how to dispose of them to the best advantage, and how to conserve the qualities of the soil. It involves head-work and the application of the best methods to the accomplishment of these objects. Farm management is a phase of agricultural production in both the narrow and large meaning of the latter. It seeks to obtain the largest yields and thus touches production in its restricted sense; but it also extends to credit and marketing systems, thus concerning production in its larger range. Farm management involves the practice of economy. This does not mean scrimping, but the choice and adaptation of the likeliest factors and methods for purposes of production. In making his investment in land, equipment or crops to be raised, the farmer is called on to exercise caution, intelligence, and sound judgment. The same is true respecting the organization of the work of the farm and in the disposal of the products. 257 258 RURAL SOCIOLOGY In large industrial concerns a manager is employed who gives his whole time to buying and selling, to improvement of the plant, and to the organization of the business. This is also the case on a few large farms ; but the average farmer not only does his own work but exercises these functions as well. The practice of economy in farm management involves the thought of efficiency. A good economy means an efficient sys- tem, an enterprise so ordered that there is little or no waste. Efficiency schemes in industry seek to eliminate all the waste movements of the workers as well as the wastes in other direc- tions. Efficiency in farming would consist in getting results with the least waste in labor and material used in the enterprise. 2. Household manag^ement. — Household management is really a part of farm management because the household is a part of the farm plant and the processes of the home are a vital portion of farm life. Household management, however, is a subject in itself and should have a place in courses of instruction dealing with rural life. But farm women generally concern themselves with a good deal more than merely what goes on in the house. They often contribute heavily to the production of farm com- modities: milking, earing for the milk, separating the cream, making butter, gardening, and raising poultry and eggs. Some of this produce is consumed in the home and makes up much of the living of the family, while the income from that which is sold goes far to purchase groceries and other household supplies. Cases are not infrequent where the woman has made more from her poultry or her cows than the man has from his produce. Sometimes the farmer begrudges the investment in the poultry house, milk house, or garden fence and pokes fun at his wife's expensive poultry undertakings; but the fair-minded farmer appreciates the value of his companion's undertakings, co- operates with her, and gives her every encouragement.' 3. Ma,na,ger'8 qiialifica.tions. — Good management in farming calls for certain qualifications, the first in importance, no doubt, being a knowledge of the business of farming. This involves an intimate acquaintance with the various steps required to raise crops and stock and in their marketing. Ignorance of any of the important steps would be fatal to the success of the business, and some seemingly minor details are important. Farming is ' Some statistics bearing on these points are given in Chapter XVIII. FARM MANAGEMENT 259 not as simple an industry as it seems to some. There are liter- ally thousands of details which the successful farmer knows, practically all of which are in some way essential to success. A man may have a general knowledge of farming which he has gained by observation and study but let him try to farm and he finds many gaps in his knowledge, such as just how and when to plant potatoes, the very best time to cut timothy or clover, or how to cultivate corn. Often he is in a quandary about the next step. A manager must have the ability to plan and to organize into a working system the various factors involved in farming. He must be able to map out his course for a year or several years, to visualize the conditions and agencies involved in their relation to each other, and to estimate results. This involves a large knowledge of farming methods, of what farmers elsewhere are doing and producing, and of the demands the world is making for what he proposes to produce. Organization requires vision of the possibilities of his farm and the ability to project a plan to realize them. Initiating energy and patience are indispensable qualities of the farm manager. There is a best time to do things which hesitation may defeat. It is essential to see clearly, quite as essential to act promptly. But the farmer initiates many things which do not result as he planned because nature acted against him. His plan is disorganized for the time and he is obliged to reorganize it and to readjust his agencies; patience and en- durance are called for. Again, some farm projects may require years to realize them: the restoration of the soil, eliminating weeds, improving the strain of stock, or accumulating capital to build a house or barn. Financial depressions that bring low prices for produce, crop failures, illness in the family, or disease among the livestock may delay the realization of the dream. The manager must expect temporary defeats and prove that he really is a manager by overcoming them. 4. Social implications of systems of management. — The prac- tical object of farm management is to increase production and thereby to increase income and profits. This is a worthy pur- pose, one that is to be commended now especially because it may assist to develop competent managers at a time when they are scarce. Nevertheless, there is a phase of the production and 26g) RURAL SOCIOLOGY management question which deserves some attention to give it a balance and make farming and farm life sane. The farmer should not aim exclusively at profit any more than should the preacher or teacher. After all, the real test of any business or profession is the good it has accomplished, not the dollars it has accumulated. A physician is remembered long after his death, not by the fortune he amassed but by the discoveries he made for abolishing disease. Why should not the banker and the farmer measure their lives in the same way? Yet some farmers' programs are executed as if raising hogs, more hogs, and yet more hogs were the sole aim of farming. That farm management is the best which is the best for all concerned: the farm family, the country life, and the nation. It is our duty to understand that scores of incomes are in- creased at the loss of the soul and that many farmers use a form of management on their farms which blights the lives of their children and shrivels the soul of the wife. The institutions which build up the community are neglected in order that another farm may be added to the plant or a greater area of land may be tilled. Further, it is conceivable and possible that farm management as a whole might develop forms of farming which would be a curse to country life and a menace to the national existence. Tenant farming and large-scale farming as we know them in this nation are to be placed in the undesirable list. It is the duty of the farmer to adopt a quality of management that will build up his family, community, and nation. It is the duty of the nation to prevent the development of a system of farming that will destroy the community life of rural sections or trans- form rural populations into a mere wage-earning class. PRINCIPLES AND ILiLUSTRATIONS OP FARM MANAGEMENT One means of obtaining a mental grasp of the significance of farm management is to consider concrete cases in which manage- ment is to be exercised. Such considerations also embody some principles of procedure which may be of practical importance. To compass the treatment of the important eases in a few pages extreme brevity is required. 1. The choice of fajTming as an occupation. — The vast ma- jority of those who farm have taken up the business because it FARM MANAGEMENT 261 was the custom of those who were raised in the country to do so ; consequently there was very little investigation made to see if farming was a better business for them, presenting better all- round opportunities and satisfactions than other vocations. Farming would be better done and those who do it would be happier in their work if those who enter upon it carefully considered its pros and cons and satisfied themselves that it is the best of all things for them to do. The larger items to take into account in making a choice of farming are: one's own qualifications, as previously presented; the financial possibilities of farming as compared with other occupations ; whether the amount of capital at one 's command is suitable to renting or to ownership; the country as a desirable place in which to live; and the country as a place to rear a family. 2. Choice of fanning region. — As nations grow older and more populous it is the tendency of those inhabiting a given farming region to select that region in which to farm; but it would be a distinct advantage to consider the merits of other agricultural districts and to make the choice on the basis of evident advantages. An intelligent choice would rest on such considerations as these : the climate in its relation to living ; the distance from or proximity to cities and markets ; the kind of crop production one likes to engage in; the price of land in view of the supply of capital; the fertility of the soil; the amount of rainfall and its seasonal distribution. Those who selected farming in view of these factors should, on the average, be more prosperous and contented than those are who did not. 3. The choice of a farm. — When the choice of a region has been made, the candidate for farming faces the task of selecting a farm. This calls for a careful consideration of the various farms which are offered for sale. If possible, a soil analysis should be secured to determine the fertility and kinds of soil. A record of the crops and yields on the farm during several years would give a fair idea of the producing power of the soil. Other important items to be considered are: distance from trading centers, markets, improved highways; the presence of schools, churches, and the quality and nearness of neighbors. It is unfair to a family to place it where it will be completely 262 RURAL SOCIOLOGY isolated iinless it is the only chance to obtain a farm and unless there is family agreement that it is the best thing to do. The size of the farm is an important matter, since a farm may be too large or too small to be profitable. 4. Size of farm. — What should be the size of a farm? The reply measurably depends on the object of the farmer, whether to have a home and to make a living or to secure profit, or both. The larger part of the farms of the United States are family farms, that is, where a family lives and supplies the labor. In considering the size of the farm in relation to efficiency, the important items are: profits, labor, the use of horses and machinery, and the amount of capital required; but a consid- eration of profits sums up the results of the other factors. The average size of farms in 1910 for the United States was about 138 acres ; but this gives little light as to size and efficiency since nearly half of the area in farms was unimproved. The study of farms in New York in their relation to the labor income is both interesting and informing in this connection. The labor income of a farmer is obtained as follows: subtract all expenses from all sales and to the cash balance obtained add or subtract the increase or decrease in the inventory. This gives the farm income. From this subtract a reasonable interest on the investment ; this gives the increase the farmer has added by his own efforts and is called the labor income. The statistics of 586 farms in Tompkins County, New York, show that those who farmed an average of 49 acres secured an average labor income of only $254 ; of the 578 Livingston County farms, that those who farmed an average of 43 acres derived an average labor income of $295. In each case the labor income was less than that of wage earners. In both sets of farms, the acreage of the farm had to range from 61 to 100 acres before a labor income greater than that of hired labor was secured. The largest profits for a family farm were derived on farms ranging in size from 175 to 200 acres. It is likely that these results are approximately true of general farming throughout the United States. Relative to the size of farms, farming may be classed as large- scale, medium-scale, and small-scale farming, although the class in each case will depend somewhat on the kind of crops pro- duced. Thus in 1900, when the average farm contained 147 acres, the average size of the vegetable farm was 65 acres; fruit FARM MANAGEMENT 263 farm, 75; dairy products, 120; hay and grain, 159; and live- stock, 227. Large-scale farming is seen where the owner gives his time to management, employing others to do the physical work. In medium-scale farming the farmer is manager and workman. Small-scale farming is observed where peasants till a very small tract, doing all the work by hand, such as digging, hoeing, reaping with a sickle, transplanting wheat and rice plants. This "waste of human energy" is made necessary by land scarcity and by having to get a living off the pittance obtainable. Production is great as to acreage but the cost is high in terms of labor. In the grain-producing areas of the United States the farmer will farm a half-section of land with the aid of hired help at harvesting and threshing times. He often secures 5,000 bushels of wheat a year for his effort, while the peasant on his acre or two may produce 100 bushels. The American method of production is expensive in acreage but cheap in human energy. The advantages of large-scale production which obtain in manufacture and commerce such as economies of skill and man- agement, the use of machinery to its full capacity, and of buying and selling, are reduced and impeded in large-scale farming. Further, there are distinct geometrical, seasonal, and temperamental disadvantages in the latter. A large area im- poses loss of time to the manager, labor, and machines in going from one piece of work to another. The changes of season and the sudden occurrence of storm break up the systematic labor which in manufacture runs smoothly without the need of re- adjustment throughout the year. To reorganize a large body of labor at the close of each season and after each storm would exceed the ability of the greatest manager. The temper of farm laborers is disconcerting to a large system. They are individual- istic, impatient of rules, and resent the discipline of exact and close supervision; hence the difficulty of directing large bodies of such laborers. Medium-scale farming, such as prevails in the United States, possesses distinct social advantages for country and national life. The best interests of society are secured when society is composed of independent home and business owners. Large- scale or capitalistic farming would resolve the country into a wage-earning class, with little interest in the community and the 264 RURAL SOCIOLOGY institutional affairs of the country. Where the farms are owned and operated by those who till them and are the basis of good homes and family life, conditions are secured in which all the interests of the country are best advanced. Since the subject of farm-labor incomes was broached in dis- cussing farm incomes and the size of farms it may be well to add further data concerning them. According to a survey made by the University of Missouri of farms in that state, the average labor income of Missouri farmers was about $1.35 a day. This, like the results from New York state, may be purely sectional, and so not representative of the situation throughout the whole country. Mr. E. A. Goldenweiser made an estimate of the average labor income of farmers of the nation from data gathered by the Federal Department of Agriculture relative to the 6,362,000 farms. He calculated a gross farm income of $1,236, of which $512 is paid for labor, fertilizers, feed, animals purchased, etc. ; and $322 for interest at 5 per cent on the capital invested; leaving $402 to represent the labor income of the farm family. But since a number of items necessarily escaped attention in making the estimate, it was Mr. Goldenwesier 's opinion that $402 is too low. Prom data derived from an intensive study of 4,018 farms by the Office of Farm Management, a farm-labor income of $952 was estimated. These farms were scattered throughout the United States but represented better than average conditions. Consequently, it was believed that the real farm-labor income falls between the two estimates, being probably about $600 a year. Of this amount, $200 represents cash and $400 represents rent, fuel, and food supplied by the farm.'^ Since this $600 is an average labor income of all the farmers of the country, wide deviations from it must be anticipated. There may be communi- ties where the labor income of farmers is several times that sum and others where it is but a fraction of it. Also it is to be remem- bered that the estimate was made in 1916, before prices and values were greatly disturbed by war conditions. The question is often raised as to how the incomes of farmers compare with those of other callings. The accompanying graph which represents the earnings of different classes of workers *E, A. Goldenweiser, Farmers Bulletin No. 746. FARM MANAGEMENT 265 throws light on the question, although, as would be expected, the estimates are only approximately true. It will be observed that the labor income of farmers is repre- sented in the graph in two sections, one consisting of cash, the other of the equivalent in rent, fuel, and food furnished by the farm. Earnings op DirrEEENT Classes or Woekeks * Aimual Average For; FARMERS Cash ■ Farm Supplies ^ WAGE EARNERS On Street Railways In Iron and Steel Works In Factories In Telephone Companies SALARIED EMPLOYEES In Factories On Street Railways Patrolmen Federal Employees In Telephone Companies Clergymen Earnings in Dollars IOC 200 300 400 600 600 700 800 900 1000 1100 800 674 610 460 438 1188 1122 1062 M8 843 663 - ■■ ■ XHJ* Wi\ M a^ " 1 " ' 1 "J Hi * " ; z ■ ™ * " ■■ ■ H ■ 1 " * ■ nm 1 * Goldenweiser, op, cit. 5. Type of farming. — Shall the farmer be a specialist or en- gage in intensive or in diversified farming? These are questions which farming people should understand. Whether one should follow specialized or diversified farming will depend on conditions. The advantages of specialized farm- ing are these : greater skill in production is developed by restrict- ing effort to one line ; less capital is generally required to raise one kind of crop or stock; in one-crop production larger fields are possible, permitting an economy of labor; it permits of vacations for the farmer — though not for farm women — as in periods between crops and between seeding and harvesting, or between tilling and harvesting. But since this vacation is en- forced, there is a disadvantage due to the suspension of the use of labor and equipment without profit. Diversified farming is seen where various kinds of crops or animals or both are produced. There are some apparent advan- 266 RURAL SOCIOLOGY tages of this form of farming. It avoids total crop failure, since some of the various commodities produced are likely to succeed ; it logically leads to crop rotation and thus works for soil con- servation; it utilizes labor, horses, and machinery during the greater part of the year ; it tends to distribute the farm income throughout the year; it reduces the severity of the attack by enemies of the crops. In explanation of the last point it is to be said that each crop has enemies somewhat peculiar to it which appear to multiply when the crop is raised continuously. Ro- tating crops tends to reduce these special enemies. Further, it is thought that plants throw off excreta which, in the ease of continuous crops, become sufficient to act as a poison. Where rotation consists of non-competing crops such as corn, oats, and clover, non-competing both as to soil and time, a distinct advan- tage obtains. Soil fertility is preserved and the use of labor, horses, and other equipment is spread over many months. But it is difficult to discover non-competing crops. Cotton, for example, makes severe requirements during a period of seven months. Corn may do well in the same region, but since its requirements for cultivation are similar to those of cotton, one or the other of these crops in large quantity has to be sacrificed. This is a large influence toward making cotton production a one-crop system in the south. Intensive farming requires so much labor per acre that it is not advisable to resort to it until land becomes scarce. We are still far from scarcity of land. Truck farming is about the only kind which justifies intensive cultivation and in that ease excep- tional conditions are present. Recognition of the principle of diminishing returns in agricul- ture makes it obvious that crops too large to pay may be grown by intensive methods. The Dakota farmer may produce 5,000 bushels of grain a year on 200 or 300 acres. His chief invest- ment is in land and equipment. The yield under intensive methods might be two or three times as great, but the cost to produce that yield would be prohibitive. This principle may be seen in the use of fertilizer. If a fertilizer costing $2.40 an acre increases the crop above the cost of the fertilizer to the extent of $13.99, and another fertilizer costing $20.90 an acre increases the crop $19.64 above the cost of the fertilizer, it might at first appear that the difference in gains is pure profit and FARM MANAGEMENT 267 that the costlier fertilizer is the more desirable. But cost ac- counting would show that the more expensive fertilizer entailed enough additional expense to more than absorb the gains in the value of the crop ; the increased cost being due to the excess cost of hauling and spreading the additional amount of fertili- zer, of gathering, storing, and marketing the increase in the crop, and the interest on the larger capital invested in the fertilizer. 6. Use of capital. — The importance of the employment of capital in farming is partly to be observed in the tendency to increase the capital invested in farms in the United States. In 1850, the average value of farms represented in the following items was: real estate, $2,258; improvements and machinery, $105 ; livestock, $376 ; total, $2,739. In 1910 the valuations for the same items were, respectively : $5,471, $199, $774, and $6,444. The bulk of the capital has remained in real estate and the rate of increase in this item has been larger than in the other items: 143 per cent for real estate, 89.5 for implements and machinery, and 106 for livestock. The profits to be derived in agriculture are measurably de- pendent on the amount of capital employed. This is illustrated in the accompanying table on the relation of capital to profits.^ SIX HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN FARMS OPERATED BY OWNERS Capital Number of Farms Per Cent of the Farm- ers Making Labor In- comes of Over $1,000 $2,000 or less 36 200 183 94 45 44 13 2,001- 4,000 4,001- 6,000 8 6,001- 8,000 14 8,001-10,000 22 10,001-15,000 32 Over 15,000 46 It is observed that a labor income of $1,000 does not appear until the average capital invested has reached the class, $4,000- 6,000. In fact a study of the details show that only one farmer having less than $4,000 invested obtained a labor income of as much as $800. Since men with little capital have to start at the bottom in farming, no matter what their ability, it is clear ' Warren, Farm Management, p. 292. 268 RURAL SOCIOLOGY that the item of capital is important in making the time of the farmer valuable. There is likewise a connection between capital and credit since credit is a means of obtaining the use of capital. Farmers seek to obtain the use of additional capital, for example, whenever they buy machinery, fertilizer, and other commodities on time; but they usually pay a high rate of interest in doing this, although they may not be aware of it. Thus, a binder which sells for cash at $118, sells on a year's time for $125 at 6 per cent, making an interest charge of $14.50, or 12 per cent. Bad debts, doing the business of banks in extending credit, the cost of collection, etc., partly justify such charges on the part of merchants. That such credit practice is widespread is indicated by the fact that there are no cash prices for farm supplies in some places. A good credit association, such as has been devel- oped in Europe, would furnish money to farmers at a reasonable rate of interest for short-time credit and so obviate paying advanced prices for machinery and other farm equipment. There is an unquestionable need among the farmers of the United States for a good credit system. Some of the more important demands for such a system are these: (1) The high rate of interest farmers have to pay in many localities, a rate higher than that paid by the business men of cities in the same communities. (2) The fact that many tenants and others would become farm owners if they had a means of securing the capital for the investment under conditions making it possible for them to pay for the farm. (3) The frequent demand that exists on the part of farmers to make improvements of an extensive nature, such as draining, building a barn, or stocking the farm. Add to these the national interest in having the farms owned by actual farmers and the farms as well improved and as fruitful as is possible. Whenever a credit system is to be established there are certain well recognized principles which should be incorporated in it. The more deserving of notice may be mentioned. (1) Farmers should be represented on the management of a rural credit sys- tem, since otherwise it may be conducted in a manner prejudicial to the country. (2) There should be limited liability, at least at first until farmers are accustomed to a credit system plan and educated up to its obligations. The farmers' legislature of FARM MANAGEMENT 269 North Dakota passed a state farm loan law which makes each farmer who secures a loan responsible to the extent of 15 per cent of his loan for the credit extended to others. In the Fed- eral Farm Loan law the liability cannot be more than 10 per cent. It is to be noted that unlimited responsibility is a feature of some European farm-loan systems. (3) Government supervision of the loan system is considered necessary to prevent speculators and other financial highwaymen from taking advantage of the bonds issued to secure the loans. (4) Accessibility to farmers so that they may and will use its privileges. Distance lends mys- tery; things near seem familiar and usable. (5) Long and short time loan provisions. A man may need to make a loan for only a short time to undertake certain improvements ; but if he buys a farm or has to borrow a large sum of money he is likely to require a long series of years in order to repay it. Short time loans are those of from one to five years; long time loans are for periods of from five to forty or sixty years. (6) Amortiza- tion, especially in long time loans, should be a feature. This means killing the debt by degrees or year by year. A payment of a certain fixed sum each year during the life of the loan pays the interest, management expenses of the loan system, and a part of the principal, so that at the end of the time the whole indebt- edness has disappeared. (7) The interest rate should be at least a reasonable one. There may be reasons for making it a low one. European systems, especially those of France, make a very low rate because the nation desires that agriculture shall be improved and that men shall return to the land. The Federal Farm Loan system of the United States seeks to afford farmers relief from high interest rates and to make money accessible to them for farm loans. In 1916, the average rate of interest, including commissions, on farm-mortgages ranged from 5.3 in New Hampshire to 10.5 in New Mexico. In the south- eastern and west-Mississippi regions the average rate was 8 or more. The Federal Farm Loan plan creates 12 districts, each with a central loan bank to serve as a depository of loan reserves and as an agency for the sale of farm-mortgage bonds. The agencies which loan directly to farmers are Local National Farm Loan Associations, constituted of farmers, and having their own offi- cers. Only actual tillers of the soil may borrow money, in 270 RURAL SOCIOLOGY amounts ranging from $100 to $10,000. A loan to the amount of not over 50 per cent of the value of any given farm may be made for the purchase of a farm, completing payment on it, making improvements, securing equipment such as fertilizers and machinery, stocking, etc. The loans may run from five to forty years, are secured by mortgages on the farm, and the interest, administrative costs, and principal are paid in equal annual installments of a given amount throughout the life of the mortgage, 6 per cent on the principal being sufficient to cover all these items. The farm loan act became a law in 1916. Between that time and December 1, 1918, 64,357 farmers had borrowed money of the Government on their farms to the amount of $147,452,861. It is believed that the system is not used as extensively as it should be, but that a larger patronage will come when farmers generally are informed as to its advantages and understand how to secure loans. 7. Records and accounting. — ^Like the mariner at sea, the farmer needs a chart to help him discover his location in his business adventure. The index of success for the average farmer is the fact that the business is making a living. On the whole this attitude is a wholesome one ; but it is also wholesome to think that a better living may be made by the use of improved meth- ods. Records are a means of determining which methods are the best for realizing his purpose and to discover if the plan of farming is a business success. One method of determining the success and condition of farming is seen in the simple record of annual income and ex- penditure. By a study of the experience of previous years it is possible to decide what expenditures are advisable and where economies are required. If a budget system is also adopted, appropriations may be made on the basis of past experience. The Federal Government issues instructions on how to keep family and farm accounts. This instruction may be obtained in its Farmers' Bulletins. Another method of making and using records is to be observed in the annual inventory. A farm inventory would consist of the number of bushels of grain, corn, and tubers, tons of hay, number of animals and poultry, and the various other items of equipment which are on the farm at the time of taking the FARM MANAGEMENT 271 inventory, together with the current value of each. It is pos- sible to so arrange the list that the items and values of new inventories may be set down by the side of the former ones for purposes of ready comparison. The inventory enables the farmer to study his business in some detail and reveals how much has been made or lost during the year. But it does not always show to what item the gain or loss is due, as, for example, whether low grade cows or unused horses ate up the profits from a bountiful hay or grain crop. It would show the farmer whether he should economize. Thus, he might spend freely under a feeling that money is plentiful when a study of his records would indicate that he was using up a surplus from the previous year. It may be a cure of discourage- ment by revealing that although times seem hard there has been an increase of young stock, of feed, and other values. It may help to estimate profits on certain enterprises, and it exhibits depreciation in equipment and gives a bird's-eye view of the condition of the farm business. Probably what is called cost accounting is the most effective system of records the farmer may use to inform him of the efficiency of his methods. It consists of keeping a detailed record of investment and returns, relative to any process it is desired to test. If the value of a cow as a milk producer is in question, a record of the amount, kind, and price of her feed and of the yield and fat-content of her milk would be kept for a given period of time. The results would show whether or not she were "eating her head off." Cost accounting is applicable to practically every phase of farming operation, but there are some objects from which the results are uncertain. Thus, it is difficult to determine the production-cost of wool or of hides because the feed and labor required to produce the sheep or cattle went into both meat and wool, or meat and hides. However, the approximations possible in such cases are close enough to be valuable. There is one aspect of farming in the United States, namely, the tendency of rising land values to create a discrepancy be- tween the economic and the selling values of farms, which operates to introduce confusion into cost accounting. This feature is brought out in the testimony of Mr. Herbert Quick before the Industrial Relations Committee. He relates that he 272 RURAL SOCIOLOGY devised a plan of cost accounting which, after having been placed before a community of Wisconsin farmers, was approved by them and he was instructed to find a man to put it in opera- tion. He went to the State Agricultural College and was even- tually turned down by the agricultural accountant, who con- fessed that he nor anybody else knew how to keep farm accounts. This accountant said: "The big problem is this: If Wisconsin land is selling for $125 an acre, we will say, and it rents for $3 a year, on the basis of a 20-year purchase, that land is economi- cally worth $60 an acre, but it will sell in the market for $125. What are you going to do with the difference between $60, its economic value, and $125, which is the actual selling value of it ? Are you going to charge that up against farming? If you do, it is unfair to the farm." ^ TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION 1. Is there any intellectual process or mental effort connected with driving posts, driving stock, plowing ground, cultivating crops, carrying out crop rotation, selecting occasion of marketing? 2. If management calls for mental effort, what is the proportion between the latter and physical labor on the average farm? 3. Would it pay farmers to take specialized training in farm manage- ment? Does the world advance most by intelligent planning or by hit-and-miss work? 4. If you were entering upon farming how would you go about it to get yourself located to best advantage? 5. Why is the labor income of farmers in this country about that of ordinary unskilled laborers? If the managing element were larger in farming, would the labor income be considerably greater? 6. What are the possibilities of large scale capitalistic farming in the United States? Would it be a good national policy to encourage it? 7. Is it likely that the small farm type of farming so general in European nations will ever be practiced here? 8. Should the farmer be able to secure loans as easily and cheaply as other capitalistic undertakers? 9. Work out a twenty-year amortization plan of farm loans in which 6 per cent covers interest, payment of principal, and administrative costs, fixing the amount of the twenty annual payments. 10. Is the Federal Farm Loan Act readily available for short-time loan purposes? 11. Is your state doing anything to promote rural credit? REFERENCES Agricultural Cooperation and ^wral Credit in Europe. Senate Doc. No. 214, 63rd Cong., 1st Session: Information and evidence secured by Amer. Commission to Europe in 1913. Agricultural Cooperation and Rural Credit in Europe. Senate Doc. 261, Part I, 63rd Cong., 2nd Session: Observations of the American Com- mission. " Senate Document, No. 415, 64th Congress, 1st Session, Vol. 1 : 323-4. FARM MANAGEMENT 273 Carver, T. N. — Principles of Rural Economics, p. 114 and 231; Ginn and Company, 1911. , How to Use Farm Credit, Farm. Bui. 593. Cyclopedia of Amer. Agr., Vol. IV, Chaps. III-VI ; Macmillan, 1917. Dean, E. O. — Opportunities in Farming; Harpers, 1919. Federal Farm Loan Bulletins : No. 1. National Farm Loan Association, 1917. No. 4. The Federal Farm Loan Act, 1920. No. 5. The Farm Loan Primer, 19S1. No. 7. Killing off Mortgages, 19S1. No. 10. Bulings and Regulations of the Farm Loan Board, 19S0. No. 11. Amendments to the Federal Farm Loan Act, 19Z1. GoLDENWEiSER, E. A. — The Farmer's Income, Farm. Bui. 746, 1916. Holmes, G. K. — "Eural Credit," Business America, 13, No. 2. Hunt, Thomas F. — The Toung Farmer, Some Things He Should Enow; Judd, 1912. Jacobstein, Meyer — "Farm Credit in a Northwestern State," American Economic Review, 3, No. 3. Ladd, C. E. — A System of Farm Cost Accounting, Farm. Bui., 572, 1914. McVey, p. L., and Jacobstein, Meyer — Agricultural Credit with Special Reference to Conditions in North Dakota, North Dakota Bankers ' Asso- ciation, 1913. Mead, Elwood — "The Eural Credit System Needed in Western Develop- ment," University of California, Chronicle, 18, No. 1. Morgan, D. T.—Land Credits; T. Y. Crowell, 1915. Morman, J. B. — Principles of Rural Credit; Macmillan, 1915. Quick, Herbert — Testimony on Rural Credit, Report of the Industrial Ee- lations, 1 : 323ff. , "The Eural-Credit 's Firing Squad," Saturday Evening Post, Apr. 15, 1916. BoGERS, A. L. — Business Side of Agriculture ; Methuen and Co., London, 1914. Taylor, H. C. — Agricultural Economics, Chaps. IV -VI; on organization and management of farms. Thompson, C. W. — Costs and Sources of Farm Mortgage Loans in U. S., Bui. V. S. Dept. of Agr., No. 384. , Factors Affecting Interest Rates and Other Charges on Short-time Farm Loans, Bui. U. S. Dept. of Agr., No. 409. -, How Farmers May Improve Their Personal Credit, Bui. U. S. Dept. of Agr., No. 654. Thompson, E. H. — Farm Bookkeeping, Farm. Bui. 511, 1912. , The Use of a Diary for Farm Accounts, Farm. Bui. 782, 1917. , A Method of Analyzing the Farm Business, Farm. Bui. 661, 1915. Truesdale, L. E. — Amortization Methods of Farm Mortgage Loans, TJ. S. Dept. of Agr. Circ. No. 60, 1916. Warren, G. P. — Farm Management ; Macmillan, 1918. A comprehensh^e and thorough treatment of farm management. Yearbook U. S. Dept. of Agr., 1913 : 35ff. Report of Secretary of Agricul- ture on rural credit, short-time loans by adapting Building and Loan Associations to rural purposes. CHAPTER XIV THE TENANT SYSTEM OP FARMING THE SPREAD OP TENANCY No adequate understanding of the problem of tenancy is attainable without a knowledge of the degree to which it exists throughout the nation and in its several parts, and without in- formation as to whether or not it is on the increase. It will be necessary, therefore, to deal with the statistics of the subject in these respects. According to the census of 1910, 37 per cent of the number of farms and 25.8 per cent of all land in farms were farmed by tenants of some kind. In 1920, 38.1 per cent of the number of farms and 27.7 per cent of farm acreage were operated by ten- ants. It is worth noting that the tenancy situation may be made to appear blacker and more ominous by citing the per- centage of the number of farms rented than by referring to the proportion of land so farmed; and neither figure need be the cause of alarm unless it is known that tenancy is a pernicious system. As would be anticipated, there are great variations in the intensity of tenancy in the United States. Thus, in 1910, varia- tion in tenancy ranged from 8 per cent of farms and 7.8 per cent of all land in farms in New England to 52.8 per cent of farms and 26.7 per cent of the farm land in the West South Central division. Reckoned by number of farms, the southern and central sections were the regions of the greatest intensity. Four southern states — Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina — had over 60 per cent; four others — Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana — had from 50 to 60 per cent ; Illinois, Tennessee, and North Carolina had from 40 to 50 per cent ; and the five states of Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Indiana, and Kentucky had from 30 to 40 per cent of farms under tenancy. In the South, where the average size of farms is much smaller 274 •N) THE TENANT SYSTEM OP FARMING 275 than in the nation at large, there is a far greater divergence between the percentage of tenant farms and tenant land than in the nation generally. Thus, in Illinois, in 1910, 41 per cent of the number of farms and 43.7 of all land in farms were farmed by renters, while in Mississippi, 66 per cent of all farms and only 33.9 per cent of all farm land were so farmed. Similar percent- ages for the West South Central division are 52.8 and 26.7 ; for the East North Central division they are 27 and 30. If land hired by part owners and also by tenants is counted, the leasing of farm land was most prevalent in the North Central States. Both ownership and tenancy increased during the decade ending 1910, at the expense of managership. It is important to understand not only the extent of tenancy but also at what rate it is increasing or decreasing. On the basis of number of farms, tenancy increased 44.5 per cent in the United States between 1880 and 1910. The percentage of farms operated by tenants was 25.6 in 1880, 28.4 in 1890, 35.3 in 1900, and 37 in 1910. At the same rate of increase, 53.4 per cent of farms would be under tenant operation by 1940. The increase was 10.8 per cent for the decade ending 1890, 24.2 per cent for that ending 1900, 4.8 per cent for the one ending 1910, and 4.3 per cent for the decade ending 1920. According to this, al- though tenancy is increasing, it is advancing at a smaller rate than formerly. The increase during the last decade mentioned was less than half that of the first and only about one fifth that of the second decade. The accompanying table represents the divisions in which tenancy increased and decreased between 1910 and 1920. WHERE TENANCY IN NUMBER OF FARMS INCREASED OR DECREASED Increased Decreased Division Percentage Rate of Increase Division Percentage Rate of 1920 1910 1920 1910 Decrease E. N. Cent... W. N. Cent.. South Atl. . . . W. S. Cent. . . Mountain . . Pacific 28.1 34.2 46.8 52.9 15.4 20.1 27.0 30.9 45.9 52.8 10.7 17.2 4.1 10.0 2.0 0.2 44.0 16.8 New Eng .... Mid. Atl E. S. Cent. . . . 7.4 20.7 49.7 8.0 22.3 50.7 7.5 7.2 2.0 276 RURAL SOCIOLOGY Thus, three divisions, the two in the northeastern part of the nation and one in the southeast, showed a decline in tenancy of from about 2 to 7.5 per cent. All of the other divisions experi- enced an increase, the increase ranging from 2.0 to 44.0 per cent. It is noteworthy that the East South Central division passed over from the increasing to the losing column, while the Mountain and Pacific divisions did just the reverse, as compared with the decade 1900-1910. Outside the two latter divisions, the rates of increase have lowered in comparison with the previous decade. The facts concerning the increase and decrease of tenant farm- ing on the basis of acreage are presented in the following table : WHERE TENANCY, ACCOEDING TO ACEEAGE, INCREASED OE DECREASED • Increased Decreased Division Percentage Rate of Increase Division Percentage Rate of 1920 1910 1920 1910 Decrease E. N. Cent... W. N. Cent.. South Atl.... E. S. Cent... W. S. Cent... Mountain . . . Pacific 32.6 32.0 32.4 29.6 30.1 11.3 22.7 30.0 27.0 30.1 28.0 26.7 10.5 19.8 8.7 18.5 7.6 5.7 12.7 7.6 14.6 New Eng .... Mid. Atl 7.6 20.6 7.8 25.9 1.8 20.4 * The data on which the two above tables are based are found in the Statistical Ab- stract of the Thirteenth Census, pp. 286-7, and in Agriculture: Summary, Fourteenth Census, 1920, Tables 46 and 49. Thus, between 1910 and 1920, almost the same divisions that sustained a decline in acreage tenancy also sustained a decline in farm tenancy. One northern division passed over to the side of acreage decline, while one southern division joined the ranks of increase. As compared with England, the United States is low in the development of the amount of tenancy, although it is inferior in the quality of its renting system. ' ' England is preeminently the land of tenant farmers. Less than 14 per cent of the farm land of that country is reported as operated by its owners, and in most cases such land is operated by hired farmers, or bailiffs, as they are called. About 86 per cent of the farm land of England is operated by tenants who pay a fixed rent for its use. Share tenancy is not practiced in England. ' ' ^ * Taylor, Agricultural Economics, p. 323. THE TENANT SYSTEM OF FARMING 277 The accompanying pictogram offers an illustrative comparison of farm tenancy by decades between the important sections of the nation and between white and negro farmers in the South. Peecentaoe op Tenant Fakmees in the United States at Dippeeent Censuses * 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 •Spillman and Goldenweiser, Yearbook, U. S. Dept. Agri., 1916: 327. The negro is a large factor in the tenancy of the South. In 1910, 71.3 per cent of the farmers of that section were white and 28.7 per cent were negro. Negro farmers, however, operated only 12 per cent of the farm acreage. Twenty-eight per cent of the number of farms and 20.5 per cent of all land in farms in 1910 were operated by white tenants, while 21.6 per cent of all farms and 7.5 per cent of all farm land was operated by negro tenants. Both white and black owners and tenants increased at the expense of managers during the decade ending 1910. Negro farmers in the South increased 20.2 per cent during that decade as compared with an increase of 17.4 per cent in the number of 278 RURAL SOCIOLOGY white farmers. White tenants increased 27.4 per cent, while negro tenants increased only 21.4 per cent. The amount of land farmed by negro tenants increased 7 per cent, while that farmed by white tenants increased 15.6 per cent. Negro ownership of farms increased 17 per cent and of farm land 17.5 per cent as compared with a 12 per cent increase of ownership of farms and 2.5 per cent increase in ownership of farm land on the part of whites.^ The few figures obtainable for 1920 indicate no sub- stantial changes relative to negro farming in the south. SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE OF FARM TENANCY Anything which touches farm production as intimately as does the renting system must have profound results on and significance for rural society in numerous directions. Could it be demonstrated that the American tenant system is character- ized by consequences that are more largely bad than good, the inference would be somewhat obvious that it should either be abolished or reconstructed in a fundamental manner. The typi- cal American tenant system which generally is in the foreground of this discussion is the short-term, share, or cash rent arrange- ment between landlord and tenant, with little or no supervision on the part of the landlord and with no agreement as to the rights of the renter to improvements made by him during his incumbency or in years of failure of crops due to occurrences of nature. This typical tenant system tends to defertilize the soil, and so, to lessen farm and national production ; to the rapid deteriora- tion of farm buildings and other farm improvements ; and to the undermining of the neighborhood and community spirit. All of these results, except the first, are unquestionably bad. Relative to the first effect it may be said that whether or not this is to be considered as undesirable depends on the time and the point of view. For example, farmers in certain sections of the United States have defended the reduction of production and have resorted to decreased acreage of staple crops in order to attain that end. But a bad method of farming could scarcely ever be considered a justifiable means of securing restricted production. The logical consequences of the renting system with respect to the condition of the soil are those of deterioration and defer- • Abstract Thirteenth Census, pp. 299-300. THE TENANT SYSTEM OF FARMING 279 tilization. Because of insecurity of tenure, short-term tenure, and inadequacy of motive for soil improvement on the part of tenants, and in view of the general lack of supervision on the part of landlords, there is a common neglect of such systematic and continuous rotation of crops as will insure the upkeep of the quality of the soil. The average tenure of renters in the United States is three years, and a third of the tenants remain on the same piece of land only one year or less. It is not to be forgotten that there are many excellent farmers among renters. Such will remain on a farm for many years and perhaps leave the soil in as good condition as it was at the beginning of the lease. But the average rental term of three years is almost bound to disrupt rotation and other soil restoration processes. The one-crop system which so largely obtains, especially in the South, leads to rapid soil depletion. "While there is a large consensus of opinion among observers and students of agriculture that tenancy results in soil depletion, there is not the abundance of statistical data at hand that is desirable to clinch the belief. But as an example of what careful studies evince in this direction, the following record of Missouri farms is presented. EFFECT OF LAND TENANCY ON ACEEAGE YIELDS* Crop Yield Under: Owner Part Owner Tenant 38.8 bu. 18.8 " 33.2 " 2.5 tons 1.15 " 1.03 " 1.00 " 1.11 " 36.3 bu. 17.2 " 28.3 " 2.4 tons 1.08 " 1.01 " .97 " 1.05 " 32.9 bu. Wheat 17.4 " Oats 23.4 " Cane 2.6 tons Cowpea hay .88 " Timothy 1.07 " .91 " 1.16 " * Missouri Experiment Station Bulletin, No. 121, reproduced in Nourse, Affricultural Economics^ p. 649. The motive at the foundation of the tenant system of this country is probably the fundamental and regulative cause of soil defertilization and decreased production as well as of brevity of tenure. This is the desire on the part of both tenant and owner or landlord to get the largest possible results out of the soil in the shortest time and with the least effort. This is 280 RURAL SOCIOLOGY unquestionably the dominant and apparent motive of the aver- age short-tenure renter, for why should he seek either to build up or to preserve the fertility of the soil when the nature of his contract warrants him in believing that the land may be sold under him or he may be put off the land at the end of the year, thus leaving the fruits of his eiforts to others? And the owner is so frequently a land speculator, one who buys to hold a few years for sale at an advanced price, with no interest in farming in itself and without care as to what happens to the land just so he gets his net profit out of it, that the crop is apt to be regarded as an incident in the transaction. Consequently, he does not make the effort and take the trouble to improve the land — in fact, he is frequently so far removed from his land that it would be almost impossible for him to do so. It is appar- ent, then, that the similar motive on the part of owner and tenant tends toward the systematic gutting of the soil. It is a well-known fact that the improvements on rented places deteriorate more rapidly than those on places occupied by owners ; and this is true in both country and city. Farmhouses, barns, and other farm buildings, wells, fences, orchards, and forest and shade trees suffer neglect, if not direct disregard and destruction, under tenancy. There is a vast difference in the appearance of agricultural districts where the operators are owners and those where they are renters; and the same is true as to individual farms. The tenant lacks the economic and social motives which the owner possesses for the exercise of preserva- tion and care of the various improvements. The writer is well acquainted with a community in which the farms were formerly in the hands of owners. At that time, not only were the build- ings, fences, and the like in good repair, but orchards and forestry were amply developed. Since then, a large portion of the farms have been in the hands of renters and the change for the worse is most marked. The dwellings and other buildings, fences, and well equipment have become dilapidated, and the splendid orchards and forests have gone or are being destroyed. Under a regime of ownership it would take many years to re- store the appearance and value of such improvements to their original condition. Thus it is seen that our system of tenancy carries within itself no proper and effective motives on the part of the tenant to THE TENANT SYSTEM OF FARMING 281 lead him to engage in soil building or farm improvement. Were the soil to be fertilized or the various improvements sedulously cared for and repaired, the renter might be forced off the farm by sale of land or the rent raised because of the increased value in the farm, thus penalizing him for the investments made in those respects. As a consequence it appears to the renter to be to his advantage to take the course most immediately profitable to himself. It would be expected that ultimately such a system of pro- duction and habitation must have a bearing on the value of land. It goes without discussion that worn-out soil is less desirable than fruitful soil and that farm improvements in good repair are more valuable than those that are run down. Tenancy has a determinative influence on the life of the neigh- borhood. A neighborhood of renters is apt to be a backward one because the community spirit is wanting. This is partly due to the fact that the renting farmers remain in the same place for so short a time that they do not get to be a part of the fundamental life of the region. The larger and richer life of the community is dependent on plans and considerations which reach far into the future and involve long-time investments of effort and money, and it is evident that short-time and mobile populations cannot develop such abiding interests. Often, also, another factor enters, namely, that renters feel neglected and that they have no substantial part in the management of com- munity and neighborhood affairs ; and no doubt they often have a real basis for the feeling. For example, rural church surveys in Manitoba, Canada, indicate that farm owners were visited much oftener by the pastors than were tenants, and that the number of tenants never visited was double that of farm owners overlooked.^ Further, it is likely that the fact that renters possess no permanent property interests leads them to neglect neighborhood institutions and activities; for property owner- ship not only usually means a lengthened residential period in a community but also a regard for local institutions as useful agencies for the safeguarding of property and property values. Education is one of the local community matters which fre- quently suffers under the renting system. White and Leonard found in Texas that tenant districts manifested a lower school 'Rural Survey of Turtle Mountain District, Manitoba, pp. 49-61. 282 RURAL SOCIOLOGY enrollment, attendance, tax rate for the support of schools, shorter terms of school, and less school property per child than did owner districts. It appeared that in tenant districts the worst possible school is regarded as good enough and that the tendency is to avoid taxes and trouble.^ A Missouri survey reveals the fact that only 12.7 per cent of the children of renters complete the district school as compared with 32.7 per cent of the children of farm owners.^ Similar results are obtained from other investigations. The consequences of tenancy to the rural church are similar to those relative to education. Rural surveys in Ohio, Missouri, Minnesota, California, Manitoba, and elsewhere, indicate that church membership, church attendance, and contributions to church purposes averages from one-third to less than half as much among tenants as among farm owners. These and other facts which might be offered demonstrate that the problem of tenancy cannot be settled on economic grounds alone, for the effects of tenancy radiate into society at large in devious ways.^ There are some sections of the nation where the tenant situa- tion has special significance. This is true of much of the negro "cropper" tenancy in the South. In this system the landlord has such complete control over the renter and the term of lease is so short that the negro operator approaches the character of the casual laborer.* DuBois goes further and speaks of this con- dition as peonage.'^ Some unusually severe conditions are to be found in Oklahoma and Texas. In Texas, the one-crop and the chattel mortgage system works great hardship on the renter. "One crop and a chattel mortgage on it, and on the property used in producing it, hold thousands of tenants in economic bondage. ' ' ° Tenancy in Oklahoma is about as intensive as in any part of the Union. The conditions appear to be very severe for the tenants. The leases are drawn in favor of the landlord, at least ' Farm Tenancy in Texas, pp. 142-3. "Paul L. Vogt, Publications of the American Sociological Society, Vol. XI: 86fE. ' See also, Thompson and Warber, Social and Economic Survey of a Sural Township in Southern Minnesota, pp. 54-5. * Testimony of Charles Hollman, Industrial Kelations Committee, IX : 2952ff. ' American Statistical Association, XIII : 80-84. "White and Leonard, op. cit., Chap. IV. THE TENANT SYSTEM OF FARMING 283 in many cases, rents are high, and evictions often are easy of accomplishment and unjust. The testimony of Patrick S. Nagel before the Industrial Re- lations Commission makes these things evident. Nagel also shows that the laws have been changed so that justices of the peace, before whom landlord and tenant eviction cases are tried, are elected by "electric-light cities," in which the landlords live. The landlords control the elections of the justices and the cases are decided in favor of the landlords. The laws governing the jury system also have been so changed that the juries before whom many of the tenant cases are brought are selected from the non-renting class, renters being quite effec- tually excluded. Again practically all renters are burdened with chattel mort- gages assumed to carry them through the productive season. In the case of ignorant renters who are close to bankruptcy, the landlords, bankers, etc., force or wheedle them into auction sales, the goods being frequently bought in to the great disadvantage of the renter. Some large estates, such as the Scully farms in Illinois, Kan- sas, and Nebraska impose rack-renting conditions on the tenants. William Scully, an Irish gentleman, paid about 75 cents an acre for farm land when land was cheap in Illinois and rented it to farmers at $4 an acre on condition that the farmers would build good houses and barns at their own expense. The con- tract was for only a year at a time but it provided that if the farmer moved the next farmer should pay him for his improve- ments. So long as William Scully lived, the contracts were kept, but when he died an executor of the estate came from Ireland who disliked the farmers because they did not doff their hats to him. So he raised the rent to $10 an acre and told those who did not like it to get off, with the loss of improvements.^ During the summer of 1921, however, after much discontent among the renting farmers, the rental was reduced to $7 an acre. There is something to be said for tenancy in America, not for the typical system but for the fact of tenancy. So far in our development, renting farm land has been a means of attaining to the ownership of farms, not always but in a large sense. This has been quite conclusively demonstrated by the study of ' Arthur Brisbane, Chicago Herald and Examiner, Nov. 11, 1918. 284 RURAL SOCIOLOGY data relative to farm ownership in the central west. The rungs of the ladder upon which landless men climb to ownership are home labor, hired labor, tenancy, and ownership with or with- out mortgage. Of 2,112 present owners in Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and Minnesota 20 per cent took all the above steps, "13 per cent skipped the tenant stage, 32 per cent the hired man stage, and 34 per cent passed directly to ownership from their fathers' farms, omitting both the stages of hired man and tenant." The average age of attaining ownership of those taking all the steps was 36 years, of those omitting the hired man stage 33 years, of those omitting the tenant stage 29 years, and of those omitting both the hired man and tenant stage 26^ years. The accompanying pictogram, percentage of farmers in the various age groups who are renters, depicts the situation for the whole United States. The declining percentages by age groups is partly due to death, no doubt, but largely to the fact that renters are passing over increasingly to ownership. Peecentaoe of Fakmers in the United States in Each Age Group Who Were Tenants in 1910 * 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 ^ ^ 3 ^ S ^ S iS > Spillman and Goldenweiser, yearbook, U. S. Dept. Agri., 1916; S26. If this condition were permanent, tenancy in that portion of the nation would be confined to young men working up THE TENANT SYSTEM OF FARMING 285 toward ownership and to some incompetents and unfortunates. But the increase in the price of land is making it more difficult to climb the ladder. This is shown by the fact that those who attained their farms 31 to 40 years ago, spent an average of 5.2 years as hired hands and 4.9 years as tenants; whereas three decades later the hired hand stage occupied 7.9 and the renter stage 11.1 years. However, the rate of increase of the length of these periods required to work up to ownership diminishes during the three decades in question, being respec- tively 2.3 for the first, 2.4 for the second, and 1.5 for the third. ^ Galpin's studies of tenancy in Wisconsin show that renters are often relatives of the owners. Where such is the case it is likely that the period covering the evolution into owner- ship is considerably shortened, especially in the case where the renter is a son of the owner. In fact, our previous statistics indicate that 32 per cent of those who become owners skipped the hired man stage and 12 per cent the tenant. Whether or not laborci-s and renters will continue to evolve into ownership of farms is going to depend very largely on two things: the price of land and the development of a national policy by Congress covering the attainment of land. It is of the highest importance that this evolution should continue and it is to be hoped that Congress may see its way to develop a liberal land policy such as was outlined in a previous chapter. CAUSES OF TENANCY The general cause of tenancy the world over is found in the fact that certain persons own land which they do not want to till or manage directly, while certain landless people do have the desire to till the soil and engage in management of farm processes. As a consequence, a bargain is made between the two parties by which the land owners may have their land tilled by the landless, each to enjoy a share of the returns. In the old countries tenancy may have developed out of a previous condition of serfdom or villainage or out of the inelosure of small agricultural properties by wealthy or powerful land- 'J. W. Spillman, "The Agricultural Ladder," American Economic Re- view, March, 1919, pp. 29-38; also Spillman and Goldenweiser, Yearbook, Drpartment of Agriculture, 1916, p. 325. 286 RURAL SOCIOLOGY grabbers, the small proprietors remaining on the land as tenants. In America, where land has always been plentiful, renting a farm has quite generally been regarded by young men starting out in life as an important step toward the ownership of an independent homestead. Even in the South, among a people formerly enslaved, the same way of regarding it widely obtains and the more successful negro tenants evolve into farm proprie- tors. It is asserted that negroes are resisting the lure of city life while white owners and tenants drift steadily to cities. Undoubtedly there is a tendency here, although its proportions are only barely sufficient to be detected statistically. In some sections of the South, negroes are rising from tenancy to owner- ship. In ten Mississippi counties negro farm owners outnum- bered the white owners in 1910.^ It is evident that the supply of available and cheap land will condition the increase of tenancy. When our westward move- ment reached the prairies, it was quite possible for those am- bitious to farm to settle on a piece of land, break it up at once, and begin farming. Except in the case of the few unambitious, incompetents, or unfortunates, there was little excuse then for becoming a renter in the new sections. But as soon as the land of a region is fairly well absorbed in farms, the landless who desire to farm must either purchase a farm or contemplate leasing. Now that the arable domain has been practically ab- sorbed, the cheap and available supply of farming land ex- hausted, the only recourse is to buying or renting. In the great farming regions of the Mississippi valley the price of land has become so great that relatively few men ambitious to farm are able to make the outlay necessary to the purchase of a farm. The one fact that makes this argument seem questionable is seen in the decreasing rate of increase of tenancy during the three decades 1880 to 1910. As we saw recently, the per- Rural South, American Statistical Association, 13 : 80-84. Ely, Bichard T., and Galpin, and Hoag — "Tenancy in an Ideal System of Land Ownership," American Economic Review Supplement, March, 1919. Feissell, H. B. — Southern Agriculture and the Negro Farmer, American Statistical Association, 13: 65-70. Froley, J. W. — A System of Tenant Farming and Its Results, Farm. Bui. No. 437. , ' ' When Tenant Farming is Desirable, ' ' Nourse 's Agricultural Eco- nomics, p. 673. Galpin, Chas. J., and Hoag — Farm Tenancy, University of Wisconsin Agri- cultural Experiment Station Besearch Bui. 44, 1919. Also see under Ely. Glasson, W. H. — Rural Conditions in the South, American Statistical Asso- ciation, 13: 76-9. GoLDENVi'EisER, E. A. — See under Spillman. Green, J. F. — Industrial Relations Report, 10 : 9222, 9223, 9227. Grembry, J. C. — Industrial Relations Report, 10 : 0127-30. "Has a Eural Tenant Any Bights?" Saturday Evening Post, Nov. 11, 1916: 25ff. Hedrick, W. O. — Tenant Farming, Publications of American Sociological Society, 11 : 94-6. Henry, L. J. — Industrial Relations Report, 10: 9149-57. HiBBAKD, B. H. — ' ' Farm Tenancy in the TJ. S., ' ' Annals, 40 : 29-39. Hoag, Emily F. — See under Ely. Hodges, E. E. — ' ' Make it Safe to Lease or Buy Farming Land, ' ' Pacific Rural Press, May 5, 1921. Industrial Relations Committee Report, Testimony Regarding Tenancy, Vol. I: 24-5: 86-9; 322ff; Vol. IX: 2952ff; Vol. X: 9059-9236. Johnson, O. K, — ' ' Relation of Tenancy to the Quality of Farming, ' ' Nourse 's Agricultural Economics, pp. 648-50. King, F. H. — Farmers of Forty Centuries (Japan), Madison, Wisconsin, 191L Leonard, Wm. — See under White. Lewis, W. B.— Industrial Relations Report, 10: 9228-36. Loyal, O. G. — "Rent Returns and Speculation," Nourse 's Agricultural Economics, pp. 634-6. Mead, Elwood — See references under National Land Policy. Meitzen, E. O. — Industrial Relations Report, 10: 9142-9. Moeman, J. B. — The Place of Agriculture in Reconstruction, Chap. X ; Dutton, 1919. Nagel, p. S. — Industrial Relations Report, 10: 9059-76. Nourse, E. G. — Agricultural Economics, Chap. XII; University of Chicago Press. Prezzolini, Giuseppe — "The Seizure of the Land in Sicily," The Nation, Vol. 112: 237-8. Rural Surveys — See Special references in context of this chapter. Simon, G. W. — Industrial Relations Report, 10: 9135-41. Smith, C. B. — See under Froley. Spillman, W. J., and Golden wei see — "Farm Tenantry in the U. S.," Tearbooh of the V. S. Department of Agriculture, 1916: 321-64. "The Agricultural. Ladder, " American Economic Review, Supple- ment, March, 1919. Stewart, C. L. — "The Trend of Land Tenure in the United States," Nourse 's Agricultural Economics, 665-9. Taylor, H. C. — Agricultural Economics, Chaps. XX-XXV; Macmillan, 1919. 296 RURAL SOCIOLOGY Thompson, C. W. — How the Federal Farm Loan Act Benefits the Farmer, Farm. Bui. No. 792. Thompson, and Warber — Social and Economic Survey of a Sural Town- ship in Southern Minnesota. University of Minnesota. Vincent, Geo. E. — Countryside and Nation, Publications of the American Sociological Society, 11 : 1-12. VoGT, Paul L. — The Land Problem and Sural Welfare, Publications of the American Sociological Society, 11: 86fE. Warber, G. P., and Thompson — See under Thompson. Wabren, G. F. — Farm Management, Chap. IX; Macmillan, 1918. White, E. V., and Leonard — Studies in Farm Tenancy in Texas, Bui. Uni- versity of Texas, No. 21. Yerbt, W. B. — Industrial delations Seport, 10: 9163, 9168-82. YouNGBLOOD, B. — Industrial Selations Eeport, 10: 9185-90. CHAPTER XV AGRICULTURAL LABOR NATURE OP THE PROBLEM Widespread opinion exists that there is a definite farm labor problem in the United States, but widely divergent ideas pre- vail as to exactly what the problem is. A comprehensive in- vestigation of the labor situation makes it evident that the labor supply and labor conditions in the various sections of the nation are distinctly different. Besides, the quite general phenomena of seasonal and regular labor have many phases. As in the case of roads, tenancy, management, production, and other rural subjects, we discover that the agricultural interests have labor problems instead of a well defined, uniformly oc- curring labor problem. The farmer is immediately interested in securing an adequate supply of trustworthy, efficient labor when he requires it and is apt to complain of insufficient workers and of inability to secure helpers at certain seasons of the year. The seasonal worker wants regular employment and fares badly on account of short-time jobs and of injurious conditions under which he is frequently forced to work. The regular farm laborer com- plains of inadequate wages, poor housing, poor food, and bad treatment. He especially resents the position he is assigned to in the community and his inability to work up in agricultural industry to ownership. In general, rural labor criticizes the indefinite social status it is forced to occupy, since the laborer belongs neither to the family nor to any other social group. The community and the nation have an interest in securing ample agricultural production. If farm laborers are necessary to guarantee this, society sanctions the existence of such laborers. But it is interested in having its work done under humane and humanizing conditions. It must avoid the production and 297 298 RURAL SOCIOLOGY presence of an irresponsible and dangerous class of workers on the one hand and of a desocialized and dehumanized hard-and- fast working caste on the other. Its first interest is in producing workers who shall be intelligent and reliable and who shall also have the foundation of ambition and hope. In so far as it is possible to formulate a statement of the agricultural labor problem it is as follows: how to develop a regular demand for and a constant supply of efficient labor that possesses equitable working and living conditions and an oppor- tunity to develop into managership and ownership. Society must have adequate agricultural production, ll requires good farms and prosperous farmers. Its safety demands that a defi- nite and permanent labor class be avciided and that social condi- tions be kept sufficiently fluid so that there shall always be an open stairway of opportunity leading up from farm labor to farmer and owner. EXTENT AND SOURCES OF PAEM LABOR Some statistics relating to farm labor will aid to an under- standing of its extent and the sources of its supply in the United States. In 1910, 41,230,058 persons lived in the country outside of incorporated places. Of these, 12,285,579, or 29.7 per cent, were engaged in agricultural occupations of some kind. This ex- cludes women in the home, children under ten years of age, and children above that age unless employed in farm work. Of the 6,143,799 persons who were reported as agricultural laborers, 3,310,534, or 54 per cent were home laborers and 2,636,966 were hired workers. Besides these two classes there were nearly 200,000 persons belonging to other classes of labor employed on farms. A further idea of the extent of farm labor is gained by comparing the number of farm laborers with that of farms. In 1910 there were 6,361,502 farms in the United States, a farm consisting of all the tracts of land under the management of one man. Thus there were about 41 per cent as many hired laborers as farms. Since many farms have more than one hired worker it would appear that by far the larger portion AGRICULTURAL LABOR 299 of farms are without such workers. It must be remembered that it is impossible to determine how many of the occasional or seasonal farm laborers are included in these statements but it is possible that the larger part of such labor is excluded. The accompanying graph, ' ' Extent of Rural Labor in the United States," illustrates the statistics just given. Extent or Rural Labor in the United States, 1910 Rural Popu- lation 40 85- 30 25 s a 20 15 10 Namber Engaged in Agri-^ culture Number Number™™ Farms Home Hired Laborers ^^ot~ C^ era u i- CO There are two very serious defects relating to the statistics of agricultural labor: (1) there are no figures pertaining to both the supply and demand, hence supply and demand cannot be correlated; (2) it is impossible to study the trend of such labor because relevant statistics obtain for only a short period of time and further, the basis of classification was changed in the Census of 1910. Two somewhat opposing views as to the sufficiency of the 300 RURAL SOCIOLOGY supply of agricultural labor are worthy of notice. Warren, in his Farm Management, gives several reasons why farm labor is scarcer than formerly: (1) The family is the chief source of supply. Farm children now spend more days in school and the attendance is more regular. In Kansas one-third of the population is in school. (2) Farm families are smaller than formerly. (3) A smaller portion of farm work is done by women. (4) Tenant farming is absorbing farm labor. Also farms that used to employ a man are now run by the owner because it is possible to drive a larger number of horses. (5) Improved machinery introduced after the Civil War because of high prices caused a revolution in farming which resulted in over-production and falling prices. Consequently, the most serious agricultural depression in the history of the world oc- curred from 1875 to 1897. In some states corn sold for 8 and 10 cents a bushel as late as 1896 and great amounts were burned for fuel. Holmes states that between 1885 and 1894 the labor required to produce a bushel of com declined from four hours and 34 minutes to 41 minutes ; in producing a bushel of wheat, between 1830 and 1894, from 3 hours and 3 minutes to 10 minutes.^ (6) Proportionally fewer immigrants are going to farms because peasant farmers do not understand our machine methods of farming. The hand type farming is getting a larger share of immigrants while, on the other hand, probably 95 per cent of farming calls for the use of machinery.^ The other view is that of E. V. Wilcox, who derived his in- formation relative to the farm labor situation from the experi- ences of the Department of Agriculture in its attempt to handle the labor situation during our participation in the Great War. Wilcox believes that there was an ample supply of labor to carry on farm work even during the time of the emergency when so many of our men were in Europe and in cantonments. The major difficulty was one of the proper distribution of the available labor force. The great problems were those of temporary maladjustments and local shortages of labor. To meet these situations he believes that American farmers must 'G. K. Holmes, "Supply and Wages of Farm Labor," Tearioolc Depart- ment of Agriculture, 1910, pp. 190-191. 'Warren, Farm Management, pp. 330-331. AGRICITLTURAL LABOR 301 learn to do their own work and not seek to import such workers as Chinese and Mexicans.^ Nearly 25 per cent of the agricultural laborers of the nation are females, but of the 1,524,674 such workers only 22.5 per cent belong to the hired class; while slightly less than half of the 4,619,125 male agricultural workers were hired laborers. In 1910, 14.2 per cent of all hired farm labor was female, in 1900 the percentage was 10.9. According to this, female hired labor on the farm is increasing, but compilers of the census doubt this conclusion because they think changes in census schedules resulted in exaggerated reports of female hired laborers. Female hired labor on the farm is chiefly in the South. By general regions, females furnished the following percentages of hired labor in 1900 : South Central, 35.6 ; South Atlantic, 25.8; North Central, .07; "Western, .02; North Atlantic, .01. That this female hired labor in the South is chiefly negro is seen from a statement as to the proportion that hired female negro agricultural labor is of all agricultural negro labor. The percentage for the United States in 1900 was 37.9; for the divi- sions. South Atlantic, 40.6 ; South Central, 36.4 ; North Central, 1.2 ; North Atlantic, 6.= The extent of agricultural child labor according to sex may be observed from the fact that about 17 per cent of female agricultural hired labor in 1910 were under 16 years of age while only 10 per cent of hired male workers were that young. About three-fifths of female hired child laborers were under 14 while less than half of such male hired workers were of that age. The accompanying table on nativity, class, and sex of farm labor yields information concerning the racial stock of agricul- tural labor relative to sex and the class of labor. Since we are interested in hired labor chiefly, we should note that only about 7.7 per cent of this in agriculture is foreign-born white labor. About two per cent of it is Japanese, Indian, etc., in- cluded in the table under ' ' all others. ' ' More than 90 per cent 'E. V. Wileox, American Economic Eeview, Vol. VIII, No. 1, Supple- ment: 1.58-170. "See Holmes, ibid., 193, regarding southern divisions. 302 RURAL SOCIOLOGY NATIVITY, CLASS, AND SEX OF AGEICTJLTURAL LABOB* Native White Native Parentage Foreign Born or Mixed Parentage Male Female Male Female Home labor 1,363,125 1,270,421 57,775 410,932 58,832 3,762 284,479 264,454 24,117 403,337 6,546 Others 1,605 Foreign Born White Negro All Others Male Female Male Female Male Female Home labor . . Hired labor . . Others 39,057 217,464 51,849 19,142 7,585 1,666 441,203 516,632 41,941 704,150 263,403 3,152 5,285 30,473 10,140 2,024 1,456 82 * Census, 1910, Vol. IV ; Occupational Statistics. is born in America, the greater part of native white parentage, the next large portion being of negro stock. The hired labor born of foreign born or of mixed parentage exceeds the foreign born quota. It is observed that a much larger part of negro hired labor is female than is the ease with whites of any kind of nativity. About 33.5 per cent of negro hired labor are female, while only 4.4 per cent of that of native white parentage, 2.4 per cent of that of foreign or mixed parentage, and 3.4 per cent of that of foreign born whites are of that sex. The proportion of foreign born hired agricultural labor is becoming smaller, since the percentage it represents of all hired farm labor was 13.1 in 1890, 8.5 in 1900, and 7.7 per cent in 1910. The "West employs the largest percentage of immigrant labor, 20.9 per cent of its hired farm labor being such in 1900. The percentage in the North Atlantic States was 15.6, in the North Central, 11.8. In a few districts immigrant labor appears to be increasing on the farms. In New England foreigners are filling the places of those who leave the farm. Much the same substitution is taking place in Michigan and Wisconsin where Swiss and Bo- hemians are becoming an important element. In some sections AGRICULTURAL LABOR 303 of the South, Italians are entering agriculture, but the move- ment is so small as to be almost insignificant. Near the Mexican line much Mexican labor is employed, often to the detriment of the wages of labor, while on the Pacific Coast oriental labor, especially Japanese, is a considerable factor. Only at first do Japanese laborers cut wages. They soon learn the advantages of high wages and organize to themselves in this and in other respects. Japanese contribute the following percentages of all hired labor relative to the various crops enumerated: berries, 87.2; sugar beets, 66.3; nursery products, 57.3; grapes, 51.7; vegetables, 45.7 ; hops, 8.7 ; liay and gi'ain, 6.6. They do prac- tically all of the hard work on the beet crop except in three districts. The care of beets is hard work, calling for much squatting and stooping. HEGULAE LABOR The major problem of the farmer respecting regular labor is to secure a sufficient supply of efficient laborers; that of the laborer is to obtain reasonable hours and wages, satisfactory housing conditions, and a desirable social position. The supply and extent of this kind of labor were revealed in the previous section, since the statistics related most largely to regular labor. There is little reason to think that there is not an ample amount of this kind of labor available for farms. Even during war times investigators found that sufficient work- men were available, the problem being one of distribution, some localities showing a dearth, others an oversupply. Farmers frequently complain loudly about the inefficiency of farm hands. A good deal of agricultural labor is inexperienced and no doubt is quite unsatisfactory. The negro labor of the South is often irregular and shiftless. "Wilcox says: "In a careful survey of the distribution and use of labor in North Carolina it was found that only 40 per cent of efficiency was obtained during the past cropping season among negro laborers. In Maryland a study of the work performed by farm laborers including both family and hired labor indicated that farmers and their hired help do only about 100 days work each year. ' ' ^ The larger portion of the regular employees on farms, however, are resident of the country itself and doubtless have an average ^ E. V. Wilcox, American Economic Review, Vol. VIII, Supplement, p. 163. 304 RURAL SOCIOLOGY amount of knowledge and experience in farming. It is probable that the quality of hired help corresponds quite closely to the somewhat backward conditions of work and the small social recognition offered labor in the community. The development of machine agricultural production and of dairying has made a demand for men skilled in the use of ma- chinery and in the care of stock, thus placing the less skilled workers at a disadvantage. Diversified farming leads in the same direction. Heightened land values in rich land districts tend to prevent laborers from becoming land owners and to fix them as a distinct economic and social class in social life. Agricultural laborers complain of hard conditions of work such as long hours, poor housing, and lack of social recog- nition. The opinion prevails that the farm day is excessively long. While the eight-hour day is becoming the ideal for city workers and is being adopted on farms in Italy, the demands of farming in the United States are such that there is little hope for the establishment of the eight-hour day there for all seasons of the year. But the work on the farm is so varied during the day that different parts of the body are alternately exercised and rested. Note the change involved in such a typical program as this one: chores before breakfast, breakfast, work- ing in the field with team, warm dinner at home, a few chores, work with team, supper, chores. In the rush season this may make a very long day and entail fatigue, but in the winter the hours of work are greatly reduced and there is much leisure time. Only a few statistics relating to the hours of farm labor are obtainable and these are for the North. In a Minnesota district where there is considerable dairying, the average week day is 8.6 hours and the average Sunday, 3.4. In a grain section the average hours for those days were 7.4 and 2.2. In a Red River Valley region the summer day was divided as follows: chores, 2.5 hours; field work, 9.9; eating, 1.5; sleeping, 7.7; recreation, 2.4 hours. The winter day consisted of chores, 4.3 hours; field work, 4.1 ; eating, 1.7 ; sleeping, 9 ; recreation, 4.9.^ While no fixed day is possible in farming due to the demands of stock and seasons, yet it is believed there is little justification for a labor day of more than 10 hours. ' University of Minnesota Study of Community Life in Bed Evver Valley, p. 24. AGRICULTURAL LABOR 305 The housing and living conditions of hired labor are in gen- eral those of the employing farmers. In most sections of the United States where white labor is employed the hired hand is taken into the home where he sleeps and eats. This obtains where only one or two men are employed. In many of the older sections, a man of family is employed, in which ease a cottage, garden, and perhaps a cow, driving horse, and certain food supplies are provided. In the South, where the negro is the larger source of farm labor, racial lines are observed and the blacks are separately housed and fed. No doubt there are many exceptional cases where hired men suffer under poor living conditions and harsh treatment; but it is safe to say that nowhere else has farm labor fared so well as in the United States. Generally speaking, the social position of the hired hand has been that of the farming population in which he works. This statement is true especially of the north central and western sections, save in the case of non-white employees and of labor camps. This does not mean that farm laborers have the same influence in local affairs as do farm owners. In the country as in the cities, property ownership carries weight in com- munity matters, even to the extent that the larger the wealth the greater the influence is likely to be. The farm laborer cannot be expected to yield as much influence and gain the same recognition as owners and employers until society gen- erally establishes the standard that men are equal socially in spite of their wealth condition. Some undesirable and unjust conditions of labor obtain in certain sections of the nation. In the Southwest and perhaps elsewhere less notably, there has appeared what has been termed the factory system in agriculture. Huge estates are operated by managers and hired labor. The wages are often exceptionally low. The larger estates embrace whole towns and counties and are a law unto themselves. They are dictators of the lives, liberties, and happiness of their employees because they control the schools, churches, and local government as well as the chance and means of labor. Not seldom the workers are paid in coupons or scrip which must be traded out at the estate store, often under disadvantageous conditions. The millionaire landlords generally live in the Bast or Europe, thus sapping 306 RUEAL SOCIOLOGY labor of its just dues and the local community of its income. There is also considerable negro peonage in the South. Al- though this obtains most largely in logging camps and industrial enterprises, it is thought that it sometimes occurs in large agricultural undertakings. The further fact that negro labor is leaving the country in large numbers for the cities, and especially for the North, probably indicates that the conditions of negro labor in the South are not always satisfactory. Relative to wages paid farm labor, three items will be treated : the average wage paid in the United States, the relation of wages to land values, and to wages received by city workers. The following table presents the facts as to wages paid in the various chief divisions of the United States and in the nation as a whole, only regular farm labor being considered. AVERAGE MONTHLY WAGE OF EEGULAR FAEM LABOR, IN DOLLARS * Without Board With Board Section 1866 1874 or 1875 1910 1920 1866 1874 or 1875 1910 1920 N. Atlantic . . $25.19 28.31 33.19 75.54 17.45 18.25 21.65 51.92 S. Atlantic .. 12.41 14.42 19.75 50.56 8.33 9.94 13.77 35.75 E. N. Central. . 23.39 24.07 J. 31.81 70.09 ■ 16.50 16.75 ■ 22.94 51.49 W. N. Central 25.45 79.49 25.10 50.63 8. Central . . . 15.25 16.92 21.90 51.94 11.09 11.98 15.28 36.53 Western 47.06 40.68 46.48 99.43 33.05 23.10 32.19 73.21 United States 18.08 18.60 27.50 64.95 12.69 13.53 19.21 46.89 * E. G. Nourse, AgrUiUtural Economics, p. 830 ; and U. S. Statistical Abstract, 1920, p. 304-6. It is seen that there was a gradual increase in the wages of both kinds of farm labor, with and without board, in all of the divisions noted down to 1910, then more than a doubling of wages by 1920. The latter extraordinary increase was of course due to war influences ; namely, rise in price of commodities ; rela- tive scarcity of labor, and competition of agriculture with in- dustry for war purposes. During 1921 there was a subsidence in farm labor wages, corresponding with the reductions in the wages of workers generally. AGRICULTURAL LABOR 307 According to statistics presented in the Monthly Labor Re- view, monthly wages of male farm laborers with board in 1866 were $17.45; without board, $26.87. They decreased until 1895, when they were $12.02 and $17.69 respectively; then began an increase, reaching $39.92 and $56.29, respectively, in 1919. Between 1913 and 1919, both kinds of wages increased 86 per cent.' Comparing these wages with the cost of living Index at the two dates, it is found that the increase in average monthly farm wages has exactly kept pace with that in the cost of living. All of the geographic divisions except the Western made quite uniform gains in monthly wages. In the West the wages fell during ten years but then more than recovered themselves. The investigations made into farm wages in 1909 showed that they were higher in states in which manufacturing, mining, trade, transportation, and mechanical pursuits were developed than in states where they were backward; also that they were higher where the gross amount of products from labor was greater than where such production was low. The Western division had highest farm wages and greatest average value of products per laborer, the wages being $759 a year in 1899. The North Central division stood next in both production per laborer and in wages, the wages being $678. The South Central divisions stood fourth in both, with wages of $271, and the South Atlantic division was lowest in both, with wages of $233.^ A comparison of the wages of farm labor with those of urban workers in terms of their purchasing power of food is to the advantage of the former. If the average purchasing power in respect to food for the years 1890-1898 is taken as the standard, the buying power of farm labor increased 17 per cent by 1907 while that of urban industrial workers increased only 1.7 per cent in the same time. The wages of married farm laborers are often increased by farm products, such as were previously men- tioned. It has been estimated that these additional wages amount to from $4.31 to $6.89 per month. It would appear that the agricultural worker is, on the average, better paid than the industrial worker and that in most cases he receives more than 'Monthly Labor Beview, XI: 107-8. 'G. K. Holmes, "Supply and Wages of Farm Labor," Yeariook Depart- ment of Agriculture, 1910, p. 196. 308 RURAL SOCIOLOGY he would be likely to earn in any position open to him in the eity.^ Land values in the United States have increased greatly in recent years, the increase from 1900 to 1910 being about 113 per cent. How does this comport with the increase in wages paid farm labor? It was found that the wages of farm hands with- out board rose 56 per cent during the 43 years between 1866 and 1909 while that of hands with board increased in that time only 39 per cent. Evidently, therefore, the farm hand is receiv- ing but a small part of the benefit of heightened land values. If the proposition that the laborer should have a proportionate share in the increased profits of a business is a true one, then it is clear that farm owners are not distributing their gains equitably with their workers. The situation relative to regular farm labor could be im- proved were certain helpful policies put into force. Looking at it first from the direction of the farmer, the following considera- tions hold out hope. (1) There is probably little dearth of this class of labor, the lack of workers on farms being largely of the seasonal kind. The establishment of federal and state employment bureaus would go far to overcome the evils of poor distribution. (2) A reduction in the average size of farms, or perhaps to speak more pertinently, in the size of the larger farms would enable the family labor supply to do prac- tically all of the work. (3) An improved arrangement of farm work, such as planning so that many forms of work, such as repairing buildings and the various sorts of equipment, could be done in stormy weather and in winter would economize the labor supply and make it more regular. (4) The application of the principle of discrimination in the payment of wages, giving the experienced and skilled workers more than others, would be just and would help retain the better workers. (5) The improvement of the schools in giving agricultural training would create a higher class labor force both of the home and hired kinds, and so reduce the need of a larger labor force. (6) A better understanding between farmers and laborers would tend to retain workers in the country. This has been the result in the South. Of two neighboring counties, the one where there was a movement of the employers to show greater consideration, 'Holmes, op. cit., pp. 198-9. AGRICULTURAL LABOR 309 thus recognizing the desire of men to be treated as human beings, the migration of negroes to cities was slight. In the other, where no such consideration was displayed, the exodus of negroes was very extensive.^ (7) The extension of the old custom of exchanging work among farmers. This makes possi- ble the hastening of work that must not be delayed, like thresh- ing and harvesting, and cares for situations requiring several men. It is possible to work out a very dependable and fair neighborhood organization for this purpose. (8) Speeding up the work is often possible without injury to the workers or animals. The experience of Canada during the recent war shows what this can accomplish on a national scale. Out of a popula- tion of 8,000,000, Canada sent 500,000 men to Europe, yet in- creased the output of all essential industries and the exportation of its agricultural products. From the side of the farm laborer some steps might be taken to improve the situation. (1) Improving housing and living conditions would increase the contentment and efficiency of the workers. (2) Were married workers furnished a comfortable house, garden, and other considerations there would doubtless be found numerous recruits to farm work from the cities. (3) A system of profit-sharing, such as is frequently found in industrial and commercial establishments, would form an at- traction and would increase working interest and efficiency. (4) An equitable land tax to drive fictitious values out of farm land would help to equalize conditions between farmers and employees. A graduated tax could be placed on properties of more than a hundred acres, the larger the tract owned the higher the rate of taxation. This would drive large owners to improve their land or sell it, thus aiding small farmers and indirectly agricultural workers.* (5) Were farm employees organized as are industrial workers, they might find ways to better their conditions. During the Great War, British agri- cultural workers organized. In 1919, they had 2,000 branches and more than 100,000 members. They had secured a minimum wage of from 30 to 35s a week and a vast improvement in their housing conditions." (6) A special form of insurance, such as that offered industrial workers, is desirable. (7) Savings banks • Wilcox, op. cit., p. 169. ' Herbert Quick, Industrial Eelations Report, 1 : 332. 'Christian Science Monitor, June 5, 1919. 310 RURAL SOCIOLOGY and thrift institutions would enable many employees to lay by a competency for old age or to purchase a farm. (8) Were farm laborers everywhere treated as human beings and offered a larger opportunity to make their influence felt much of the resentment and dissatisfaction within their ranks would be removed. SEASONAL LABOE One of the worst features of farm labor is that of seasonal employment. By this is meant the hiring of individuals to do farm work during the time of producing a crop or for some portion of its production. A generation or more ago farm workers were recruited from the boys of the neighborhood as needed. It was customary to ' ' work out ' ' during plowing, seed- ing, harvesting and threshing. Perhaps the demand then as now was seasonal but the supply was in the country on nearby farms, ample for all purposes, and did not impose hardships on a class of labores. The accompanying graph of the seasonal distribution of farm labor in Chester County, Pennsylvania, indicates how the labor demands pile up in certain months and are absent in others. This may be regarded as fairly typical of the situation, modified to meet the variations of seasons, throughout the nation. Seasonal Distribution of Labor * ' U. S. Dept. Agr. Bui. 528. AGRICULTURAL LABOR 311 The situation in Great Britain may illustrate the fact that seasonal labor is not peculiar to the farms of America. In that nation we find that men, women, and children migrate from cities to pick hops and to carry on other forms of seasonal labor, although the amount of women labor in the fields has greatly de- creased prior to the war. Irish workers cross the Channel to take part in the agriculture of Scotland and England, some of the migrants being small land-owners. There is a certain amount of advance of workers from south to north with the procession of the seasons and progress of production. The larger portion of farm labor, there, is employed throughout the year, only the seasonal demands requiring surplus labor.^ The situation in Canada in this, as in many other agricultural matters, is similar to the one in the United States. The demand for seasonal agricultural labor is pretty general throughout the United States. The replies to a questionnaire sent out by the Department of Agriculture to 45,000 corre- spondents indicate that seasonal labor enters into harvesting wheat, corn, potatoes, hay, hops, sugar beets, grapes, apples, oranges, peaches, prunes and cotton. Extra labor is also re- quired for cucumbers, cantaloupes, peas, string beans, tomatoes, strawberries, and raspberries. This, doubtless, is not an ab- solutely complete list. There are some parts of the nation v/here the flow of seasonal labor is conspicuously large at certain seasons of the year. One current begins with the harvesting of wheat in Texas and Oklahoma and follows it as it proceeds north through Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas, and Minnesota. Another begins in the southern California fruit belt and moves up the coast with the ripening of the fruit. In the South, the flow is from cities to country at cotton-picking time, the workers being largely negroes. The current in the corn belt is also considerable but less conspicuous. There are various sources of seasonal labor : logging, ice, and construction camps, depressions in trades and localities which throw employees out of work, casual workers among women, older men and children, students from college and other educa- tional institutions. The number of such workers furnished by logging camps is growing less as the forests are used up. Prob- ' Frances George Heath, British Sural Life and Labor; P. 8. King and Son, London, 1911. 312 RURAL SOCIOLOGY ably the greatest single source of supply is unemployment due to industrial depressions. At any time during the year industries in some part of the nation are likely to be closed or operated with a reduced force and frequently a general depression occurs when millions may be out of work. Thus the industries of cities are seen to be the greatest ultimate source of supply. There are various causes of seasonal farm labor. The first general cause is found in farming itself. (1) It is next to impossible for the farm family to furnish sufficient labor during certain stages of production, such as harvesting, threshing, and gathering fruit. Were the farm so small that this could be done much of the labor power of the family would be wasted during large portions of the year. (2) Then certain social developments such as the growth of cities, the development of cheap methods of transportation, and the material growth of the nation have introduced changes in the prices of products in some localities and so put out of commission a system of agriculture in which the labor supply had been adjusted. Thus in New England, dairying was profitable when hay was worth $6 and bran sold at from $8 to $10 a ton. But when hay rose to from $15 to $18 and bran to $32 a ton it was more profitable to sell hay than to feed it and sell dairy products. This created a seasonal demand for labor. On the other hand, in the \Aestern and central western states, the relatively low price of grain and mill products and the rise in the price of dairy products has called for increased dairying. In certain sugar-beet districts, alfalfa can be raised with success. So long as hay was cheap, it was more profitable to raise sugar beets ; but with the develop- ment of the alfalfa meal business, since the meal could be sent to distant markets for much less than the hay, the price of alfalfa rose three — or fourfold, displacing sugar-beet produc- tion and creating a greater seasonal demand for labor. (3) When a new type of farming arises, it requires several years to adjust it to the environment. Many new problems have to be worked out; meanwhile labor conditions are unsettled. (4) Labor is often disturbed by the failure over wide areas of timo- thy and clover to seed properly. Such failure upsets the crop rotation of which those grasses are a part, requiring new ad- justments. (5) Certain crops compete for labor with the re- sult that at times a labor emergency ensues. Thus the cultiva- AGRICULTURAL LABOR 313 tion of corn, haying timothy and clover, and the wheat harvest may occur at the same time. A second set of causes which produce seasonal agricultural labor is found outside the farm. (1) The industrial depres- sions previously referred to are a source of seasonal labor. (2) Some non-agricultural industries suspend operations each year during certain seasons. This is true of logging and some others. (3) Industries, such as canning, reduce their volume of production at certain seasons. In all of these ways workers are thrown out of employment and have to seek work elsewhere, some of them resorting to farm work. A third set of causes is found in the nature of some of the seasonal workers. Some of the migratory laborers who work on farms at times of pressure appear to have been born with the wanderlust. They seem to be constitutionally unsettled and have the mania for moving on. Probably the percentage of those born this way is small but nevertheless the class exists. Seasonal agricultural labor is regarded as unsatisfactory by the farmers who employ it. A consideration of its character reveals why this is likely to be the case and also why this ele- ment may be an undesirable one from the point of view of the community. The investigation made in California as to the character of seasonal labor gives a cross-section picture of that class of labor on the Pacific Coast which is doubtless also true of such labor pretty generally. The data were secured by col- lecting the life story of one hundred typical migratory laborers. The more important results are here given. (1) Nativity and citizenship: 42 per cent were of foreign birth, 21 per cent naturalized, 65 per cent American citizens, 33 per cent aliens, 2 per cent unknown. The foreign born had been in the United States six years or more and all had become Americanized in language and customs. Eighty-six per cent had gone to California from some other part of the United States and 51 per cent had been in the state less than 6 years. (2) Age and schooling: 79 per cent were under 40 years of age and 55 per cent had left school under 15 years of age. (3) Labor career: 54 per cent had been migrating and sea- sonal laborers less than 10 years; 20 per cent worked on the average less than 7 months a year, 62 per cent less than 10 months; 76 per cent had always been common laborers, 24 x>er 314 RURAL SOCIOLOGY cent were skilled laborers who had fallen from or had been forced out of the trades they professed ; 51 per cent depended on the haphazard and untrustworthy private employment agency system for jobs; 70 per cent professed to be floating workers with no prospect of a steady job. All conformed to the Ameri- can hobo type. (4) Organization: 35 per cent had been mem- bers of labor unions, the others never having been organized, and knowing nothing of labor organizations. (5) Politico-eco- nomic beliefs: 42 per cent had radical political and economic opinions, 16 per cent were conservative, 25 per cent were in- different, and the views of 17 per cent could not be obtained.^ Since this class of labor constitutes a very large part of sea- sonal farm labor, it is evident that the presence of large bodies of such men is anything but a blessing to rural communities. Many of them are vicious and their standards of life are low. Further, they are generally followed by professional gamblers, pick-pockets, and thugs who prey on them and on the com- munities visited. The jails of the grain regions are often crowded with such undesirable citizens during harvesting and threshing times. The seasonal laborer is severely condemned by the farmer for being what he is and for his inefficiency. As a labor force he is indeed of low quality and inefficient. However, to be fair to the migratory worker and to develop a grasp of the situation sufficiently wide to make us capable of suggesting remedial measures, we should view this irregular class as a social product. We may forthwith dismiss the view that any but a very small percentage of these laborers are inherently mean, worthless, and migratory. A minor percentage evidently has the wanderlust but the great majority wander to hunt jobs and wander because the next job is always somewhere ahead. If we see these derelicts as social products, as the result of a long series of social maladjustments and breakdowns, we will be in a position to do justice to them. The following state- ment made to the Industrial Relations Commission by a deep student of the matter will help to an appreciation of this and will supplement what was said concerning industrial conditions as a general cause of seasonal labor. "An increasingly large number of laborers go downward *C. H. Parker, Industrial Belations Report, V: 4932-6, AGRICULTURAL LABOR 315 instead of upward. Young men full of ambition and high hopes for the future, start their life as workers, but meeting failure after failure in establishing themselves in some trade or calling, their ambitions and hopes go to pieces, and they gradually sink into the ranks of migratory and casual workers. Con- tinuing their existence in these ranks, they begin to lose self- respect and become 'hoboes.' Afterwards, acquiring certain negative habits, as those of drinking and begging, and losing all self-control, self-respect, and desire for work, they become 'down- and-outs,' — tramps, bums, vagabonds, gamblers, pickpockets, yeggmen, and other petty criminals — in short, public parasites, the number of whom seeins to be growing faster than the general population." The conditions of employment and living are "such as to inevitably weaken their character and physique, to make them carriers of disease, and to create in them a habit of unsteadiness and migration." The condition of their trans- portation is grave, millions of men annually stealing rides on the railways. "This method of transportation results in the demoralization and casualization of workers, of their congestion in industrial and railway centers, in waste of their time and energy, in frequent bodily injuries and numerous fatal accidents and homicides annually, while, at the same time, it serves but poorly the industrial demand for help. . . . When the workers return to the city, from labor camps, for instance, either to rest or to spend time between seasons, they not only meet the unhealthy and demoralizing influences of the cheap lodging- houses, saloons, houses of prostitution, and other similar estab- lishments in the slums, but they fall easy prey to gamblers, small private bankers, and all sorts of parasites. As a result, what earnings they have left after deduction of their living expenses at work-places rapidly disappear, no matter what their earnings may be. " ^ Add to this the treatment commonly ac- corded these men in farming communities such as "sleeping them" in stacks and barns and regarding them as social pariahs deserving of little or no consideration, and a complete picture of the evolution and life of the casual agricultural worker is afforded. In considering how the seasonal problem of farm labor is to be solved or the situation improved, it will be necessary to re- ' Beport of the Industrial Relations Committee, I; 101-3. 316 RURAL SOCIOLOGY member that the causes of this class of labor, as has been seen, lie in the industrial system outside of farming, in the character of the laborers as products of a system, in the nature of agriculture as now carried on, and to an insignificant extent in the congenital nature of laborers. Consequently, the problem is as wide as society itself and we must look, therefore, for im- provements in the situation in more than one direction. A complete solution would consist in removing the causes of sea- sonal labor and that should be the final aim of social effort. Meanwhile, palliatives and partial remedies must be resorted to. (1) Were industry in general of the non-agricultural sort stabilized, there would not be produced the annual crop of the unemployed out of which the larger number of the seasonal laborers are made. Stabilization would mean the prevention of general and local depressions and the operation of all in- dustries throughout the year. It will require much time and effort to realize these industrial reforms but society should work toward them. (2) The system of farming can be changed in the direction of reducing the demands for seasonal labor and of making home labor more nearly sufficient. A more diversified farming will tend to accomplish both results. Thus, in the North, the winter feeding of beef cattle and sheep would make a more regular demand for both hired and home labor. Dairying is not so effective for this since it runs through the summer when crop- ping occurs. It is found that farms which have the greatest variety of products to sell are the most profitable. In addition they make a regular demand for labor. In the exceptional eases where one-crop production must obtain because of some special condition, side industries may often be carried on. It is to be observed that the removal of the demand for seasonal agricultural labor rests with farmers and none, save themselves, can lessen or remove the agricultural bid for casual workers. (3) The lot of migratory labor on farms could be improved by organization of the laborers. Not only is the period of farm work short and irregular but the conditions surrounding the laborer are often harsh and dehumanizing. To be regarded as pariahs, to be without position or weight in society, to suffer bad housing conditions and to receive unfair treatment are sufficient reasons for organization. The celebrated Wheatland AGRICULTURAL LABOR 317 affair in California aroused the thoughtful citizens of that state to the injustice done these people by employers and by society. Nevertheless, up to the present time, there has been no suc- cessful organization of this class of agricultural laborers. The American Federation of Labor has made the attempt on the Pacific Coast during several years but with little success. Where the workers are constantly moving from job to job as seasonal labor requires, it seems impossible to maintain organization. The Industrial Workers of the World have more nearly effected an organization among them. There is a widespread sentiment among the workers for organization but as yet little has been accomplished. That this kind of farm labor can be organized effectively is seen in the fact that the Japanese laborers on the Pacific Coast maintain a labor system and act as a group in determining hours, wages and such conditions. They leave the unfair employer severely alone. (4) The nation and the commonwealth have evident functions respecting seasonal labor. If governmental agencies cannot pre- vent the occurrence of such labor, they can improve its condi- tions and provide supplementary work. The greatest obstacle this class of labor meets is connecting with a job. Until recently floating laborers have had to depend exclusively upon private employment agencies to find employment. Frequently these agencies have exploited them unmercifully, taking their fees and sending them to distant places where no work was to be obtained or where the agency patronized had already sent too many men. At the same time there would be an actual scarcity of workers in some localities. The function of government is to establish public employment agencies where trustworthy infor- mation about employment may be obtained. Statistics indicate that free agencies place only about one per cent, free and federal agencies about 9 per cent, and advertisements, friends, and ac- quaintances about 90 per cent of the working population.^ During the war the Federal government established employment agencies throughout the nation as a means of conserving labor. These should be continued and extended during times of peace as measures of justice to the men seeking work and the employers needing workers. ' V. C. Trueblood, in Chicago Herald and Examiner, March 3, 1919. 318 RURAL SOCIOLOGY But the various units of government should go further and furnish actual employment during periods of unemployment. The establishment of irrigation projects, drainage of swamps, reforestation, and the construction of national, state, and county highways are available and constructive undertakings. Society as a whole is responsible for the production of the unemployed and so long as it permits industrial conditions to occur which throw great numbers of individuals out of work and maintains a system of agriculture which enforces long periods of idleness, it should see that those squeezed out of its industrial and agri- cultural producing systems are not victimized and broken. Government should also take action to improve conditions under which casual labor works. What may be done in this direction finds illustration on the Pacific Coast. California has been conducting a notable experiment in im- proving the living conditions of casual labor. This kind of labor is largely to be found in temporary and permanent labor camps. Prior to 1914, the living conditions in these camps were bad and there were many violent outbursts on the part of the laborers. Then the state developed a system of camp inspection and of aiding employers to install sanitary camps. Toilet and bathing facilities have been encouraged and established, sleeping places improved, the living and sleeping quarters bettered, kitchens and dining places placed on a wholesome and appealing basis. The demands were at first opposed by employers but experience has shown them that the establishment of such im- provements was a paying proposition and now the larger employers, at least, heartily support it. Some have gone far enough to establish reading rooms and supply victrolas for their men. As a consequence the better camps are able to secure an ample supply of labor, even when there is a shortage, and there has been almost no labor trouble among the migratory laborers since the conditions have been improved. The humane treatment of this class of laborers has gone far to solve the labor problem so far as it is concerned with discontent. But of course this does not remove the causes of migratory labor which nothing but a complete reconstruction of our social system in various directions can do.^ ^Annual Beport of the Commissioner of Immigration and Sousing of California, Sacramento, January, 1913. AGRICULTURAL LABOR 319 CHILD LABOR Child labor is extensive in agricultural districts. Out of 1,990,225 child workers in the United States in 1910, 1,432,580, or 72 per cent, were engaged in agriculture. A preponderating majority of the 895,976 workers under 14 years of age were farm children. One of the undesirable results entailed in agricultural child labor is deficient education. Children working on farms in Dela- ware, New Jersey, and Maryland are out of school until the late fall. This results frequently in failure to pass and in demo- tion in school, so that children of 14 have not advanced beyond the third or fourth grade. One investigation of 5,000 children engaged in the beet fields of Colorado found that they miss about, three months of schooling each fall and lose about three and a half times as many days out of school as other children. Another investigation of 9,693 of such Colorado children shows that 25.15 per cent of the pupils of the first eight grades were retarded so that they were at least two years below their proper classes.' In the South, tobacco and cotton raising deprive many children of schooling. In the poorer tobacco districts of Ken- tucky among tenant farmers, children often lose a half term of school a year and over a fourth of them are absentees. Thirty- eight per cent of the agricultural children of Georgia are children ten or fifteen years of age. The compulsory school attendance law has been modified so as to permit absence from school during the working season and it is not remarkable, there- fore, that that state is sixth in the list of states having the highest percentage of illiteracy. The Rural School Inspector of North Dakota found in 25 one-room schools visited in Sep- tember, 1912, 111 pupils enrolled in the four upper grades, the 5th to 8th, of which only eight were boys ; in October 148 pupils were enrolled of whom only 12 were boys. Yet there were more boys than girls in that state. The conditions under which children work on farms are fre- quently injurious. In the case of the farm labor children of Delaware, New Jersey, and Maryland, the work is tedious, the day is long — from 10 to 16 hours — living places are only sheds, and the frequency of filth, unsanitary conditions, and crowding ' Child Labor Bulletin, Feb., 1919, p. 286. 320 RURAL SOCIOLOGY have bad moral effects. It cannot be doubted that many farm children are doing work entirely too heavy for them, working too many hours a day — and so undermining their development. The natural play life to which children are entitled is widely disregarded and set aside in behalf of this early labor. A rea- sonable amount of farm work of the kind suited to the age and strength is beneficial. But too often the idea prevails among parents that only work is required to furnish physical exercise, whereas there is nothing the growing child needs more than normal play. To rob him of this is not only to rob him of the zest of living but also to deprive him of an important influence in his physical, mental, and moral development. Perhaps the greatest factor in remedying the evil of child labor in the country is the enactment of compulsory school attendance laws and the development of a public opinion v/hich will see that they are enforced. To have the privilege of eight full grades of schooling is all too little to rightly equip youth for modern complex demands ; to be deprived of any considerable part of that schooling is to be the object of rank injustice on the part of parents, guardians, and society. Child labor legis- lation which prevents children under certain ages from being employed in given industries is beneficial .generally, but unfor- tunately agriculture usually manages to be exempted from the list of industries. Neither state nor national child labor legisla- tion has thus far been of much mitigating consequence to the child laborers on farms. TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION AND RESEARCH 1. Condition of women laborers on farms. 2. The right of child home-workers to participate in farm income. 3. Negro peonage in agriculture. 4. The Wheatland affair in California. {Industrial Belations Commission, V: 4979-5062.) 5. Treatment of the I. W. W. on the Pacific Coast. (Industrial Belations Commission, V: 4979-5062.) 6. Organization of seasonal labor. (Industrial Belations Commission, I: 4940-510; and V: 4972-4982.) 7. Agricultural labor camps. (Industrial Belations Commisskm, 1: 4935flf.) 8. Women farm laborers during the war. (New Bepublic, Sept. 1, 1917: 132-4.) 9. Becent comparative scarcity of farm labor. (Warren, Farm Manage- ment, 230-231; and Wilcox, in the American Economic Beview, VIII, No. 1, Supplement: 158fE.) AGRICULTURAL LABOR 321 REFERENCES Bailet, L. H. — ' ' A Point of View on -the Labor Problem, ' ' in his Country Life Movement in the U. S., pp. 134-8; Macmillan, 1911. Bbeueb, H. H. — Strawberry Pickers in Maryland, Child Labor Bui., No. 4: 71. Billings, Geo. H. — Seasonal Distribution of Farm Labor in Chester County, Pennsylvania, feul. 528, U. S. Dept. Agr. Carpenter, Mrs. Geo. — See under Dougan. Carver, T. N. — Principles of Sural Economics, p. 68. Cloppeb, E. N.—Colorado Beet Workers, Child Lab. Bui., May, 1916: 38ff. , Eural Child Welfare: National Child Labor Committee, Maemillan, 1922. CURRIB, B. W.— "Feeding the World," Country Gentleman, May 26, 1917: 924. Census 1910, Vol. FV: Occiupational Statistics. Commission on Immigration and Housing in California, Annual Eeport of the ; Sacramento, 1919. Coulter, J. L. — ' ' Agricultural Laborers in U. S., ' ' Annals, 40 : 40fE. Dougan, W. J., and Leiserson, W. M., and Carpenter, Mrs. Geo. — Hired Help on the Farm, Bui. No. 515, University of Wisconsin, pp. 3-6. "Farm Labor Organizations and Strikes in Italy," Monthly Labor Review, June, 1921 : 148-9 and 156. ' ' Farm Labor Unions, ' ' Christian Science Monitor, June 5, 1919. Gillette, J. U.— Sural Child Labor, Child Lab. Bui., Vol. I, No. 1, 1912. Heath, F. G. — British Sural Life and Labor; King and Son, London, 1911. HiNE, L. H.— "Children or Cotton," The Survey, 31: 589-592. Holmes, F. L. — "The Farmer and the Help Problem," LaFollette's Maga- zine, Jan., 1921 : 8-9. Holmes, G. K. — ' ' Supply and Wages of Farm Labor, ' ' Yearbook of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, 1910: 189-201. , "Movement from City and Towns to Farms," Yearbook of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, 1914: 257-276. "Italian Peasant Revolt," The Nation, 110: 531-2. Leiserson, W. M. — See under Dougan. "Mexican Farm Labor in Texas," Industrial Relations Report, 10: 9200- 9205. Mills, James — "Character of Farm Labor and Advantages of Improving Labor Conditions, ' ' Industrial Relations Report, 5 : 4955-4960. MiLLis, H. A. — Japanese Problem in the United States; Macmillan, 1915. MoBMAN, James B. — The Place of Agriculture in Reconstruction; Dutton, 1919: 103-130. Nourse, E. G. — Agricultural Economics, Chap. XVI ; University of Chicago Press, 1916. Parker, C. H. — On characteristics of seasonal labor, Indt^rial Relations Report, 5: 4932-6. Powers, G. L. — "Agricultural Labor," Cyclopedia of American Agricul- ture, 4: 198ff. "Shorter Hours on the Farm," Christian Science Monitor, June 5, 1919. Speed, G. H. — On labor conditions and organizations. Industrial Relations Report, 5: 4936-4949. Spillman, W. J. — '"Seasonal Distribution of Farm Labor on Farms," Year- book of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, 1911: 269-284. Taylor, H. C. — "Farm Labor and Wages," in Agricultural Economics, Chap. XV; Macmillan, 1919. Trdeblood, V. C. — "Labor Placement by Employment Agencies," Chicago Herald and Examiner, March 3, 1919. 322 EURAL SOCIOLOGY VoGT, Paul L. — Introduction to Study of Rural Sociology, Chap. VHI; Appleton. 1917. Wakren, G. F. — ' ' Seasonal Distribution of Labor, ' ' in his Farm Manage- ment, pp. 109-122; and "Man Labor," pp. 330-344; Maemillan, 1918. "Wheatland Case, California," Industrial Relations Report, 5: 4979-5026. Wilcox, E. V. — "Plan of the Department of Agriculture for Handling Farm Labor Problem, ' ' American Economics Review, VIII, No. 1, Sup- plement: 158-170. CHAPTER XVI RURAL COMMUNICATION » The situation relative to roads and other communicating agencies changes so rapidly, due to the invention of new agencies and the discovery of improved materials and methods, that what is written today is in danger of being displaced tomorrow. We may see as revolutionary consequences flow from the widespread use of the dirigible and aeroplane as resulted from the construc- tion of the Erie Canal and the invention of the steamboat and locomotive. The invention and general employment of advanced road making machinery may quickly extend a good road system over our entire populated domain. The improvements in road building and transportation already attained in recent years have made it necessary to discard very recent materials and methods and have rendered costly undertakings almost worth- less. An example of this is seen in the road building enterprise of the State of New York. A few years ago that state undertook to build 12,000 miles of macadam highway. With the advent of the widespread use of the automobile and the motor-truck, it was discovered that this expensive system of roads would be worn out forty years before it had been paid for. Nevertheless it is possible to make some statements worth while. It is evident that highways are going to be employed by the masses of men for some time to come and that their social and economic importance render consideration of their improvement necessary. SIGNIFICANCE OP COMMUNICATION For the purpose of our treatment we will use the term com- munication as signifying the material agencies which serve as vehicles of goods, persons, thought, and speech. The telegraph, the telephone, the press, railways of all kinds, navigated canals ' The most of this chapter appeared as an article in the Quarterly Journal of the University of North Dakota, Vol. XI, Oct., 1920. 323 324 RURAL SOCIOLOGY and rivers, highways and the vehicles which traverse them, and the agencies that use the air are comprehended under the term. While the majority of these will be included in treating the sig- nificance of communication, our chief attention afterward will be devoted to highways and roads, because their improvement is now imperatively and immediately demanded. A consideration of the significance and results of communica- tion is important because it will assist us to see the value of undertaking the improvement of highways and other agencies which relate people and communities. Let us notice how communication is the condition which deter- mines much that takes place in rural life: (a) The ideas and level of intelligence of a neighborhood or community are de- pendent on the kinds and quality of the communicating agencies. Where they are all present in a developed form we expect to see an advanced people; to the degree they are absent or undevel- oped we are not surprised to find a backward region. Pockets and valleys in hills and mountains, cut off from each other and from the rest of the world, are conspicuously laggard, (b) Indi- vidual and community prosperity depend in large measure on the development of roads and other transmissive agencies. Ad- vances in production await new ideas. Intelligence, so necessary for planning and management, does not thrive where mind can- not have contact with mind. Were a high degree of production possible without roads and other transfer instruments, it would be impossible to get its results to the markets of the world. (c) Even health and physical efficiency may wait on contact and transfer agencies. Rural inhabitants have their share of physical defects and diseases. Knowledge of sanitation and hygiene, the ministration of physicians and nurses, the dissemination of ideas of health by talks, clinics, and medical inspection of schools, alike depend on the degree of advancement of roads and vehicles, telephones, the press, and public meetings, (d) Rural social organization and community engineering depend on the condition of means of communication. Trails of a more or less developed kind were the original foundations of the com- munity spirit and of social organization. Neighborliness and sociability are the outcome of the possibility of interchange. Community activities may not grow in the ratio of the develop- RURAL COMMUNICATION 325 ment of roads, telephones and the like, but they cannot occur without them. Without speech of some sort there can be no exchange of ideas, and without the material extension of speech and the transfer of persons, community and collective enterprises languish. There are certain general benefits bestowed on rural popula- tions by the development of our really modern agencies of com- munication: (a) Modern populations are fluid and our Ameri- can rural inhabitants do their share of moving about. The steamboats and the railways have had a large share in promoting the expansion of agriculture over the west-Appalachian regions. They speeded up the settlement of the prairie hundreds of per cent. Now the press, the railway, and other agencies promote the large flow of rural peoples between agricultural regions and accelerate the already extensive migration between country and cities, (b) Modern means of transportation and transfer of news have rendered nearby and distant markets accessible to farmers. World markets and world prices were born of rapid transit of goods and market reports. As a consequence, farming populations have been closely organized and articulated into the world economy. Large area production and crop diversification, in turn, have been promoted by the establishment of markets and easy access to them. It will be noted later how important the improvement of our highways is to the promotion of the marketing of farm produce, (c) Modern means of communica- tion have encircled the farmer and bound him more intimately into the world-wide social solidarity. He has become not only a more consequential determining factor in the affairs of his nation but participates in world citizenship. His voice is heard in international affairs, in the making of treaties of peace and leagues of nations because he has become informed on affairs at large and has effected organizations of his own by reason of the rapid spread of information and ideas, (d) But there are also certain tendencies toward the disorganization of rural communi- ties consequent to the easy and quick spread of ideas and the transfer of persons. A later study will reveal in what way rural populations and interests are being disturbed by the movement out of the country and competition between small towns and distant cities. 326 RURAL SOCIOLOGY DEFECTS OP THE EOAD SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES In order to get before us the larger idea of the necessity of road improvement in the United States it will be well to consider the defects of the highway system. Since there are a large number of them, each one must receive only a brief treatment. 1. Small amount of improved roads. — Statements of the road mileage in this country range from 2,300,000 to 2,500,000 miles. The latter figure does not seem large when it is remembered that continental United States embraces an area of 2,900,000 square miles. Only about ten per cent of the mileage is improved, that is, surfaced in some way. This looks very inadequate for national requirements when compared with the improved mileage of some other nations : 100 per cent in Austria, Denmark, England, and Wales, and 84 per cent in France. 2. Small unit of administration. — The unit of administration is commonly the township, which is divided into a number of road districts, each with its road supervisor. Each district is apt to be regarded as a law unto itself and its roads built without reference to those beyond its borders. Kansas has four county road officers for each of its 105 counties, and 7 township officers for each of its 1,492 townships, giving it 10,900 officers to con- struct and supervise 105,500 miles of highway, about one for each ten miles of road, perhaps three times too many. Independent petty officials result in a lack of coordination of roads. But roads are not local affairs. The road in a given district may be used more by those living beyond the district than by those within. The construction and maintenance of a section of a highway may be of county, state, or national importance, and the unit of administration should be sufficiently extensive to provide ade- quate coordination. 3. Unskilled supervision. — Along with small units of admin- istration goes unskilled supervision, almost as a matter of course. Local farmers are elected as supervisors of the road in their district for a year at a time. It cannot be expected that the average farmer is a master of road construction, and the experi- ence he gains in office is likely to lose its force, for the supervisor is soon displaced at an election. The result can only be unsatis- factory and uneconomical roads. It is estimated that of the $200,000,000 to $300,000,000 spent annually on the highways of RURAL COMMUNICATION 327 the nation 30 or 40 per cent is wasted or misdirected, largely through the inefBciency of the system of administration and of oflBcers. As we are approaching the time where the initial cost of our roads must range from $3,000 to $25,000 a mile, it behooves us to establish a system where every dollar expended will count. 4. Backward method of raising revenue. — If the township and district units of administration are inefficient because too small, the same will be true of the unit of taxation. Revenue for building roads has been almost entirely raised by local taxation, until recently. Under such a system, a county or state need may be defeated by the failure of the local unit to tax itself to con- struct or repair the road. The practice of resorting to a poll tax and having it worked out on the road and of depending on local farmers to furnish the labor and motive power for road con- struction are devices necessary in pioneer days but inadequate for developed sections. 5. Inadequate road maohinery and equipment. — This is also partly the consequence of small administrative units. Even the grading and packing of dirt roads in a competent manner calls for giant graders drawn by ten or twelve teams or a large tractor and heavy rolling and packing devices, usually a motor-packer. The district or township will not or cannot afford to purchase this expensive but effective machinery, and so content themselves with small graders, perhaps with horse scrapers, and dispense with packers. 6. Inattention to grades. — Animals, primitive men, and pio- neers generally follow ridges or valley in locating their trails, thus avoiding climbing steep hillsides. Our gridiron system of laying out the public domain into square townships and sections has compelled highways to follow straight lines, irrespective of declivities. Also because of the dearth of equipment for cutting down hills and the great expense of grading, local road builders have been negligent respecting heavy grades. When it is re- membered that the weight of the load drawn over a road is determined by the heaviest grade and that tractive power de- creases rapidly with the increase of the grade, it is seen that heavy grades are wasteful. 7. Absence, or poor quality, of surfacing. — The strain put on traffic during the Great War and by the increasing use of auto- 328 RURAL SOCIOLOGY mobiles and motor trucks in recent decades has demonstrated the inadequacy of dirt roads and the inefficiency of much of the surfacing which formerly had stood up under the heaviest vehicles and traffic. On great highway arteries, as between large cities, where motor-truck traffic is heavy, even the old dependable macadam has been unable to sustain the wear and shock. It is not so much the surface wear as the breaking apart of the ele- ments throughout the thickness of the structure, the organic disintegration of the layer, that occurs ; and this has been true, irrespective of the kind of binder used, whether bitumen or water. This new strain thrown on highways is indicated by the rapid increase of automobiles and motor trucks. The number of motor vehicles in this country for various years have been as follows: in 1889, 3,732; in 1912, 245,000; in 1917, 4,983,000; in 1921, 9,200,000. America's capacity production now is 2,500,000 motor vehicles a year and the value of the products manufac- tured in 1920 mounted to the colossal sum of $3,600,000,000. Ten billion dollars of the nation 's capital is invested in the busi- ness. Some states have one automobile to each seven of the population and a hill and mountain state like West Virginia has increased its autos from 170 in 1905 to 30,474 in 1917. The manufacture of motor trucks alone has mounted from 9,500 in 1910 to 250,000 in 1918. These figures denote two things: that everywhere the roads are being subject to tremendous wear and disintegration, and that this volume of wear and tear promises to increase greatly. Thomas MacDonald, Chief of the Federal Bureau of Public Roads, indicates that it is not only the increase in number of vehicles but also in the weight and speed of the present traffic units that puts a new strain on highways. "While the vehicle- mile use has increased probably fivefold in agricultural sections and tenfold around populous centers, the impact of the load has increased twentyfold or more. A ton on the highway now takes the place of a hundred weight a few years ago. Federal research shows "that a weight of 7,500 pounds on the rear wheel of a truck moving at a speed of 35 miles an hour may deliver a blow equal to a weight of 43,000 pounds if the wheel drops one inch."^ ' r. W. Parsons, The Saturday Evening Post, Apr. 16, 1921, p. 24. RURAL COMMUNICATION 329 8. Lack of classification and coordination. — There is a vast difference in the economic importance of the various highways and, as a consequence, in the demand for expenditure in con- struction. France classifies its roads as national, or those connecting important cities and ports: departmental, those con- necting less important cities and ports; and vicinal, comprising four classes : those of through travel, those of communal interest, ordinary vicinal roads, and rural roads. The cost of construction is in proportion to the importance of the road, ranging from $9,000 a mile for the highest class down to $2,000 for the ordinary vicinal roads. The cost of maintenance likewise grades down from $346 to $63 a mile (these cost data are for about 1910) . A classification policy based on the economic importance of high- ways should be adopted in the United States, the classification up to the present time being largely artificial, such as state, state- county, county roads, merely signifying the source of funds. Little attention has been paid in this country to coordinating our highways with the railways as integral factors in a national transportation system. This deficiency was revealed by the strain brought on traffic during the war. The railways were found to be insufficient, and motor trucks were resorted to extensively. The need now is to organize this motor-truck service into the national system of transportation as a permanent supplement to the railways. This has been recommended by the American Association of Highway Officials. The suggestion should be added that the magnificent system of waterways internal to the nation should likewise be developed and organized as important factors of a great national transportation structure. The immensity of traffic carried on on highways constitutes an added argument for their improvement and coordination. There are more than 25,000,000 mules and horses using the public highways of this country. The motive power they furnish to- gether with that of auto and trucks bulks over 100,000,000 horsepower. The freight traffic on railroads amounts to some- thing over 1,000,000,000 tons a year. Compared with this the tonnage on public roads is estimated at one and a half to two billion ton-miles, which, on the basis of an average haul of six mules, would total 250,000,000 tons. The passenger traffic on highways is greater than that on railways. 330 RURAL SOCIOLOGY ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL BENEFITS OP IMPROVED COMMUNICATION In what has previously been said in this chapter, many of the economic and social benefits resulting from road improvement have become apparent. Their enumeration and treatment in one place, however, will serve to give to them greater definiteness. The economic and social benefits resulting from creating good roads are numerous and significant. First, are those arising from the reduction of grades. Frost says that experience shows that a good average horse can draw about 3,600 pounds on a level earth road in the best of condition, and that this load gradually de- creases with the grade, lessenihg to 2,880 pounds with a 1 per cent grade (a rise of 1 foot in 100 feet) to 1,476 pounds with a 5 per cent grade, to 936 pounds with a 10 per cent grade, to 360 with a 15 per cent, and to 144 with a 20 per cent grade. Gerhart says that tests have demonstrated that a horse which can pull 1,000 pounds on a level road can pull only 900 on a grade of 1 per cent, 400 on a 5 per cent grade, and 250 on one of 10 per cent. A hill offering a 5 per cent grade is not infrequent on highways but a team of horses has its load capacity reduced to 40 per cent by such a hill. It is obvious that reducing grades is a time and money saver. Second, furnishing highways with a hard surface brings com- pensations almost as startling as does the reduction of grades, and it is said that poor surfaces are a greater hindrance to travel and load efficiency than are grades. It is estimated that a horse will haul from three to five times as much on a macadam road as on a moderately muddy earth road, and it is to be remembered that a macadam road is never muddy while an earth road fre- quently is. Where there are large crops to market, to haul only a thousand pounds or a ton instead of several times such loads is an enormous penalty imposed by earth roads. Where there is much heavy traffic or where there is frequent rainfall, the hard surfaced road of the best type is a very necessary improvement. A recent estimate places the wastage due to the backward roads of the United States at 250,000 horse power per day. On our earth roads every ton hauled requires a tractive effort of 218 pounds. On concrete roads it demands 28 pounds, a saving of 190 pounds per ton. Third, the establishment of diagonal roads, radiating from RURAL COMMUNICATION 331 populous centers out through the country, would afford a great saving. Large cities that have been laid out on the gridiron plan are now, at enormous expense, resorting to the creating of radi- ating streets and it would appear worth while to have radiating lines in the country. Fourth, improved roads would secure compensatory results to farmers by enabling them to market products when the market prices are best, by the use of time on the farm saved through hauling larger loads, and by less wear and tear on horse, vehicles, and other equipment employed in hauling and travel. Reflection will prove that' each of these savings is of considerable impor- tance. To market at the appropriate time, for example, may mean several cents more for grain than selling later when the roads are passable. Fifth, improved roads have certain agricultural and marketing gains. They stimulate diversified farming in the proximity of large centers by extending the zone of the production of perish- ables. There is also a saving of much fruit and vegetables that now perish on account of bad roads. In the nation at large, the distribution of the delivery of grain throughout the year, made possible by good roads, steadies the market and also reduces the storage charge, which is 12i4c a bushel a year in Chicago. The steady marketing of farm produce also would serve to relieve freight congestion on railways which now periodically occurs. Sixth, the construction of good roads increases the value of adjacent and vicinal farm land. Careful research conducted from year to year through real estate transfers, public records, railway reports, and school reports in nine counties of six states demonstrated that farm lands adjacent to highways rose in value anywhere from 9 to 114 per cent as the result of the improve- ment. In six of the counties the increase in value was over 50 per cent. The cost of the haul on these roads per ton-mile fell from 33.5 to 15.7 cents, amounting to $627,409, while the financial burden to accomplish this gain was only 6.3 cents per mile, a net saving of 11.5 cents. Seventh, the extension of adequate roads will make a direct connection between the farm and the consumer's tables in cities, resulting in fresher produce for consumers and possibly better prices to farmers and to consumers. The Post Office Department is establishing motor routes in various parts of the nation from 332 RURAL SOCIOLOGY Maine to California on which not only mail but goods and produce will be carried. The extension of the parcel post to rural dwellers looks in the same direction, rural routes being established, of course, only where highways are made and kept passable. Eighth, good roads will improve the rural delivery service and as a consequence bring many benefits to rural inhabitants. In 1912, rural carriers covered a route mileage of 1,010,396 miles, nearly half of all the road mileage in the nation. There were 42,100 routes with an average length of 24 miles. Could such routes be hard surfaced, the employment of motor vehicles would greatly increase the mileage of carriers and increase the size of the load. But the improvement of earth roads will increase the number of routes and the route mileage and extend daily mail and parcel post facilities to a much greater number of rural inhabitants. Ninth, good roads are the basis of and encourage the establish- ment of consolidated schools. The future efficiency and happi- ness of rural populations are largely dependent on their securing an eifieient educational system, and it is difficult to see how this can be accomplished save by means of the consolidated school. Tenth, there is a direct connection between roads and health conditions. In many sections of the nation the ditches con- structed in the making of highways serve as excellent economic and sanitary drainage channels, tapping and carrying off the water from stagnant pools and serving as outlets for lateral drainage ditches. This is true wherever there are vast level tracts of land and swamps. Thus, the building of roads in the South is a great aid in eliminating malaria. It is estimated that this disease inflicts an annual loss in twelve Southern states of $100,000 by interference with work alone. Again in numerous rural sections people are so remote from physicians and the roads are so poor that many are deprived of medical attention except in the most critical cases. Improved roads would go far to over- come this deficit. Eleventh, other essential and important social results are secured by means of better roads. A too great consideration of the economic aspects of improved roads obscures these benefits, but they are likely to mount higher in importance in the estab- RURAL COMMUNICATION 333 lishment of a more satisfactory scheme of rural life than some things that can be put in terms of dollars and cents. Church consolidation is often as much needed as is consolidation of schools, and improved roads at least will make large areas acces- sible to a larger church. They will be a stimulus to country people to get together and, consequently, will increase neighbor- hood spirit and community understanding and undertakings. They enhance the pleasure of travel, so that many places will be visited by farmers which otherwise would be beyond range. Tired housewives will be enabled to receive the benefits of fresh air and enjoy some of the beauties of the larger country by means of occasional cross-country trips. The automobile comes with improved roads and also serves to usher them in, and the utilization of this vehicle is doing much to secure the participa- tion of the whole farm family in the joys and pleasures of recrea- tion and country travel. That farmers are sharing in the benefits and pleasures to be derived from the use of automobiles is indicated from the follow- ing figures given by G. W. Hinman : "To every hundred farms there were in use last year (1920) in Iowa 95 farmer-owned passenger cars ; in Illinois, 78 ; in Ohio, 67 ; in New York, 87 ; in Kansas, 84; in Indiana, 63; in Nebraska, 95; in "Wisconsin, 6S; in California, 99; in South Dakota, 82; in North Dakota, 76; in Rhode Island, 110; in Nevada, 104. In the Southern states the figures are much lower — 9 to the hundred in Missis- sippi, 12 to the hundred in Arkansas, 15 to the hundred in Kentucky, and so on." It is difficult for European peoples to comprehend the wide adoption of the automobile here and to understand how there should be hard times in agriculture with such wide use of that vehicle. Thus, ' ' Great Britain and Ireland have only one motor car to 110 persons ; Germany, one to 733 persons ; France, one to 205 ; Italy, one to 1,125 ; Spain, one to 1,161 ; Japan, one to 1,936 ; China, one to 66,667 ; Belgium, one to 576." "Is it any wonder that the German peasant grubbing in his fields along the Neckar, or the small farmer of southern France smiles fatuously when he is told that American agriculture is in trouble, too ? Or that Paris financiers are incredulous when informed that we must have the money (from our war loan), as our people are suifering 334 RURAL SOCIOLOGY great hardships and must get relief from their financial bur- dens?" ^ Twelfth, good roads possess an esthetic value, not only in pre- senting a better appearance than bad roads but in stimulating farmers along the way to ' ' clean up ' ' the place and improve the home, thus stirring up latent self-respect. There is also something to be said about the beneficial economic results which follow upon the introduction of the motor truck on the farm. The following table offers a comparison between haulage of certain crops by motor trucks and wagons for the whole United States. WAGON AND MOTOR TRUCK HAULS FROM FARMS TO SHIPPING POINTS • Item Dis- tance Miles Round Trips per Day No. Load Cost of Hauling per Ton per Mile Corn Bu. Wheat Bu. Cotton Bales Com Cents Wlieat Cents Cotton Cents Motor trucks, 1918 .... Wagons, 1918 Wagons, 1906 11.3 9.0 9.7 3.4 1.2 1.2 58 39 39 84 36 55 6.6 3.6 3.i 15 33 19 15 30 19 18 48 27 * Monthly Crop Report, October, 1918. It is noted that motor truck haulage in comparison with transportation by wagons has almost doubled the size of the load hauled and cut into the cost of getting the crop to the shipping point. Government estimates for 1920 indicate that there were about 50,000 motor trucks used on farms, Iowa leading in the number employed with 2,773 and Nevada, with 41, having the fewest. IMPEOVEMENT OF THE COMMUNICATION SYSTEM It is obvious that every part of the communicating system that touches rural life could be improved in some respect, but our chief concern is with transportation, for reasons previously set forth. Our failure in the past has been that we have viewed the roads as local affairs and the railways as private interests. The war taught us to think of both as national factors, as conditions in the working efficiency of the life of our nation. As a conse- quence, in considering the improvement of our highway system we need the larger perspective. It will be necessary to think of the country roads as belonging to the nation, the state, the county, ' G. W. Hinman, Chicago Herald and Examiner, July 8, 1921. RURAL COMMUNICATIOX 335 the city, as well as to the farmers who live along their way, because everyone from everywhere may use them. With this larger view all matters of construction, management, and the raising of funds will be regarded as local affairs only so far as localities are concerned and have rights. 1. Classification and coordination. — Not all highways are of equal importance when regarded from the traffic viewpoint and this is the logical and natural basis of classification. The French ■plan of classification already given illustrates classification on the basis of the amount of traffic. The kind of traffic should also be a factor, certain regions giving rise to heavy freighting as compared to the passenger travel elsewhere where more vehicles pass but with less wear and tear. Classification as township, county, and state roads as independent administrative units is illogical and leads to great difficulties respecting efficient admin- istration. National and state highway officials need to determine and lay out great national highways which stretch out across many states perhaps. It is conceivable that a state might so lay out its roads that interstate travel and traffic would be greatly inconvenienced. Within the several states, state and county highway officials should establish trunk lines which would con- nect larger centers and with national roads, and be regarded as state Highways for revenue and administrative purposes. From these trunk lines would radiate secondary highways to the various centers of secondary importance. Some of these which pierced more than one county might be regarded as state roads. Besides these would be local roads. Probably from 60 to 75 per cent of the roads of the nation are of this class. 2. Administrative system. — Attention has been called to the waste and inefficiency which result from the general scheme of local units and administration. It is generally agreed by experts and students of highway matters that broader control and scien- tific management of all roads are indispensable factors in securing adequate roads. Probably the best plan is to regard the county as the unit for local highway administration, with the county road work in charge of an experienced engineer. The county highway engineer works under the general supervision of the state highway department in the sense that there is close co- operation, especially on the large projects, and that the plans and specifications for all important work must be approved by 336 RURAL SOCIOLOGY the state department. The state engineer in charge of the state highway department and the county engineer should be selected by civil service. The state highway department plans and super- vises all state undertakings, cooperates with the Federal Bureau of Roads, and exercises a general supervisory function over the state highway system. In turn the county engineer has a large measure of control over all the highways of the county, appoint- ing all overseers, who should be employed as continuously as possible and should report to the county engineer, determining grades, construction of bridges, kind of surfacing, and other important matters. Such a plan provides a guarantee that road funds will be properly used. It is to be said, relative to the employment of engineers in road construction, that since the Federal government has taken up the encouragement of road building and the development has assumed such large proportions there is a dearth of well-trained engineers. In 1920 there was about $780,000,000 available for road construction, not all of which was used, to be sure, because of high prices of material ; but had it been used there would not have been half enough engineers to supervise the work. State and county construction alone more than absorbed the siipply. This dearth of engineers constitutes one of the serious problems of improving the communicating system at the present tinle. 3. Adequate funds. — The creation of a system of highways to meet national and local needs will require enormous revenues. It is not too much to state that 20 per cent of our 2,500,000 miles of roads should be surfaced with concrete or brick and as much more with macadam. At present high prices of materials, such surfacing would entail an initial cost of something like $30,000 to $40,000 a mile, with a consequent expenditure on this half million miles of from 15 to 17.5 billion dollars. Falling prices will, of course, reduce the cost ; and protecting such hard pave- ments by shock absorbing surfaces, such as asphalt, will reduce the cost some $5,000 a mile by permitting a reduction in the thickness of the concrete base of one inch. Another large per- centage of roads should have a gravel or equivalent surface, and all need proper grading and drainage. It is conservative to say that to put the highways of the nation in anything like an ade- quate condition would cost more than we spent on the Great "War. How to secure this vast revenue is a matter for statesmen to RURAL COMMUNICATION 337 devise. The tendencies at present indicate that more will be raised by local taxation, that the state will secure a much larger revenue for state and county purposes by a heavier auto and motor tax, and that the various states will enjoy the increasing provisions of the federal appropriations for highways, amount- ing to $275,000,000 until now. The Federal Aid to Highways has been unquestionably a great stimulus to the improvement of roads. The law requires that states create state highway depart- ments and pass some other enabling laws before they may receive federal funds. These funds are apportioned according to popu- lation, area, and mileage of rural delivery and star routes, each factor having a determining weight of one third. So few states possessed highway departments that the first appropriation of $75,000,000 could not be apportioned till 1917, by which time practically all the states had conformed to the provisions. This secures not only large funds to the state but a very great asset in administrative efficiency, a state highway department. In order to undertake extensive highway improvements, states and counties frequently have to issue bonds. The American Association of Highway Officials recommended that steps be taken to assist in the marketing of such bonds as a necessary help in road improvement. 4. Construction. — A re-reading of what has been said rela- tive to the waste arising from lack of grading, from failure to reduce grades, and from unsurfaced highways and relative to the economies gained by the removal of these defects will give the essential points relative to improved construction. We may safely make the generalizations that heavy motor-truck traffic de- mands a surface that is the equivalent of city pavements, either concrete or vitrified brick ; that lines subject to great automobile usage require a macadam or equivalent surface, since these vehicles rapidly reduce gravel to dust which is dissipated by winds; that gravel or sand clay are useful for important wagon roads and light automobile traffic ; and that earth roads are to be the less important neighborhood highways for some time to come. Under the Federal Aid to Highways Act the Bureau of Roads had approved 253 projects up to January 31, 1918, aggregating 2,849.48 miles of each. The cost was $7,324,721.22 (federal) and $9,917,143.70 (state and local). Only four out of the 48 states were not represented in the project. The types of construction 338 EURAL SOCIOLOGY involved in the projects were in percentage as follows: brick, 2.62 ; earth, 32.1 ; gravel, 32.1 ; cement concrete, 8.9 ; water-bound macadam, 2.95 ; bituminous macadam, 5.83 ; sand clay, 15.6. The material of a region should be examined very carefully as to its availability for road construction as it is often as good or better than that shipped in from a great distance and its use results in a substantial saving. Competent scientific planning and supervision which is secured by the employment of state and county road engineers will guarantee proper materials, grades, and bridges. During the war some states began a systematic removal of snow from the roads. The standard plan used in Pennsylvania is the employment of motor-truck snow plows, motor trucks pulling standard road scrapers, road scrapers pulled by horses, road drags drawn by horses to break a track for the motor plows in cases of heavy drifts, and hand shovels in instances of excessive drifts. The state highway department re- ceives weather predictions from the Weather Bureau at Pitts- burg, warns district engineers whose districts the state highway traverses, who in turn prepare men and equipment to meet the earliest demands of the storm. Each kind of road surfacing requires its appropriate method of maintenance, but it is noteworthy that for earth surfaces nothing better has been found to keep graded roads free from ruts and properly crowned than the "log drag." The constant use of this instrument after rains while the surface is slightly wet will keep such highways in as good a condition as is possible for them. 5. Encouraging road improvement. — The great agencies working for the improvement of roads are the federal plan for aiding highways as a stimulus to state undertakings and leading to standardized and unified administration ; the universal use of the automobile, demonstrating to everyone who uses country roads the disadvantage of bad roads and making every autoist a booster for good roads ; good roads associations and associations for the projection and construction of cross-country and national trails; commercial clubs of cities and kindred organizations in- terested in developing the channels of trade about their respec- tive cities ; association of highway officials ; the influences of the Bureau of Roads of the national government, which is constantly building experimental roads, testing materials and methods of RURAL COMMUNICATION 339 construction, sending out experts to lecture and to demonstrate the relative value of the various kinds of surfaces and construc- tion by the use of exhibits ; the propaganda carried on by manu- facturers of automobiles, motor-trucks, and road-building mate- rials such as concrete; engineering courses in educational insti- tutions touching road and street building; other educational courses such as rural sociology and economics which demonstrate the need and advantages of improved highways; and the agita- tion carried on constantly through the press. All of these are efiBcient agencies, and it is needless to try to suggest that more could be done. The nation is responding and state after state is getting in line for road improvement on a larger scale. In 1910 California voted to issue $18,000,000 worth of bonds for the construction of a system of state turnpikes; New York bonded for $100,000,000, in 1912, to build approximately 12,000 miles of highways, county and state; a statewide system of 4,800 miles to cost $60,000,000 was authorized in Illinois at the election of 1918, and in the same year Pennsylvania amended its constitu- tion for authorization and appropriated $50,000,000 for highway construction, while in the November elections of 1920 the follow- ing states voted large road funds: Minnesota, $100,000,000; Kansas and Missouri, $60,000,000 each ; and Virginia and West Virginia, $50,000,000 each. These are examples of what is taking place here relative to highway improvement ; and they are only promises of greater things to come. They indicate that the people of the nation are awakening to the importance of high- ways in the economy of the local community and nation and that they are resolved to provide an adequate system. TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION 1. What is the function of communication in social evolution f 2. Is there any society without communication? 3. Are there animal societies? 4. Which of the great communicating agencies have come into existence since the time of Washington and Jefferson? Is our national society fundamentally different from theirs, as a. consequence? 5. What changes and benefits has the telephone brought to society? What has it done for your farming community? 6. Are radiotelegraphy and radiotelephony likely to make any contribu- tions to rural life? 7. What social transformations will the commercial use of airplanes and dirigibles likely bring about relative to distribution of population? Industry and trade? Comparative growth of cities? 340 RURAL SOCIOLOGY 8. Are flying machines likely to be introduced into country life? 9. Do you know of any small villages or towns which the introduction of motor vehicles has affected beneficially or detrimentally? 10. Schedule the good and bad effects which you have observed in rural communities from the wide use of the automobile and other motor vehicles by farmers or by others. 11. Supposing that the first cost of adequate highways in this country will run from $30,000,000,000 to $50,000,000,000, will such improve- ments pay in money, or in general societal ways, or both? 12. Is it fair to farmers who do not own motor vehicles to be taxed to maintain highways that are necessary for such vehicles? 13. Discuss comparative fairness and expediency of raising money for highway improvement from direct taxation, and by taxation on motor vehicles. 14. If motor vehicles are taxed to sustain highways, should horse-drawn vehicles and horses be taxed for the same purpose? 15. What effects on the minds of farmers and farming people — ^that is, on the rural social mind — does the widespread use of telephones and automobiles have? REFERENCES Aitkin, T. — Soad Making and Maintenance ; Lippincott, 1900. Anderson, A. P. — ' ' Registration, License, and Revenue from Motor Ve- hicles in the United States, ' ' 1919, Puhlio Roads, III : 11-19. Andrews, Frank — "Hauling by Wagons and Motor Truck," 1918, Monthly Crop Report, Oct., 1918. Benefits of Improved Roads, Farm. Bui., No. 505, 1916. Blanchard, a. H. — Elements of Highway Engineering ; Wiley, 1915. Bourne, Jonathan, Jr. — Chairman Joint Committee on Federal Aid, Re- pori to Congress on Puhlic Road Systems of Foreign Countries and the United States, Washington, 1913; also on Federal Aid in Road Construction, 1913. BoTKEN, L. E.- — See under Pennypacker. Bradt, S. E. — "Illinois' Progress Toward a Permanent Highway System," Concrete Highway Magazine, Jan.-Feb., 1921. "How a Successful Campaign for Sixty Million Dollar Road Bond was Conducted in Illinois, ' ' Municipal Engineering, 56 : 3-5. Breed, H. E. — ' ' New York State 's Experience with Various Types of Road Construction Under Various Traffic Conditions," American City (Town and County Edition), 18: 289-94. Brooks, J. W. — "Good Roads and Milk Distribution," EimbaU's Dairy Farmer, 17: 155. Brown, D. T. — "More Mileage through Proper Maintenance," American City (Town and County Edition), 17: 497-9. Campbell, H. C. — "High Surface Highways Needed," Kimball's Dairy Farmer, 17: 164ff. Collins, J. H. — Motor Transportation for Rural Districts, Farm. Bui., No. 770. Danley, p. Y. — "Lighting Country Roads," American City (Town and County Edition), 20: 223-4. Elsden, J. V. — See under Greenwood. "Federal Allowances, 1920," Public Roads, III: 29-32. Fletcher, A. B. — Macadam Roads, Farm. Bui., No. 338, 1916. Frost, Harwood — The Art of Roadmaking; Harwood, New York, 1910. Geerhart, W. S. — "Public Highways of Kansas," Nineteenth Biennial Report of Kansas State Department of Agriculture. RURAL COMMUNICATION 341 Gillette, J. M. — Chairman Committee Seport on Country Planning and Boad Building, National Country Life Association, III. Gillette, W. B. — Economics of Koad Construction; Engineering News Pub- lishing Co., New York, 1918. "Good Roads a Factor of Civilization," Pan-American Magazine, 20: 6fE. Greenwood, Allan, and Elsden, J. V. — Roads, Their Construction and Maintenance ; Whitaker and Company, London and New York, 1901. Griffiths, T. H. D. — "Good Eoads and Health," American City (Town and County Edition), 20; 31718. Gross, H. H. — "Highways and Civilization," Beport of the First Congress of American Boad Builders, Seattle, Wash., 1909 : 210ff. Hearings before Joint Committee of Congress, on Federal Aid to the Con- struction of Post Boads, Pt. I, Washington, 1913. "Highway Problems in New York State," Scientific American Supplement, April 25, 1914. Hines, E. N. — "Uniform Method of Cost Accounting for Road Work," American City (Town and County Edition), 18: 401-5. HiNMAN, Geo. W. — "Ten Billions in Automobiles," Chicago Herald and Examiner, July 8, 1921. Holden -Stone, C. De — "What the Road Really Costs," Scientific Ameri- can Supplement, 86: 70-71. Hoyley, H. — "Comprehensive Highway Development Program," American City (Town and County Edition), 18: 161-3. Hubbaed, Provost — ' ' Bituminous Dust Prevention and Road Binders, Tear- book of the V. S. Department of Agriculture, 1910: 297-306. Johnson, A. N. — "Operating Cost of Highways," Scientific American Supplement, 85 : 285. Johnson, Svenbjorn — Good Boads, An Outline , The Status of Sural Education in the United States, Bui. 8, U. S. Bureau of Education. Monahan, A. C, and A. Phillips. — The Farragut School, Bui. 49, U. S. Bureau of Education, 1913. Mullan, E. H. — Mental Status of Sural School Children, Bui. 77, U. S. Public Health Service, 1916. Phelan, John — Seadings in Sural Sociology, Chaps. 13-14; Macmillan, 1920. Phillips, A. — See under Monahan. PlERSON, R. A. — Organization and Administration under the Smith-Lever Act, Program of the American Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations, 1916: 116-129. Rice, O. S. — Sural School Libraries: Their Needs and Possibilities, Pro- gram of the National Education Association, 1913 : 796-8. Sural Children in Selected Counties in North Carolina, Bui. 33, U. S. Chil- dren 's Bureau. Sural Child Welfare: National Child Labor Committee, Chap. 3, Macmillan, 1922. Schmidt, C. C. — Consolidation of Schools, Bui. University of North Dakota, 1912. Seebley, H. H. — The Country School; Scribners, 1913. , Sural School Education, University of Texas, 1912. Sims, J. F., and Phelan, John — The Normal Schools and Sural Educa- tion, Bui. Normal Schools of Wisconsin, Board of Regents, Madison, 1912. Sims, N. L. — The Sural Comm,unity, pp. 260-265; Scribners, 1920. Smith, W. R. — An Introduction to Educational Sociology; Houghton MifBin, 1917. Snedden, David — "Vocational Education for the Agricultural Callings," in Vocational Education; Macmillan, 1920. Stewart, Cora W. — "The Moonlight Schools of Kentucky," The Survey, 35: 429-31. Stimson, Rupus — Vocational Agricultural Education by Home Projects; Macmillan, 1919. Stone, Julia — See under Cutter. "Technical Agriculture as a Vocation," Opportunity Monograph, Voca- tional Sehabilitation Series, No. 33, Federal Board for Vocational Education, Washington, 1919. THE RURAL SCHOOL AND RURAL EDUCATION 437 The Negro Sural School and its Selation to the Community, Pamphlet Ex- tenaion Department, Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, Tuske- gee, Alabama, 1915. ' ' The Smith-Hughes Act for Vocational Education, ' ' Scientific American, August 25, 1917: 130. Thomas, Augustus O. — ^"What Maine is Doing for Rural Schools," The Survey, 21 : 114. Todd, A. J. — Seconstruction of Existing Eural Agencies, National Con- ference on Social Work, 1917: 221-229. Teeadway, W. L. — See under Clark. Utley, Geo. B. — "The Rural Traveling Library," Playground, 6: 486-7. Vincent, Geo. E. — ' ' The Spread of the School Manse Idea, ' ' Annals, 67 : 167-9. VoGT, Paul L. — Introduction to Sural Sociology, Chapters XV-XVI. Warren, Gertrude — See under Cook. Waugh, F. a. — Country School Grounds, Massachusetts Agricultural Col- lege Extension Service, Amherst, 1914. White, E. V., and Davis, E. E. — A Study of Sural Schools in Texas, Bui. 364K, University of Texas, 1914. Williams, G. H. — Organizing a County System of Sural Schools, Bui. 16, V. S. Bureau of Education, 1916. Young, Geo. B. — The Schoolhouse as a Local Health Office, Bulletin of the University of Wisconsin, Serial No. 489. CHAPTER XX THE RURAL CHURCH HISTORICAIi IMPORT OP RELIGION Religion is one of the oldest of human interests and institu- tions, its origin being buried in the obscurity of "prehistoric" society. That it goes back to an early stage in social evolution is evidenced by the fact that not only practically all existent primitive peoples have superstition, magic, or something akin to religion but that the paleolithic people who inhabited some of the caves of France 15,000 or 20,000 years ago, had several practices which denoted superstitious beliefs. While there are many modern men who are either non-religious or irreligious, yet the majority of people are either passively or actively re- ligiously bent. Such a permanent and general interest is bound to be of importance either constructively or obstructively, and its condition in rural society is well worth noting and evaluating. In his study of primitive and comparative society the sociolo- gist inevitably arrives at the conclusion that originally, that is in its beginning, religion was purely individualistic, being only a matter between the individual as such and his deity or deities. It was consequently non-social and non-ethical, con- taining none of the modem content which implies associated beliefs and activities and having nothing to do with conduct, the quality of the relationship of man to man. But because it contained the germs of a powerful sanction it was inevitable that specialized men and organizations should become associated with it who should use it as a means of group-control and the shaping of conduct. Hence there came into existence medicine men, then priests, and later preachers or ministers who acted as mediators between the supernatural agent believed in and the devotee; and, consequently, there arose ecclesiastical organ- izations of various sorts, which, at first, included only the special 438 THE RURAL CHURCH 439 religious agents but, finally all devotees and members also. The modern "church," consisting of all denominations and sects of Christianity, and Judaism, are the recent representatives in occidental civilization of this ecclesiastic structure. Like such social institutions as the family, government, and education, the church performs certain social functions and it exercises its functions through the control of people's beliefs, chiefly. Its chief historic function has been that of conserva- tion of the social order, the continuance and preservation of religious beliefs and practices just as they were; and, since the religious motive has been so intensive, there has been a tendency for it to breed conservatism, a stationary and unchanging atti- tude relative to other matters. This is especially the case where religious belief is wholly absorbed in the saving of souls by an act of belief apart from ethical conduct ; and this in turn obtains where the population is ignorant. It is not unusual, therefore, to find many rural populations that are intensely religious and at the same time stagnant socially. But where modern means of education and enlightenment penetrate populations, especially wherever the scientific method and outlook obtain, the Church is likely to make the same fitting response as other institutions and become progressive in its attitude. In this case, it comes to place greater emphasis on the importance of external conditions in shaping life here and in future ; and, as a result, it becomes anxious that human life shall express itself in all directions in the most intelligent manner and by the employment of the most scientific measures. An up-to-date farming community is likely to have an enter- prising church, if it is interested in the church at all. But this does not always occur, for the reason that the local church is a cog in a great ecclesiastical machine, its life being to a great degree determined by that of its denomination at large so that its beliefs and dogmas, its preacher with his ideas and outlook, may be fatally anachronistic and impeding. SOME CONDITIONS REFLECTED BY THE EURAIi CHURCH The formation of conclusions about the church of country dis- tricts should rest on a survey of facts expressing its status and tendencies. Could we study all the churches in all their char- 440 RURAL SOCIOLOGY acteriijtics by rigid statistical methods, it would be possible to arrive at conclusive generalizations. But this is impossible be- cause no such universal statistics exist. However, there have been sufficient surveys made in most sections of the United States and Canada to give typical expressions of what the coun- try church of America is like. The opinion is widely held by authoritative observers and students of the rural church, whether rightly or wrongly, that that institution is decadent and they stake their belief on the conditions which we shall shortly survey. If the rural church as an institution is not decadent, if it is really showing a surplus of gains over losses, it is at least true that multitudes of indi- vidual churches have died or are dying. The objectors to recognizing general decadence assert that more rural churches are established than die and that the general membership has increased. To this Rev. C. 0. Gill, Secretary of the Commission on the County Church (of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America) replies that it is almost impossible to get correct membership returns from churches. There is a strong temptation to swell the returns. He cites instances in Ohio where churches reported large memberships and accessions but where investigation showed small memberships, multitudes of names being carried over from the old rolls, many of persons removed and even the names of those who were dead. Not only does he distrust church membership reports but he also indicates that those responsible for reporting church memberships to the United States Census recognize that the returns are padded. Any- way, he contends the multiplication of churches does not demon- strate that the church is not declining ; it only means that there are so many more churches to become vacant. As reported, the census indicates that about forty per cent of the rural population are church members. Some of the important facts which indicate the conditions obtaining among rural churches are as follows — 1. There is a widespread and deep-seated manifestation of stationary or declining churches. Of 1,515 rural churches in 19 Ohio counties, 56 per cent were open-country churches, and 12 per cent were town churches. The survey that was made showed that only 24 per cent of the open-country churches were growing, the remainder either being stationary or suffering THE RURAL CHURCH 441 decline ; and that 62 per cent of the town-country churches and only 41 per cent of the town churches were stationary. Of 232 rural churches of Indiana surveyed, 38.6 per cent were growing in membership, 13.6 per cent were stationary, and 47.8 per cent were losing ground. A more recent survey of Tippe- canoe County shows that only about one-sixth of the 20,000 rural inhabitants attend church and one hundred square miles of the territory are untouched by churches. A study covering ten years of the career of the rural churches in 3 counties of Missouri indicates 11 per cent growing, 4 per cent stationary, 13 per cent losing, 12 per cent dying, 9.5 per cent dead, and 5.5 per cent organized during the period. In a Tennessee County surveyed, 49 per cent of town churches were growing, 9 per cent stationary, 21 per cent living, 2 per cent dying, 2 per cent dead, 10 per cent organized within ten years. These are samples of results of surveys made all over the northern and western sections of the United States. Surveys in western Canada are of the same import. In the Turtle Mountain district, Manitoba, 22 per cent of the country churches were stationary in membership and 44 per cent were losing; and while the population increased 8 per cent the increase in the membership of all the churches was but 2.33 per cent. In the Swan River district, Manitoba, the country church mem- bership gained 5.7 per cent while the population gained 12 per cent. Conditions in the south in this aspect, and other aspects, of country church life are perhaps somewhat better than in the north and west but Branson reports that the tendency is toward realizing the situation exhibited elsewhere in the United States. 2. There is a general occurrence of dead and vacant churches. A few years ago it was estimated that there were 1,200 vacant rural churches in Missouri, 1,700 in Illinois, 600 in Tennessee; that 12 to 15 per cent of the rural churches in 12 counties of Ohio surveyed were vacant and that in the whole nation there were 10,000 vacant country churches and probably from 30,000 to 40,000 about to become vacant. Of the 54 country churches recently surveyed in Tippecanoe County, Indiana, 12 have been abandoned. When a church becomes vacant it is, of course, for the time being, at least, dead. The permanent demise of many vacant churches is demonstrated by the fact that they 442 EURAL SOCIOLOGY have been purchased by farmers and put to use as granaries or other farm buildings. The extent of church membership and attendance may be an index of the vitality in the religious life. According to studies made by the Presbyterian Board of Home Missions, "the churches whose membership is less than 100 as a rule do not prosper, and the smaller the membership, the greater the pro- portion of the churches which are on the decline." The data given below relative to Ohio rural churches sufficiently illustrate smallness of membership. The membership in these country churches is distressingly small, but the attendance is smaller still. The data available indicates that it is less than half the membership.^ In six churches taken at random, with a total membership of 1,048, the attendance ranged from less than 30 to 136, the total attendance being 270. 3. There is believed to be a relative deterioration of the ministerial supply and service in country churches. Students of the subject think that city ministers are of an order and training more nearly equal to modern conditions and level than is the case in country churches. More will be said on this point later in the chapter. CAUSES OF Whether or not the above set of conditions is properly repre- sented by the term decadence, they may be so denominated for convenience, and their causes be suggested. 1. Large number of churches in one community. — There has occurred in the country, as sometimes in cities, an over-church- ing and a consequent duplication of effort. Warren H. Wilson gives an example from Pennsylvania of extreme crowding of churches into small compass. In one rural district (town- country) there are 16 churches within a 3 mile radius and 24 churches within a radius of 4 miles." In the twelve hundred townships of Ohio that are considered rural, having a popula- tion of 1,750,000, there are 6,060 churches. Over 4,500, or 66 per cent, of these have 100 members or less each ; over 3,600, or » Gill and Pinchot, Six Thousand Country Churches. 'Evolution of the Country Community, p. 146. THE RURAL CHURCH 443 55 per cent, have 75 or less; and over 2,400, or 37 per cent, have 50 or less each. The average township has 5 churches, 1,470 people and 286 persons per church of whom less than two-fifths are members. Less than one-half of the member- ship attend church. In Meigsville township, Morgan County, Ohio, there is 1 church for each 94 persons. Instances from other states might be given, but they would have the same tenor. ^ Over-crowding of churches means duplication of effort, small membership, poor buildings and equipment, probably only occa- sional preaching and no pastoral ministration, and anajmic Sunday schools and other organizations. 2. Division of minister's services among several churches. — One of the causes of rural church backwardness is what has been termed "ministerial vivisection," itself a product in large part of over-churching. Absentee minister and ministerial vivi- section — the dividing of a minister's services among two or more churches — are quite prevalent. Of the 6,060 rural churches of Ohio alluded to above, 4,400 or almost two-thirds had no resident minister, 700 had no regular minister, 3,300 had a minister one-third of the time, 2,200 had one one-fourth of the time, and 1,000 had one one-sixth or less of the time. Seventy of the 82 Boone County, Indiana, country churches had a resi- dent minister, 50 had a non-resident minister, 15 had none, and 27 had a minister living outside. In Lane County, Oregon, among the rural churches, 4 full-time ministers had one preach- ing point, 12 had two, 6 had three, 2 had five, and 1 had six; while 23 part-time ministers had one preaching point, 4 had two and 2 had three." 3. Shifting and thinning of population. — In Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, and many other states there has been a heavy removal of inhabitants from certain rural districts. Thus it is estimated that between 1900 and 1910 the strictly rural townships of sixteen Ohio counties lost 19.2 per cent of their potential population by emigration.' This would affect church membership and might often result in the appearance of church duplication. The support of the church need not ' Gill and Pinchot, loc. cit., p. 8. 'Lane County Sural Survey, Presbyterian Home Mission Board, p. 63, ' Estimated from figures in Gill and Pinchot, loc. cit., p. 38. 444 RUBAL SOCIOLOGY be lowered, however, since the property value remained un- changed. 4. Moral conditions in some sections. — After describing in detail the conditions obtaining in the eighteen backward rural counties of southeastern Ohio, the authors of Six Thousand Country Churches say : ' ' Such statistical data as are here presented are but smoke indicating fire. They do not over-state the urgency of the appeal from the unfortunate over-churched and under-ministered communities of this section. Here gross superstition exercises strong control over the thought and action of a large proportion of the people. Syphilitic and other venereal diseases are common, and they are increasing over whole counties, while in some communities nearly every family is afflicted with inherited or infectious disease. Many cases of incest are known, and inbreeding is rife. Imbeciles, feeble- minded, and delinquents are numerous ; polities is corrupt ; the selling of votes is common; petty crimes abound; the schools have been badly managed and poorly attended. Cases of rape, assault, and robbery are almost weekly occurrences within five minutes' walk of the corporation limits of one of the county seats, while in another county political control is held by a self- confessed criminal. Alcoholic intemperance is excessive. Gross immorality and its evil results are by no means confined to the hill districts, but are extreme also in the towns. ' ' ^ Fortunately the conditions thus depicted in one considerable section of Ohio are not true of the rural United States generally ; but the fact that they can obtain in one locality is a challenge to the vigilance and constructive ability of the agencies whose special function it is to fight immorality and to raise the ethical level of society. 5. Economic conditions and state of agrarian mind. — A great deal has been written about the farmer's inability to pay the preacher and support the church, some of which is true. It is unquestionably true that the average income of farmers is much smaller than is just, considering the amount of capital and labor invested in the enterprise. The labor income alone of the average farmer, as we found in the chapter on farm manage- ment, is pitiably small, less than that of the unskilled laborer. And in many sections of the nation, certain areas and neighbor- 'Gill and Pinchot, loc. cit., 15-16. THE RURAL CHURCH 445 hoods exist where conditions are exceptionally severe and there is little in the shape of a surplus for church purposes. Never- theless, the amount devoted to such purposes is more likely to be regulated by habit or custom and the consequent state of mind of agriculturists than by the extent of the income. The idea of what ought to be given to "support the preacher" has come down traditionally from long ago and is apt to correspond to neither ability to pay nor the needs. The condition of tenancy is a factor of importance in the life of the country church, for the tenant is apt to be migratory and accordingly of little advantage to local institutions. In a southern Minnesota township the membership in and attendance in church, Sunday Schools, and other religious organizations on the part of tenants was found to be, approximately, about two- thirds that of owners. Thus 55 per cent of tenants and 78 per cent of owners were church members, while 27 per cent of tenants and 38 per cent of owners were church attendants. Various reasons for non-attendance at church were given by those country people, such as care of stock, delivery of milk at the station, bad roads, stormy weather, cold in winter and no one to leave children with, lack of "nerve" to take "a lot of squalling kids" to church, inability to secure hired girls. One suspects that, like human excuses generally, some of these are merely excuses.^ 6. Ministers and salaries. — Some students of the rural church believe that a deterioration has taken place in the quality of the rural ministry. There is no good way to prove or dis- prove this, but it is likely to be true — at least relatively. The country ministry may be compared with that of fifty or seventy- five years ago or with that of the cities today. In the former case, since the United States was almost wholly or predom- inantly rural and there was slight tendency to idealize the city and to migrate there, country life stood out distinctly and the rural church was more vigorous and inviting. The type of men who entered the ministry were of a high order of capacity. Today the city is the great loadstone to attract the abler and better trained minister, and the country church, like the country school, is forced to take what it can get. Rural depopulation, ■ Thompson and Warber, Social and Economic Survey of a Sural Town- ship in Southern Minnesota, 54-57. 446 RURAL SOCIOLOGY tenancy, wide rural discontent, low salaries, and unsuitable education for work in country districts serve to create in- efficient ministers and languishing churches. The training of men in theological seminaries has not been of a kind to equip highly serviceable men for country parishes. It has been deficient for securing community leadership any- where, since little attention has been paid to instilling a sym- pathetic understanding of community conditions and problems. The traditional theological training has been remote from social and economic considerations, scientific teaching has been tabooed or given little respect so that dogmatic and so-called "spiritual" preaching has prevailed. All theological students, notwithstand- ing the great . diversity of religious fields as to conditions and needs, have been and now are, commonly, given the same kind of preparation. Consequently, the man who located in the coun- try has understood little of the peculiar problems rural people have to meet. His preaching and ministrations have not been of a sort to make a vital appeal and his ability to take the lead in the direction of constructive betterment has been pathetically lacking. • While the essential principles of Christianity are democratic and universal, their effective application to life is dependent on a comprehension of the social conditions and issues involved in particular fields and communities. But the rural preacher has resorted to revivalism to recruit the declin- ing ranks of church membership. Instead of preaching and ministering fundamentally, he has been inclined to call to his aid, year after year, the professional revivalist. Thus we find this record of a southern Ohio County. "In the year 1883 there were 96 churches in this county. In the following thirty years there were 1,500 religious revivals or an average of 50 a year. During that period there was a decline of no less than 500 in the membership of the churches, while 34 churches were abandoned; the production of corn declined from 34 to 28 bushels to the acre; a larger proportion of the population are afflicted with tuberculosis than in any similar area in the United States ; a trained hygienic expert who has made a careful investi- gation declares that the prevalence of both infectious diseases and feeble-mindedness is extreme; politics are corrupt, the sell- ing of votes common ; petty crimes abound ; the schools are THE RURAL CHURCH 447 badly managed and poorly attended, while there is much illit- eracy.^ While ministers do not preach for money as their great ob- jective, they must have money in order to live efficiently. That rural ministerial salaries have been tragically insufficient may be inferred from the fact that a few years ago the average salary of all the ministers of the United States was about $50 per month. Since salaries of urban pastors are very much higher than those of the country, those of rural districts must have been considerably less. In 1917, the average salary of all Methodist ministers in Ohio was $857 and free use of par- sonage, while that of rural ministers was only $787, or $680 and free use of parsonage.^ THE church's stake IN THE RURAL PROBLEM That the country church and the church at large has a stake in the rural problem should be evident without much argu- ment. 1. If it is maintained that the chief interest of the church is in the salvation of souls, the statement may be admitted, and yet it be contended that local and external conditions sur- rounding the individual are important .considerations. For it is generally admitted that salvation is a process and that this process consists in bringing the influence of religion to bear upon the wills of men. And modern psychology conclusively shows that external conditions are the most important if not the exclusive mediums through which influences may reach the will of the individual. Moody, the celebrated evangelist, finally ceased to preach to people in the slums of great cities. He was not successful there with his methods of appeal. It was an admission that the external conditions in such districts were unfavorable. What is true of cities is true of the country. In the country men must be appealed to in terms and by means of their surroundings, and the preacher who understands these surroundings and is able to make use of them stands the best chance of succeeding in the process of solution. ' The Church Situation in Ohio, The Ohio Eural Life Association, Colum- bus, Ohio, p. 5. 'Gill and Pinchot, loc. cit., p. 10. 448 RURAL SOCIOLOGY 2. In the teaching of Jesus, the doctrine of the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven held chief place. There is a large consensus of opinion among modern scholars of the New Testament that the subject matter dealing with the conception of the Kingdom commanded the major portion of his attention. Yet, according to his teaching, the Kingdom is a socio-ethical affair; its conditions of admission and qualifications for mem- bership are social and conduct matters; its great imperative is the establishment of right social relationships among men. The Kingdom may be completed in Heaven, but it is begun on earth and those fit for the Kingdom must demonstrate their qualifica- tions by heavenly characteristics on earth. Accordingly, it is obvious that the church must be vitally and greatly concerned with the temporal conditions and seek to mold them after the heavenly pattern. This is to be done partly by means of converting men, establishing good wills and motives so that they will act right; largely by helping men to understand the conditions which surround them and by getting those conditions established which will be conducive to the production of right-minded or heavenly-willed individuals. Neither church at large nor the country church can be true to the founder of Christianity and ignore the rural problem. 3. The church as an institution is like other institutions, in that it is determined in its efficiency by conditions which ob- tain. It is apparent that this is true with respect to its organ- ization and equipment, since an impoverished parish cannot con- tribute lavishly, and a small parish in numbers is insufficient for maintaining a highly differentiated, all-embracing organiza- tion. It is also true that the church is under the law of com- petition, in so far as competition obtains. Thus, if there is competition for the land, and if, in the long run, the land will go into the possession of the most efficient farmers, the church is involved. If it is not able to command the respect of the efficient men and to mold them along right lines, it cannot prevail. Again, the church is responsible for constructive work in the community, and if it is not constituted so that it can do this work it must give place to agencies which are so con- stituted, or leave the work undone and the people in neglect. • THE RURAL CHURCH 449 WHAT THE CHURCH MAY DO TO SUCCEED A successful institution is one which performs an essential and useful duty for society. No institution deserves perpetuity for its own sake but onlj' for the valuable function it exercises. The measure of the reverence for the country church must be in terms of its utility to country people. It is somewhat evident now that many of the rural churches are not sufficiently suc- cessful in terms of social utility to deserve either respect or perpetuity. In order that the church may be placed in the category of successful institutions it must accomplish the fol- lowing improvements among others. 1. The church must come to an understanding of the rural problem. — This is a pre-condition of its own salvation and of being highly useful. The ravages of typhoid, tuberculosis, pellagra, hookworm and other diseases could not be stayed until the scientists had studied them intensively and arrived at a conception of their nature and methods of propagation. Then they could map out successful campaigns to curb them. The statesmen must diagnose correctly the national and racial dis- eases in order to pass remedial legislation. To ignore a study of the facts which condition its existence is both stupid and futile on the part of any institution. Heeding the admonition that freedom is realized by knowing the truth is as necessary for the salvation of organizations as for persons. 2. Coordinate and consolidate wastefully competing and duplicating churches. — This proposition has received wide ap- proval in most of the principal evangelical denominations. The principle of cooperation between denominations has long been recognized and put to use in the foreign missionary field where "spheres of influence" are agreed on, denominations thus keep- ing out of each other's way. There has also been a strong tendency to secure a working federation or cooperative union of some kind among denominations at large in this country. Con- sequently there are now in existence several forms of such inter- organization union, such for example as the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, and the Inter-Church Union. In respect to local churches, several plans have been and are being tried. There is the Lion and the Lamb's plan under 450 RURAL SOCIOLOGY which the strongest church survives and the Lamb lies down inside of the Lion. It has been aptly said that "the trouble with this method is the lack of Lions and the unlamb-like nature of the other churches. ' ' In fact it is the wasteful method which already obtains. Swapping churches by denominations, the giving up by one. denomination in one locality and by another in another in favor of each other is an excellent method of cooperation. It is most likely to be effective in home mission fields where local churches can be coerced into obedience by the witholding of support. But where churches are self-support- ing, even Methodist bishops have not sufficient compelling authority to make it generally operative. Sometimes the local churches may form a merger in favor of an undenominational church and union. About the only weakness of this plan ap- pears to be that the resulting undenominational organization lacks the stimulus and guidance which comes from contact with an embracing denomination and also a regular ministerial supply. A federation of local churches into one body has wide ap- proval. Under this plan the affiliating congregations unite in membership in support of the pastor and of local congregational matters, but all missionary funds and special denominational affairs are taken care of by each group as before. It is found that differences in form of worship and church custom can be readily adjusted where the good of the community is empha- sized. In 1917 more than forty churches in Ohio were working under this plan.^ 3. Specialize mimsters in rural work and pay them a living wage. — It is recognized by many publicists and church workers that successful country-church work demands some such special training in rural life and rural-church matters as is being de- manded in the ease of country teachers. But as yet there is no general agreement as to the extent or kind of this specializa- tion. It is generally agreed that a "rural-minded" ministry is a necessity if it is to be of force in- the actual domain of leadership; yet it is found that many theological schools are opposed to placing rural life subjects in their training curricula. A large number favor it but have not authority to carry it out, while' a goodly number are responding in varying degrees. The ^ Acquaintogram No. 4, Ohio Bural Life Association. THE RURAL CHURCH 451 attitude and accomplishments of these seminaries are usually determined by the outlook and attitude of the particular de- nominations which control them. Some notable reports by inter-denominational associations on the training of rural ministry have been made, two of these being the one by the Committee of the Federal Council of Churches on Social Teaching in the Theological Seminary and the other by a Committee of the Massachusetts Federation of Churches in the Training of Rural Ministers. Both deal with special preparation of theological students in training schools and with supplementary preparation of men already settled in the ministry. As an illustration of what impressive ecclesiastical bodies are proposing, the recommendations of the latter com- mittee, in so far as they concern the preparation of theological students and further training of settled ministers, are presented. FOB THEOLOGICAL STUDENTS A. PEINCIPLBS OP PREPAEATION "Students who look forward to the rural ministry should have: "1. A thorough knowledge of the English Bible, as funda- mental to their interpretation of the Christian religion. This would include the history of the life and thought of the Hebrew people, both in Old and New Testament times, an intimate acquaintance with the life and teachings of Jesus and the Apostles, and correct methods of interpretation. "2. A reasonably good command of the philosophy of re- ligion, and the doctrines of Christianity as they have developed in the Church, and of the influence of Christianity upon society at large. "3. An understanding of religious psychology and rural sociology, that they may enter intelligently and sympathetically into individual, family and community life, and be of spiritual and social service to each. "4. Training in methods of approach to the people as preachers, pastors, and religious educators and instruction in the best methods of effective organization of the forces of the church and the community. "5. Instruction in making rural surveys and experience with pastorates in the country, in order to acquire adequate material for community leadership. "6. A conviction of the importance of the rural ministry as a life work, and willingness to give at least five years to the 452 RURAL SOCIOLOGY building up of a single community in the true missionary spirit. ' ' B. COURSE OP STUDY ' ' 1. Their curriculum in the seminary should include biblical literature, history and interpretation; the history of Christian- ity, especially in its modern period in America; with research work and reports on rural movements and biographical theology, biblical, historical, and systematic; homiletics and pastoral methods; general sociology and the specific problems of the rural church ; and psychology and pedagogy, with special study of the rural Sunday School. "2. Elsewhere than in the seminary, they should make a study of agriculture, including farm practice and management and the application of science to farm problems; agricultural economics, including cooperation and market distribution; farm business methods; and advanced rural sociology, including rural education, art, literature, recreation, sanitation, and social or- ganization. These may be pursued by means of summer schools, correspondence courses, or one or two years in an agricultural college. ' ' "Men already in the ministry should have an opportunity to supplement their previous training and receive occasional stimulus. "1. Through summer schools, in sessions of two weeks or more, consisting of forenoon lectures, one of which shall deal with a phase of the rural church problem; afternoon confer- ences and excursions, and evening addresses of an inspirational nature. "2. Through addresses and conferences at church associa- tions and conventions wherever representatives of rural church interests come together. "3. Through rural institutes, where speakers from semi- naries, the Young Men's Christian Association, the agricultural college, and other rural agencies may discuss their common interests and lay plans for cooperation. ' ' 4. Through correspondence courses, maintained by seminary and agricultural college, through which the student may keep in touch with the most recent investigations and conclusions. "5. Through such local groups as reading clubs, improve- ment societies, and other agencies of local betterment, which shall unite all the progressive forces of the community. ' ' ^ ^ Eeport of the Committee on the Training of the Rural Ministry to Con- ference on Church and Country Life of the Federal Council. For full re- port on statutes of report on social teaching in seminaries, see The Auburn Seminary Record, January 10, 1916, pp. 488-502. THE RURAL CHURCH 453 If the function of the minister is a worthy one he should re- ceive commensurate compensation. Many states of the Union have enacted minimum-wage laws to protect their workers against poverty and disease and to guarantee satisfactory liv- ing. The churches are moving in the same direction but slowly. The East Ohio Methodist Conference some years ago estab- lished a minimum wage of $750 a year, but such a salary would be entirely insufficient today. The United States Department of Labor finds that in urban industrial situations the workers and their families required $2,000 or more for their support. A minimum wage must be adjusted to the level of the cost of living and, this level being fluctuating, re-adjustments must be made periodically. The country minister should be paid a salary sufficient to insure respectable standards of living, and the education of his children, and to cover insurance against old age. The minister is much more liable to become a permanent and actual part of the country community if the parish provides a house and small farm sufficient to produce garden stuffs and fruit and to support corn, poultry, and a team of horses. 4. There are many worthy objects the country church could encourage to its oum advantage and that of the community. — The adequately trained minister will find no difficulty in dis- cussing at approximate times the various special problems which the men and women of the farms have to meet, such as the need for and significance of improved schools, homes, produc- tion, marketing, recreation, continued education, and so on. In a sermon on improving production, the preacher would do well not to attempt the role of expert respecting technical processes but consider the subject in its larger economic and social bearings. The vigorous leader can vitalize the church and community by promoting mothers clubs, boys and girls clubs, musical and choral organizations, athletic events, lecture courses, Boy and Girl Scouts, and even the "movies." A large and growing number of rural churches have been rejuvenated under the ministry of vigorous pastors with a social vision who have moved in these directions. Among the rural churches in Indiana, 75 per cent of those engaged in social and recreational work grew and prospered as compared with 12 per cent of those that did not. 454 RUEAL SOCIOLOGY Rural ministers can evidently afford to promote a rural ministers association on account of the stimulus it affords. In the rural churches of 53 Pennsylvania communities out of 85 churches having no such association, 32 per cent were losing ground, 33 per cent were stationary, and 35 per cent growing. The record made by 35 churches having such associations was: 21 per cent losing, 15 per cent stationary, and 64 per cent growing. This does not absolutely prove that association made the difference ; but the evidence leans toward that conclusion. THE YOUNG MEN's CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION There are certain religious agencies supplementary to the church which seek to operate in the country. One of the most important of these is the Young Men's Christian Association. The country phase of its effort began with the effort of Robert Weidensall in De Page County, Illinois, as early as 1873 but the movement did not assume any considerable proportions prior to 1906, when it was erected into a department of the Inter- national Committee. There are now 600 rural centers or organ- izations existing in something like a dozen and a half states. The purpose of this county work is to secure for the boys and young men somewhat equivalent opportunities for recrea- tion, culture, and growth that city boys have. Consequently it stresses social and recreational work, seeks to give practical information along natural science lines, and on the general sociological problems of the country. Its agencies are the county committee and the county secre- tary; the former being composed of the interested prominent men in the various callings who are organized into sub-commit- tees ; the latter, a young man capable of wielding leadership. Where possible, appropriate buildings and playgrounds are provided. Several summer schools for county work are held to equip men for this phase of endeavor. It is the intention of the leaders of this movement that the county work shall not duplicate the effort of other rural agencies but that it shall be supplemental and coordinating. TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION 1. Is religion a "social force" in like manner that education or politics are said to be social forces? THE RURAL CHURCH 455 2. Is the practical importance of religion affected by whether it originated as an inference or as an instinct f 3. Is the relation of the church to religion about what that of the home is to the family? 4. What transformations in Christianity have there been during its life- time f Is it probable that there will still be others? 5. What would have to be the nature of the evidence that the rural church is "decadent"? 6. What percentage of the rural preachers whom you know are actually at the same time pastors? 7. Are there too many rural churches in your vicinity? What are the symptoms? 8. What effect are automobiles and improved highways having on the rural churches which you know? 9. Should the rural church be as scientifically conducted as the school or the farm should be? 10. What would be a scientifically-conducted church? 11. If rural preachers were worth more, would they be paid more? 12. Are consolidated churches and established parsonages to be advo- cated as we advocate consolidated schools and established teach- erages? 13. Should a. rural minister preach on the subject of agriculture? 14. How could the minister assist farmers to attain expert advice? 15. Should the rural church have a "movie"? REFERENCES Aequaintograms Belating to Sural Church, Ohio Bural Life Association, Columbus. ASHENHURST, J. O. — The Days of the Country Church; Funk and Wag- nails, 1910. Bebnaed, L. L. — "The Education of the Bural Ministry," School and Society, 11: 68-73. Bbanson, E. C. — Our Country Church Problems, Extension Bureau Circu- lar No. 1, University of North Carolina. Brickeb, G. a. — Solving the Country Church Problem; Eaton, New York, 1913. BuTTEEFiELD, K. L. — The Country Church and the Sural Problem;- Uni- versity of Chicago Press, 1911. , Country Church Function, Policy and Program, Report of Com- mission on Church and Country Life, 1915. Cakver, T. N. — Rural Economy as a Factor in the Success of the Church, Bui. 8, Social Service Series, American Unitarian Association, Boston. Cooperation for Church and Country Life, Ohio Bural Life Association, Columbus. Earp, E. L. — The Sural Church Movement; Methodist Book Concern, New York, 1914. Galpin, C. J. — "Farmers' Churches," in Sural Life, Chap. XI. , The Rural Church an Economic and Social Force, Experiment Sta- tion Bui. 278, University of Wisconsin, 1917. Gill, C. O., and Pinchot, GirroRD — The Country Church; Macmillan, 1914. , Six Thousand Country Churches; Macmillan, 1920. Interdenominational Cooperation, Publications of the American Sociological Society, 1916: 106-112. 456 KUKAL SOCIOLOGY Graves, E. R. — "The Church and the Small Community," Bural Man- hood, Vol. VI. Hayes, E. C. — "The Church and the Eural Community," American Jour- nal of Sociology, 16: 693-5. HaywarDj C. E. — Institutional WorTc for the Country Church, Free Press Association of Burlington, Burlington, Vermont, 1900. Israel, HeJiry — See under Roberts. McNuTT, Mathew B. — "Ten Years in a Country Church," World's Work, December, 1910. March, L. G. — How One Eural Church Solved Some of Its Problems, In- terdenominational Commission of Maine, Lewiston, 1912. Masters, V. I. — Country Church in the South, Publicity Board of Baptist Convention, Atlanta, 1916. Phelan, John — Readings in Eural Sociology, Chap. XV; Maemillan, 1920. PlNCHOT, GirroRD — Eeport on Church and Country Life, Federation Coun- cil Churches, Columbus, 1916. , See also under Gill. BoADS, Charles — Eural Christendom, American Sunday School Union, Philadelphia, 1909. Roberts, A. E., and Israel, Henry — "Eural Work of the Y. M. C. A.," Annals, 40: 140-48. Root, E. T. — Eeport of Federation and Cooperation, Committee of Com- mission on Church and Country Life. Eural Surveys, especially of Board of Home Missions, Presbyterian Church, New York. Sims, N. L. — The Eural Community, pp. 198-225; 260-264; 409-457. Starratt, F. a. — ' ' The Demands of the Eural Church upon the Theologi- cal Curriculum," American Journal of Theology, 22: 479-496. Stewart, Geo. B. — "Eeport of the Committee of Federated Council of Churches, on Social Teaching in Theological Seminaries," Auburn Seminary Eecord, January 10, 1916: 488-502. The Church Situation in Ohio, Ohio Eural Life Association, Columbus, 1917. ' ' The Church and the Eural Community. ' ' A symposium in American Journal of Sociology, 16: 668-702. Tipple, E. S. — Some Famous Country Parishes; Eaton, New York, 1911. Todd, A. J. — National Conference on Social Work, 1917 : 626-7. Vogt, Paul L. — Introduction to Eural Sociology, Chaps. XVII-XVIII. , (Editor) Conference addresses on the Church and Country Life, The Missionary Educational Movement, New York, 1915. , Survey of Green and Cleremont Counties, Ohio, Miami University, Miami, Ohio. , The Eural Society, Board of Home Missions and Extension of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Philadelphia, 1917. Wells, G. F.— "The Eural Church," Annals, 40: 131-9. Wilson, Warren H. — The Church of the Open Country, Missionary Educa- tional Movement, New York, 1911. , The Evolution of the Country Church, Missionary Educational Movement, 1911. , ' ' The Church and the Eural Community, ' ' American Journal of Sociology, 668-693. , Eealignment of Eeligious and Moral Forces for Country Life, National Country Life Association, 1919: 81-94. , Surveys of Eural Churches, Department of Church and Country Life, Presbyterian Board of Home Missions, New York. PART VI TOWN AND COUNTRY CHAPTER XXI DECLINING VILLAGES OF AMERICA WHY CONSIDER VILLAGES? Whether viewed from one or several angles, the sociological study of villages and village life seems well worth while. First, as an item of population, the villages of America are significant, for in 1910 the incorporated places of less than 2,500 inhabitants each contained about one-eleventh of our national population — a population about equal to that of our most populous state. New York. Had we the figures for the unincorporated villages and hamlets, this proportion would be considerably larger. It is apparent that we should have as accurate information of this section of our national life as is possible to obtain, and that it deserves careful consideration. Or, villages may be considered as elements of the rural part of our national society, and viewed in this connection they appear still more significant. In 1920, the incorporated places of less than 2,500 inhabitants each constituted a little less than one-sixth of the population classed as rural by the census. It is possible that the addition of the unincorporated places might raise this proportion to nearly one-fifth. A sociology of either rural or urban life must seek to render an account of this considerable factor of our society. Second, the inhabitants of villages are closely associated with those living on adjacent and near-by farms and it is obviously next to impossible to study rural life without attending to the inter-relationships existing between open-country and village populations. While only a small minority of the inhabitants of these small places are actual agriculturists, they do touch the lives of farmers far more closely than do the residents of larger urban centers. In many things the interests of the two con- tiguous populations are common and identical — far more in- timate than the interests of villages and cities — although, as 459 460 RURAL SOCIOLOGY will appear later, the two populations are apt to part company- over purely economic matters. It is commonly assumed that a sociological consideration of rural groups sufficiently involves and treats at the same time the village group. That such a consideration of rural society at the same time implicates and covers certain features and re- lationships of village life is, considering what has just been said, inevitable; but that it is explicit enough to be regarded as a sufficient account cannot be maintained. Consequently the villages and village life must be deemed of enough im- portance to merit a distinct, even if brief, consideration. Third, the fact that village populations and affairs have a bearing on urban welfare is of some account. As will be seen, the villages are losing population rapidly, which may, and probably does, mean that there is a large migration from village to city. The physical, educational, moral, and other conditions of villages, therefore, determine the quality of the contribu- tions they maSe to cities in the persons they send there. The economic conditions in villages, also, may have a bearing on the prosperity of the business of cities, since the former are a part of the legitimate field of the latter. Finally, since the national life is made up of all its parts, and open-country, village, and city constitute these parts, what transpires in the villages affects the whole, and so deserves and demands our best thought. DECLINE IN VILLAGE POPULATION The populations of the world have shifted about over the face of the earth from time immemorial but in recent times the currents have been larger, swifter, and more frequent of oc- currence. The migrations of the Huns, the Goths, the Visigoths and the Vandals over Europe during the earlier centuries, which have stood out in history as unparalleled movements of peoples, have been matched in America both among primitive and civil- ized men. Very few persons know of the great migrations of the Sioux Indians from their original home on the southeastern Atlantic and Gulf coasts to the Ohio region, thence westward and northward, the stock becoming more numerous and dif- ferentiating into many migratory streams meanwhile, until the DECLINING VILLAGES OF AMERICA 461 great prairies were reached and the original limited groups had become the most widely distributed of all native peoples. How- ever, there is general cognizance of the mighty streams of European stocks which have flowed over the American continent during the last three quarters of a century and of the great shifting of populations between country and city in recent de- cades; but of the interstate and inter-sectional exchanges and of the trek of multitudes from villages and towns within the nation there is little public information. One of the striking plienomena revealed by English history during the eighteenth century was the shifting of population from the country and the villages. The great inventions had made possible the establishment of the factory system of manu- facture, resulting in the partial abandonment of the household method of production and the consequent release of those in- volved to the new seats of production. Since the factories re- quired coal and it was cheaper to go to the coal than to ship coal to factories, and because the coal fields were in the north, the new establishments largely segregated in the mining regions, drawing workers from all over England, especially from the south. As a consequence of this, the smaller towns and villages suffered an eclipse and a decline, and it was in this period that Oliver Goldsmith wrote his "Deserted Village," depicting the changes wrought therein, though exaggerating the idyllic char- acter of the preceding life in small places. There is ample evidence to indicate that that shift of popu- lation in eighteenth-century England out of villages to factory cities is being duplicated in the United States of America, and that practically the whole of our continental domain is in- volved in the drift from towns and villages. The movement is so wide in its sweep and so general in its manifestation that it might appear as if our population was articulated closely with geological and solar mechanisms and that the same mighty oro- genic and cosmical forces, which project mountains from the crust of the earth and drive the earth and its satellite in their regular courses about the sun throughout the millenniums, were acting upon the flotsam and jetsam of human life. Indeed, were our data complete, we would doubtless find that the move- ments of our populations are quite as definitely the outcome of slowly transpiring conditions as is the building of a moun- 462 RURAL SOCIOLOGY tain chain. But while we have ample facts to demonstrate the shifts and currents of population now taking place, many of the causes operating to produce such changes cannot be dis- covered and measured until a general systematic investigation can be made of the whole field in question; and probably only the national government is in a position to conduct such an extensive study. The statistics of population of incorporated places in the United States presented here were compiled from the alpha- betical lists of places together with their populations for several censuses which appear in Volumes II and III of the census of 1910 and in the advanced publications of the census of 1920. The results for the latter census are subject to revision when the Census Bureau corrects its figures for final publication, but it is likely that such revision will not change the results es- sentially. The figures for the number of the several classes of places do not exactly agree with census totals, and this fact might serve to impeach the validity of our results. The reasons for this divergence are not evident. While only approximate accuracy is claimed for the figures and results presented, it is to be said that the census figures relating to number of places are open to question. Thus, careful recounts were made of the places under 2,500 inhabitants appearing in the census lists for 1910, and methods of checking results were applied. This was done for several states. The divergence regarding results is illustrated in the cases of Colorado, Arkansas, Arizona, and Alabama. The number of places obtained by the recount for those states in their order were: 135, 263, 12, and 213; while the census numbers were 174, 277, 13, and 233, respectively. Our data may therefore be regarded as fairly accurate and as giving an approximately truthful account of the situation in the United States. The following table and graph present the facts for the nation as a whole. The table gives the number of places counted in each class of places at the beginning of the decades ending 1900, 1910, and 1920, together with the number and percentage of such places losing population by the close of the respective decades. An inspection of the table makes it evident that places of less than 2,500 inhabitants have been the greatest losers in all the decades studied, and that those of less than 1,000 inhabitants especially DECLINING VILLAGES OF AMERICA 463 NUMBER OF PLACES IN UNITED STATES COUNTED AT BEOINNINO OF DECADES, 1890-1900, 1900-1910, and 1910-1920, AND NUMBER AND PERCENTAGE OF PLACES LOSING POPULATION DURING THE RESPECTIVE DECADES, BY CLASSES • Class Number Counted Number Losing Population Percentage Losing Population 1910 1900 1890 1910- 1920 1900- 1910 1890- 1900 1910- 1920 1900- 1910 1890- 1900 Under 500 500-1,000 1,000-2,500 2,500-5,000 5,000-10,000 . . . 10,000-25,000 . . 25,000 and over. 5,602 3,192 2,786 1,001 445 361 224 4,073 2,436 2,114 914 417 260 144 2,757 1,908 1,634 737 290 209 117 2,261 1,166 798 244 73 42 5 1,339 780 587 182 68 19 3 694 605 291 122 36 10 5 40.3 36.6 =8.6 24.2 16.4 11.6 2.2 32.8 31.9 27.8 19.9 16.8 7.8 2.1 25.2 31.5 17.8 16.6 12.4 4.2 4.3 * Compiled from lists of places in Vol. II-III, Population, Census of 1910, and fro early lists, largely subject to correction, of Census of 1920. Percentage or Incoeporated Places in the United States Losing Population poe Each op the Three Decades, 1890-1920, By Class of Places Class Per Cent Losing 10 20 30 40 »fe¥t :?■ .;: ; '■-,iy.- /&::'-, '/^^M,: :;'<'^;/^>X^z;t.,.Mf. "m}y,^y,,/.-:^,:.:/:.Mmi. WMW/:i^MM,m^ yMM^rn^ 9 have suffered. The generalization seems warranted that the smaller the place, the greater is the liability of loss of popula- tion. It might appear astounding that in the last decade two- fifths of the smallest villages lost population and that nearly three-tenths of all those under 2,500 are likewise losing. Con- versely, we may say that the larger the place the less the liability 464 RURAL SOCIOLOGY to loss of population. Places of more than 25,000 inhabitants have a very small mortality rate, and those of more than 100,000 are practically exempt from loss. For the decade 1910-1920 only 1 out of 144 cities having 50,000 or more inhabitants lost population, and that city had less than 100,000. Three decades are too few to serve as a basis for conclusions concerning the regularity in the process of village decline; but so far as they go, they denote that conditions in society af- fecting small aggregations of population were becoming un- settled in the earlier decade and that forces set in motion then or before worked with increasing ruthlessness during the next two decades. For the graph makes it evident that a larger and larger proportion of all classes of places under 25,000 inhabi- tants lost inhabitants during the thirty years considered, while those above that line of cleavage either reduced or stabilized their loss. It is safe to conclude that the large cities of this nation are building up their populations at the expense not only of the open country districts but of the smaller cities and the villages. The question will arise as to whether or not the phenomenon of decline in village populations is a part of rural depopula- tion. The attractions in the cities which cause individuals to gravitate there doubtless are common to migrating populations, whatever their source. In this respect, the movements of people from open country and from villages are a part of the same process of urbanization — that is, the building up of great in- dustrial and commercial aggregations at the expense of small and scattered populations. But viewed as to the impelling con- ditions in the localities from whence the currents set, village decline of population and rural depopulation are distinct phenomena. The common element is dissatisfaction with what- ever conditions the locality furnishes; the dissimilar elements are the open-country and village conditions themselves. For both historic reasons and purposes of convenience, the census divides the United States into nine sections called divisions. They are not entirely distinct geographical units, but each has some physical traits common to its states which serve to individualize it. Having discovered that for the whole country the three classes of places having less than 2,500 inhabitants are the heavy losers of population, we will follow DECLINING VILLAGES OF AMERICA 465 the census practice and study the situation relative to those classes by divisions. For convenience only the percentages of losses in each case will be given. PERCENTAGES OF INCORPORATED PLACES IN THE UNITED STATES UNDER 2,500 INHABITANTS LOSING POPULATION IN DECADES ENDING 1900, 1910, AND 1920, BY CLASSES OF PLACES DiviBions Places Under 500 Places of 500-1,000 Places of 1,000-2,600 1910- 1920 1900- 1910 1890- 1900 1910- 1920 1900- 1910 1890- 1900 1910- 1920 1900- 1910 1890- 1900 United States 40.3 73.3 58.5 54.2 31.0 30.5 36.6 36.0 33.0 38.3 32.8 7.7 50.0 47.0 30.9 20.3 36.8 22.8 32.5 15.3 25.2 42.0 28.0 13.9 20.0 26.3 14.0 28.2 19.1 36.6 74.0 43.5 43.2 26.0 25.4 43.6 29.7 28.1 32.2 32.2 6.5 29.0 39.0 42.2 14.6 2r,.2 17.7 41.2 11.2 32.4 30.5 28.2 44.2 33.5 27.5 19.7 21.3 26.4 29.6 45.5 22.0 35.5 25.0 19.3 25.0 29.2 31.6 25.5 27.7 15.5 24.0 42.5 20.4 37.0 22.0 24.4 16.5 8.6 15.7 11.0 Middle Atlantic 27.8 East North Central West North Central 20.2 47.8 39.0 West South Central 15.0 23.3 25.0 It is noteworthy that the villages of all these classes are declining in population in all parts of the nation, so far as these divisions represent the case. The sole exception is New Eng- land for the two lower classes of places and for the earlier decade considered. But this is to be said of New England places. The statistics of places for the first two decades in- cludes both towns and cities, towns being political divisions comprising both rural and village or city populations. In the last census, however, it is possible to distinguish rural from village and city populations in some of the New England States. This distinction has been made in our treatment, not only for this tabulation but for all others following. Hence the data pertaining to New England places for the first two decades — and less so for the last decade — are not entirely representative of the village situation. The general statement that all classes of places are declining in population in all parts of the nation finds some exceptions, so far as these divisions are concerned. The "West North Central and the South Atlantic divisions in the 500-1,000 class and the South Atlantic and East South Central divisions in the 1,000- 2,500 class have a smaller percentage of places losing popula- tion during the third than during the first decade. The most conspicuous cases of increasing decline are the West South 466 RURAL SOCIOLOGY Central divrsion, relative to the lowest class, and New England, for all classes of places. The following tabulation will be helpful in showing the per- centage of loss by classes of percentages of the various divisions for the three classes of places: DIVISIONS CLASSED ACCORDING TO PEKCENTAGE OF PLACES LOSING POPULATION Per Cent o{ Loss Places Under 500 Places of 500-1,000 Places of 1,000-2,500 1910- 1920 1900- 1910 1890- 1900 1910- 1920 1900- 1910 1890- 1900 1910- 1920 1900- 1910 1890- 1900 Under 10 N.E. N.E. Pac. W.N.C. 10-20 Pac. W.N.C. W.S.C. Pac. S.Atl. W.S.C. Pac. W.S.C. S.Atl. Mt. N.E. W.S.C. N.E. 20-30 S. Atl. W.S.C. S.Atl. E.N.C. E.S.C. Mt. W.S.C. S.Atl. W.S.C. Mt. M.Atl. E.S.C. E.N.C. E.S.C. Mt. Pac. M.Atl. W.N.C. E.S.C. W.S.C. Pac. M.Atl. W.N.C. E.S.C. W.S.C. M.Atl. E.N.C. Mt. Pac. 30-40 W.N.C. S. Atl. E.S.C. Mt. Pac. W.N.C. E.S.C. Mt. M.Atl. Pac. E.N.C. M.Atl. S.Atl. E.N.C. Mt. S.Atl. E.N.C. 40-50 M.Atl. E.N.C. M.Atl. E.N.C. E.S.C. W.N.C. Mt. W.N.C. N.E. E.N.C. S.Atl. 50-60 M.Atl. E.N.C. W.S.C. Over 70 N.E. N.E. We may now summarize in terms of percentages the results of all places with less than 2,500 inhabitants. The table on page 467 does this for each of the nine divisions and for the whole nation. It is observed that for the whole United States the percentage of places declining in population was stationary during the second decade but took a great leap upward during the last decade. The divisions commonly evince a steady increase in percentages of decline, only one, the South Atlantic, exhibiting a reversal. During the last census decade, we may say, there- fore, that considerably over a third of the 11,581 places of less than 2,500 inhabitants (36.7 per cent) suffered a loss of popula- tion, DECLINING VILLAGES OF AMEEICA 467 PERCENTAGE OF PLACES IN THE UNITED STATES HAVING LESS THAN 2,500 INHABITANTS LOSING POPULATION DUR- ING THE THREE DECADES ENDING 1900, 1910, AND 1920 Percentage Losing 1920 1910 1900 United States 36.7 61.0 39.2 46.0 28.3 27.3 34.0 29.3 31.2 32.5 24.0 16.3 26.6 42.8 28.1 21.7 30.1 20.8 18.1 11.6 24 New England 13 9 Middle Atlantic 33 East North Central 25 3 West North Central 20 1 South Atlantic East South Central 31.6 26.7 West South Central 13 9 29.0 Pacific 22 8 It is desirable to know how the states stand individually regarding the decline of population. "We have seen that all divisions participate in this respect. Now we shall have evidence in the following tabulation of states according to percentage- class of loss that no state is exempt in the last decade, that few are exempt in any decade, and that some of the percentages of loss are very large. STATES CLASSED ACCORDING TO PERCENTAGE OF PLACES OF LESS THAN 2,S00 INHABITANTS LOSING POPULATION IN DECADES ENDING 1900, 1910, and 1920 Percentage of Loss 1910-1920 1900-1910 1890-1900 N. H., Vt., Mass., N. M., Nev. R. I., N. H., Vt., Conn., Okla., Ariz., Utah 10-20 N. J., Ida., Minn., Cal., S. D., W. Va., Fla. Me., N. J., Neb., N. C, S. C, Ga., La., Okla., Ore. Mass., Wis., Minn., la., S. C. Ga., Ark., Tex., Ind., N. M., Wash. 20-30 Wis., Ark., la., Tex., N. C, Wyo„ S. C, Ariz., Tenn., Utah, Ala. Penn., Minn., N. D., Kan., Va., W. Va., Ala., Miss., Ark., Wyo., Ariz., Utah S D Neh Kan W. Va., N. C, Tenn., Ala., Miss., La., Ore. 30-40 Pcnn., Okla., Mo., Ore., N. D., Neb., Va., La. N. Y., Wis., Mo., DeL, Md., Ky., Tenn., Tex., Mont., Col. Mont Col Cal 40-50 Me., Ind., Md., Vt., 111., Oa., Conn., Kan., Ky., Mich., Del., Miss., N. M., Wash. Ohio, Ind., Mich. N. Y., Md., Wyo. 50-80 Mass., R. I., N. y., Ohio, Col., Nev. la. Del 60-70 N. H. 468 RURAL SOCIOLOGY Had we nothing more than the above tabulation from which to gain an impression we would be convinced that there has been an increasing decline in population of the villages of America, for there is a conspicuous settling downward of states in the table from a position of relatively low percentages in 1890- 1900 to one of relatively high percentages in the decade, 1910- 1920. In the class of percentages, 40-50, but three states ap- peared in the first decade, four in the second, and 14 in the third. In the class, 50-60, there was only one state in each of the first two decades, while there were 6 in the last. The last decade added a new class of percentages, 60-70, of which there was one representative. While for the whole United States over one-third of the vil- lages of less than 2,500 inhabitants now suffer a loss of popula- tion, it must not be concluded that the remaining two-thirds are making heavy gains. A critical inspection of the census data reveals that the majority of the remaining places have either barely remained stationary in population or have gained but slightly. It is only the few and exceptional small places that are gaining population with any rapidity. The query might arise as to whether or not the same place loses population from decade to decade. A reply has been sought for only the first two decades considered. There it was found that 663 out of the 1,586 places which lost population during the first decade continued to lose during the next — a percentage of slightly less than 42. In the case of the East North Central division, however, the percentage was 57, the highest in the list. The following table casts its reflection on the other side of this picture, showing as it does the absorptive power of the larger urban aggregations. Several things stand out clearly in this table. First, urban territory gains steadily at the expense of the country, as we previously noted. Second, the villages — the places of less than 2,500 inhabitants — have just about held their 8 to 9 per cent of the national population during the four decades denoted, and the other classes of places up to 25,000 inhabitants have done little better. But the larger classes of places have steadily ab- sorbed a larger and larger share of our inhabitants, the cities of a million or more almost doubling their proportion, while DECLINING VILLAGES OF AMERICA 469 PERCENTAGE OP DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION IN GROUPS OP CITIES CLASSIFIED ACCORDING TO SIZE, AND IN RURAL TERRITORY: 1890-1920* Per Cent of Total Population 1920 1910 1900 1890 Urban Territory Class of Places 1,000,000 or more 500,000-1,000,000 250,000-500,000 100,000-250,000 50,000-100,000 25,000-50,000 51.4 9.6 5.9 4.3 6.2 5.0 4.8 6.6 4.7 4.3 45.8 9.2 3.3 4.3 5.3 4.5 4.4 6.0 4.6 4.2 40.0 8.5 2.2 3.8 4.3 3.6 3.7 5.7 4.2 4.1 35.4 5.8 1.3 3.9 4.4 3.2 3.6 10,000-25,000 5,000-10,000 5.4 3.8 2,500-5,000 4.0 Rural Territory Incorporated places of less than 2,500 Other rural territory . . 8.5 40.1 8.9 45.3 8.3 51.7 7.6 57.0 • From Table 31, Fourteenth Census, Vol. I. those of the next lower class increased their proportion over fourfold. Three of the largest cities now have nearly one-tenth of all our people, 25 of the largest contain about one-fifth, and 287 of the approximately 15,000 incorporated places domicile 35.7 per cent of our 106,000,000 inhabitants. CAUSES OP DECLINE Thus we have the panorama of loss of population that is taking place among the small urban aggregations of the United States spread before our vision. As was observed there is an increasing percentage of the number of places evincing the decline, for the decade 1910-1920, as we descend from class to class: 2.2 per cent for places of more than 25,000 souls; 11.6 for those of 10,000-25,000 ; 16.4 for the class, 5,000-10,000 ; 24.2 for those of 2,500-5,000; 28.6 for those of 1,000-2,500; 36.6 for those of 500-1,000; and 40.3 for those under 500. The rule conse- quently emerges that the smaller the place the greater must its struggle be to maintain itself. Underneath and behind this widespread decline in number of inhabitants, we are forced to picture inertia, decadence of business and institutions, deserted 470 RURAL SOCIOLOGY and tumbling homes and buildings, the going forth of the young and the vigorous to more attractive fields, the discouragement of responsible residents that comes from playing a losing game, and the gloom or the soporific stupor which settles upon a dis- integrating and dying community. What is happening to and in the towns and villages of America? What forces are at work in the body politic that play such havoc among these classes of communities? Is it possible to designate the conditions and point out the causes that are responsible for such unexpected and seemingly un- necessary changes? It must be confessed that this particular province is almost terra incognita. It is a world that has been taken for granted. Many students of social matters have suspected that something of an untoward character was taking place, criticisms in great number have been pointed at our towns and villages. So far as the present writer is aware, only one statistical study of villages in one state has been made in an endeavor to find out what was happening and what causes accounted for whatever decline was discovered. But for the whole nation, nothing within the knowledge of the writer has been done respecting either the data demonstrating a decline or the operating causes. Conse- quently anything which is to be said about the conditions pro- ducing the widespread decline in the population of our towns and villages must be regarded as more or less partial, approx- imate, and tentative. The first thing to be said, in a search for causes of the de- cline, is that local conditions evidently play a large part in driving inhabitants out of small places. Dr. Vogt found that to have been the case relative to the declining villages of Ohio. And as the various sets of conditions which obtain in the dif- ferent parts of the nation are considered, it is possible to name a number of local conditions which must have determining in- fluences over population matters. For example, the writer has observed in the coal regions of southeastern Kansas declining and completely deserted villages, and has known places which once had several thousand inhabitants to have been completely obliterated after the exhaustion of the particular vein of coal that was being mined. This has suggested that wherever mines of any kind exist there is a strong likelihood that certain mining DECLINING VILLAGES OF AMERICA 471 towns will fail or dwindle in importance with the diminution of the mineral resources. Perhaps the decline in population of Pennsylvania places having less than 2,500 inhabitants during the decade 1900-1910, the large percentage of losses in West Virginia, Colorado, Nevada, etc., are largely to be explained in this way. Another patent local cause of population-decline is observed in agricultural regions of uncertain rainfall. During the last decades a large population has pushed into the semi-arid sec- tions of the central west and west, and has sought to develop agriculture. Exclusive agriculture has not been able to suc- ceed in some areas. Only those farmers who combined plant and stock culture have been able to sustain themselves. As a consequence, the general population has lessened and the towns and villages that had grown up on the basis of the early attempt have declined or perished. No doubt the large percentages of loss to be observed in the tier of states extending southward from North Dakota and in the states immediately west of that tier is to be explained to some extent in this way. But it would be an error to push this explanation so as to cover the total percentage of losses in those states, for it is well known that declining villages occur where agriculture is assured. Again, there is the case of forest regions where cut-over land abounds where the towns which once were thriving logging or lumber centers are staggering downward on their journey to oblivion. Perhaps this helps to explain the large percentages of losses in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, and in certain southern and western states. It is not possible to assess the degree of influence which this condition exerts; it is only possi- ble to assert that it is a known cause of wide prevalence. The consolidation of farms which narrows the population foundation of agricultural villages — something that is wide- spread throughout the country — is a considerable influence at work to undermine village prosperity and life. Wherever ab- solute rural depopulation occurs — and it occurs in scores of the richest agricultural counties in the United States — there is a sufficient reason for village decline. Occasionally a new railroad is projected, new trading-centers spring up along its course to compete with the old, and now inland, villages which were there before the invasion. One 472 RURAL SOCIOLOGY by one the stores die out or remove to the new centers, the shops close down, the post office follows the stores, and the population trickles away to other centers. Doubtless this factor is not of the greatest consequence ; nevertheless, it will account for at least a small number of the declining villages through- out the whole nation. There are certain influences at work on the towns and villages of the United States which are to be thought of as general causes of the decline in population. "Without seeking to make a classification and enumeration in which overlapping does not occur, some of the more important causes will be noticed. A general cause of undoubtedly great importance is the com- petition between small and large centers in trade and industry. Much could be written on this subject, but it will be sufficient to indicate only the essential points. The extensive business of mail-order houses, the trend toward the establishment of a greater number of kinds of line stores, and the more ad- vantageous traffic rates the large centers enjoy as compared with the small places make an exhibit of what the villages are contending with. Small sales, slow turnover in business, in- efficiency in business methods are the assets of the village trades- men. Large sales, rapid turnover and consequent large profit on a small margin of profits, and the very essence of business organization and efficiency in business methods are the char- acteristic of the mail-order house and some other large industrial enterprises. What can the country merchant do to meet the situation ! The automobile has been greeted and glorified as the salvation and deliverance of the farmer and of rural life generally, and it is to be rememBered that the Federal census classifies towns anJ^viTteg^ of less than 2,500 inhabitants as rural. Whatever benefit the automobile may be to the farmer wBSTJBssesses one, it is not all joy to the village merchant — at least, not to the merchant who does business ^n the small village which is not far removed from larger towns and county seats. For the farmer and the villager may, and often do, get into an automo- bile and drive to the larger place a dozen or a score of miles distant to transact much of the business previously done at the local trading-places. This is a very considerable cause of village decline, a more serious one than is likely at first to be con- DECLINING VILLAGES OF AMERICA 473 ceived. It is a matter of observation that some towns of two or three thousand inhabitants which previously were losing ground are now thriving for this reason, while villages in their vicinity are declining. A general store in one of the latter recently burned, a house that had formerly done a large business; but the owner refused to rebuild, since the business no longer war- ranted it. The automobile had done its work. Evidence that a similar situation exists in Canada, and sug- gestions concerning the significance of the trend, are contained in the following quotation: "If one may accept the report of a Canadian merchant in Ontario, a change is there under way that will materially affect community life in the near future. Within a short time, according to this observer, all rural trading will be done in the cities, and the village general-store will practically vanish. He is not alone in his opinion, for several hundred farmers were recently interrogated on the subject, and their replies indicated that they went, on an average, about thirty-four miles from home to do their buying. Only about a quarter of the men and women purchased clothing in the home village. The automobile on the farm, combined with the pros- perity of the farmers, is, of course, responsible; but the num- ber of automobiles owned by farmers is steadily increasing, and the prosperity of farmers seems unlikely to diminish. In its time the village store has been a picturesque and necessary market place, but it will hardly be kept for its picturesqueness, if a new order of rural life makes it unnecessary. ' ' ^ In these days of rapid transportation and easy communica- tion, the country village and town are submerged by the streams of influence which pour in upon them from the distant cities. Many residents have visited the larger centers and they return to tell of the wonderful and exhilarating experiences enjoyed there; and the daily press and the monthly and weekly peri- odicals bring in their stories and accounts of what transpires in the great centers. An abnormal appeal is made to the im- aginations of the young and susceptible. The city appears to them as the world of romance and fortune, of freedom, pleasure, and success. As a consequence, there is an unceasing flux of the young and vigorous from the small places to the larger centers. The result is twofold: a lessening of growth or an ' Christian Science Monitor, January 15, 1920. 474 RURAL SOCIOLOGY actual decline of the population of the place, and a consequent tendency toward local decadence in physical stock and social enterprise. CONDITIONS IN VILLAGES 1. Question of decadence. — It is unfortunate that we do not possess numerous competent surveys of life in the smaller urban aggregations of this country. As it is, our reliance is on observation, from which generalizations must be made cautiously. The safe statement to make is that in multitudes of these places institutional, civic, and social life is at a low ebb, health and sanitary conditions are neglected and often menacing, the youth at the most critical period of life are without wholesome pro- visions for recreation and physical training, with the result that many go astray and become vicious, and that all develop on far too low a plane of character and ability. On the other hand there is danger of alleging a greater degree and universality of decadence of village life than the situation warrants. An attractive and plausible survey of one village located in a rich agricultural section of the middle west was published a few years ago under the caption, "A Village of a Thousand Souls." The proportion of insanity, feeble-minded- ness, epilepsy, alcoholism, and eccentricity to the number of families was given in a graphic and telling representation, the percentages being very high. A considerable cause of this high neuropathic rate was alleged to be the exodus of the able and vigorous to larger centers. This village was alleged to be typical of such communities for the United States, although no evidence was given that this was the case. One could not criticize the facts embodied in this survey. Presumably the investigation was ably and accurately made. But the assertion that it is representative of such communities must be challenged, for it is demonstrable that the rate of in- sanity reported there is fourteen times that of the population at large in New York state, the state having the highest ratio, and sixty-four times that of such population in Arkansas, the state having the smallest ratio. It is inconceivable that villages in general have rates of insanity so disproportionate to those of the population at large. Moreover the statistics we have of insanity indicate that the larger cities have a higher rate than the rural DECLINING VILLAGES OF AMERICA 475 districts, the rural being inclusive of smaller towns and villages. The consequent conclusion arises that that particular village represents not a typical but an abnormal type of small aggre- gations. The survey of the school children of another village gives less extreme results. This was a village of 913 inhabitants and 154 children in the eight grades tested. On the basis of the mental test administered to all the children individually, the children were classed as follows: seven-tenths of 1 per cent (one child) were very bright; 5.8 per cent, bright; 65.6 per cent, normal; 25.3 per cent, backward; and 2.6 per cent, dull. The median mentality index for all the children was 40, or 10 per cent below the normal for school children of that age and grade. There was an adequate proportion of normal children, but too few very bright ones and too many backward children. A social survey that was made of the whole village showed a declining population, lack of reading in homes, poor facilities for recreation, poor business spirit, migration away of high school graduates, low death rate, and comparatively well-to-do inhabitants. The low mentality of the school children was sup- posed to be accounted for by lack of reading in homes, loss of high school graduates, and migration away of probably the more intelligent families.^ While this may be representative of all such villages, it would not be safe to jump to that conclusion. But doubtless it does give a correct picture of the mental conditions obtaining in a large number of small places throughout the United States. 2. Remedies in the light of causes. — It is conceivable that those who have the patience to read this to the end will say : "Well, this is a bad state of things! What is to be done?" The writer sincerely wishes he were able to prescribe a remedy, but he is obliged to confess almost complete incompetency. It is apparent that some of the causes of the loss of popula- tion in the classes of communities treated are those which cannot be removed, or whicli may be displaced by only long and gradual processes. Exhaustion of mineral resources, inland locations, amount of precipitation, attractiveness of cities and competition of larger centers are permanent or susceptible of barely slight modification. Reforesting cut-over ' Rudolph Pitner, School and Society, May 19, 1917. 476 RURAL SOCIOLOGY lands and building up a larger social life in small communities might be undertaken and accomplished with time. Perhaps large business could be so regulated that the country merchants and shops might have a better chance. One thing much needed is a wide study of the situation to discover the force of all the various conditions bringing about the widespread decline and to suggest countervailing agencies. But however discouraging the conclusion may appear to be, the most probable course will be that the towns and villages will be left to work out their own salvation. We will probably complacently permit those that are declining to keep on making the descent until they have reached extinction or that level of population and business which the foundation of population and resources in the adjacent and supporting community will be able to sustain. However, for the sake of decency and for the benefit of those in villages who have the courage to undertake to make life in such places better", some suggestions looking toward improvement will be offered at the close of this chapter. 3. Some specific conditions. — There is a vast difference among the villages respecting existing conditions of life. There are progressive places, stagnant places, and dying places. The growing villages are likely to be more vigorous in appearance and more interested in upkeep; but when the population is melting away, the spirit of improvement is likely to be crushed and things to go from bad to worse. This is true not only of dying villages, but also measurably true of those that are dead — in the sense of being stationary. As a class, the larger rural towns are much more likely to be modernized than the class of smaller ones. There is a larger percentage of towns of 1,000 to 2,500 inhabitants that present decidedly urban appearances, having electric lighting, running water in homes, sewage-disposal systems, cement sidewalks, and perhaps paving in the business district, well-kept homes and lawns, a good class of business buildings and homes, and excellent schools. No doubt it is the growing places which are most likely to be of this sort, but some stationary and even dying villages show modern con- ditions, the latter having been taken on before decadence set in. In the type of smaller villages, those of a few hundred or a thousand souls, the physical conditions, equipment, and appear- ance are quite likely to be backward. While many have electric DECLINING VILLAGES OF AMERICA 477 lighting systems, only a small percentage have water-supply and sewage systems. Consequently sanitary conditions often are menacing. The water used in homes is a source of danger because it is derived from wells, and few of these wells are guarded from surface contamination. The outside toilets are apt to be filthy, open to flies, and the source of contamination to water supply; stables and slops further contaminate surface soils. That sewage matter contaminates the soil to a great depth is shown by Fodder's investigation in Budapest : "By analyzing soil at different levels from the surface to a depth of fifteen feet, he found, over an area comprising fifteen acres, about one billion pounds of organic matter, equivalent to the excrement of 100,000 people voided during thirty-seven years. ' ' ^ This satu- rated soil inevitably contains many disease germs and is the source of much sickness. The populations of most villages are also exposed to disease in the handling of articles of food. The milk supply is local, and very seldom are the cows tested for tuberculosis, or the stables where cows are kept or the equipment used in milking and the care of the milk inspected. Vegetables, fruits, and other foods are not often properly safeguarded in the country stores, these being generally kept in a disorderly manner. The small places have no boards of health and sanitation inspectors to keep stores, dairies, restaurants, and conditions in general clean and sanitary. Perhaps the most important indictment against villages is to be made regarding the opportunities for wholesome recreation and amusement, especially for the young. It is true that there is apt to be no dearth of lodges, women's clubs, various church societies and organizations, and societies for dancing, card play- ing, and the like. Beyond their philanthropic activities, the lodges chiefly function in the direction of ritual, providing op- portunities for attaining local distinction, making business con- nections, and furnishing social occasions — sometimes of a ques- tionable character. Women 's clubs furnish an outlet for women in their leisure hours and some opportunity to broaden their vision, but they are not free from manifesting class distinction and partisanship. However, in the smaller villages in particular ' Theobald Smith, Sewage Disposal on the Farm, IT. S. Farmers ' Bulletin, No. 34: 6. 478 RURAL SOCIOLOGY there is an almost entire lack flf provision for wholesome recrea- tion for children and youth. The popular assumption and belief has been that so long as the children had the time and open streets or blocks in which to resort and play, recreation would take care of itself and all was done that needed to be done. The movie films and the occasional traveling troupes of enter- tainers too frequently present scenes and ideas that are vicious in their suggestiveness. There are no gymnasiums or play- grounds where, especially in winter, athletic sports and games can be engaged in. The result is that in the most plastic and suggestible period of life, the young are thrown upon their own resources and often resort to license and obscenity. The sex morality of small villages and towns is liable to be of a low order. Organized sex license among the children of some high schools has been known, and probably a good deal exists that is not suspected. Gambling is widespread among the men of the small places and the entire loss of wages and profits by that means is not at all infrequent. Demoralizing conditions of a shameful sort may persist in small places because civic responsibility is stifled by the fear of making enemies. As was seen in our study of juvenile delin- quency in New York state, where all are acquainted and closely associated, no one likes to make himself disliked by turning informant or reformer. Hence, we find many instances like this town of 3,000 inhabitants that had a house of prostitution, a large number of syphilitic cases, and many girls who had gone astray. The women's club of 100 members devoted its efforts to raising funds to improve the cemetery. While the public library contained several thousand volumes, it was open only one afternoon and three evenings a week and there was no cooperation between library and the public schools. With ample wealth in the place there were no funds to properly support the library or to maintain Christian Associations for boys and girls.^ Loyalty and interest in the village on the part of villagers is often at a low ebb, especially where the village is located near larger centers; This has been noticed by investigators of the effect of improved communication on village life. Professor •"Irresponsibility of the Small Town," by "A Former Eesident," The Survey, 29: 671-2. DECLINING VILLAGES OF AMERICA 479 E. S. Bogardus writes: "Improved commmiieation enables villagers to identify themselves with city enterprises; conse- quently they are neglecting their village life. Loyalty seems to have passed over from the village to the nearby city because the villager contemplates moving to the city sooner or later.^ The well-conditioned villages afford conditions which compare favorably with those of the best cities in many respects. It is true that the measurement cannot be made in terms of wealth, for in the matter of the acquisition of wealth the latter have the advantage. In the cities the economic motive dominates and it follows that there is an intense competitive struggle, with con- sequent wearing demands and the crushing of life by the huge industrial machine. But the village of the better kind has leisure for enjoyment and improvement. The citizens generally have comfortable homes, spacious grounds, garden facilities, grassy lawns, trees, and abundant light and air. The close acquaintance and contact of individuals offer opportunity for friendship based on other than economic grounds and tend to cultivate an appreciation of personal qualities. Where there is the desire, the leisurely life provides the chance to develop tastes and ability in the direction of art and literature. DIRECTIONS OF IMPROVEMENT Because of the diversity of conditions in the villages of the United States there can be no formula devised which is uni- versally applicable to and capable of regulating and improving village life. What would work beneficially in one place might prove a failure elsewhere. Besides, it is practically useless to plan the resuscitation of many of the dying communities our statistical study reveals, since foundations are crumbling there and hope is dead. It is expedient, consequently, to offer only a few suggestions which, if followed, might prove helpful in some instances. 1. Leadership is undoubtedly demanded for improvement in any direction; and a large percentage of villages are without a leadership of vision and competency. How to secure this vital factor always resolves itself into how to develop it. For cities attract leaders, but the country and villages have theirs con- ' Quoted from a letter to the author, November 5, 1919. 480 RURAL SOCIOLOGY stantly taken from them and so must always consider how to develop and keep their native talent. Where there is a visible community consciousness that has a manifest pride in the local- ity, it is not so difficult to train the youth to appreciate the home place and to exercise a certain loyalty and devotion toward it. All educating and molding agencies must have this spirit and aid in inculcating community patriotism to the young. Home, school, church, newspaper, and all other agencies will have to learn how to demonstrate the merits and advantages of the home village. 2. A community consciousness is an essential to village im- provement. It is clear that if it is required to develop a leader- ship imbued with local patriotism and loyalty, it is quite as essential in order to breed pride and devotion in the minds and hearts of the masses. Leaders who have no support are helpless and the rank and file must have the spirit of cooperation. The genesis of community consciousness depends on no set rule, but may develop out of any enterprise or organized effort. At Coopersburg, Pennsylvania, a Neighborhood Association was formed, with various auxiliary committees responsible for recre- ation, parents and teachers meetings, health and sanitation, civic improvement, promoting industry, and the building of homes. A thoroughgoing survey furnished facts which showed in what respects the village was deficient. Plans for improvement were then laid and all the committees and members went to work. The town was rejuvenated, improved, and expanded in all direc- tions and soon became a pride and inspiration to its inhabitants. In this case, organization and giving every one something help- ful to do developed the community consciousness which made beneficial results possible.^ It was a church that took the lead in the improvement of con- ditions at Elmhurst, Illinois, but the church had a live pastor to take the lead. There a splendid community house was built and equipped, a community club to provide entertainment free to the public was organized, a Young Men's Christian Associa- tion and Young Women's Christian Association were estab- lished, and women's club and Boy Scouts were organized. The 'E. de J. Brunner, "A Country Town Efficient," American City (Town and County Edition, 13: 24-7. DECLINING VILLAGES OF AMERICA 481 community became conscious that Blmhurst was a good place in which to live because of the satisfaction it afforded.^ It is quite generally agreed that the introduction of sports in which all engage is an excellent provocative of community con- sciousness. Caste differences disappear in games and all par- ticipants learn to meet and to cooperate on a common basis. The projecting of a village pageant is a good example of this. Its success depends on working out together the various parts; and, in addition, it gives stimulus to literature, dignifies recre- ation, and develops mental unity. As a child develops through play, so a village may be led into a larger life through the use of play and recreation. This may not recover lost economic strength, or renew a shrunken population, but it develops new and higher qualities in the residents and gives a zest to living. 3. The establishment of laws and regular agencies covering the public health is generally needed in villages. An adequate county health organization was advocated in the chapter on health; and if such were established, the village would receive attention, along with other parts of the county. But there should be a local organization to help develop a community consciousness on sanitary matters and to cooperate in admin- istration. An organization such as the Home Service of the Red Cross, or the health committee of an improvement associa- tion, could be of great benefit. The county organization would aid in the cultivation of local public opinion relative to health affairs, which is so necessary to the enforcement of sanitary regulations. It would also furnish periodical inspection of physical conditions, water and food supply, and the establish- ments handling food. The provision of medical inspection of schools and of a school nurse, and the teaching of a practical hygiene in the schools, as previously recommended, would im- prove the physical condition of children and ultimately build an intelligence relative to health and sanitation. It should also be possible to place hospital facilities within reach of the in- habitants of small villages. The inadequacy of home care in most cases is obvious, but the open-country and village popula- tions are generally too remote from the infrequent hospitals to *Wm. E. Danforth, American City (Town and County Edition), 12: 22-6. 482 RURAL SOCIOLOGY benefit much by them. A wise state and county health intelli- gence would seek to have hospitals established in certain villages throughout the county, so as to be accessible to all. 4. Community houses are coming to be thought of as not only advantageous but essential parts of neighborhood life. The movement for their establishment has been strengthened since the war by the desire to establish memorials to soldiers. It would be fortunate if most of the memorial monuments planned could take this shape. The danger now is that quite insufficient buildings will be erected. Communities intending to build should make a careful study of the whole local situation and consult experts on what such structures should be. The best type of community building is constructed to serve as the focus of all non-sectarian and non-partisan activities of the locality. An auditorium is a necessary adjunct, so built and equipped that it may serve as auditorium, theater, and hall for athletics, drill, and dancing. It will, of course, be provided with ample rostrum and stage, to one side of which might well be the dressing room and to the other the kitchen and pantry for serving banquets and socials. At the rear of the auditorium downstairs rooms could be arranged for toilets, and for the use of small organizations, clubs, health work, etc., and other such rooms could be provided at the rear of the gallery upstairs. Somewhat wide spaces at the sides of the auditorium could serve as promenades and for placing seats for drills, athletic events, and similar occasions. Such a structure would meet practically all the sociability, cultural, health, and recreational needs of a small community, would serve to bring all classes of people together, and go far to develop a local solidarity. 5. Resuscitating business. In so far as the conditions causing village decline lie beyond the limits of local control there is apparently nothing the village can do by way of checking its own demise. However, there are indications that a better mode of doing business is possible. This would materially assist in keeping alive or in comparatively resuscitating a goodly number of small places. It was observed that small merchants are not able to compete on even 'terms with the large mercantile establishments of large centers. But it is possible for small merchants to introduce into their business various efficiency devices which will do much DECLINING VILLAGES OF AMERICA 483 to overcome the handicaps- under which they work. To illustrate this, they may form a cooperative association of buyers and obtain their goods directly from the manufacturers without the intervention of other middlemen, thus reducing the cost of goods and also, perhaps, the cost of transportation by reason of ship- ping in large quantities. This has been done by small retail- clothing men in the United States. They now do business in seventeen states from Virginia to Utah, operating in three divi- sions with centers at Kansas City, Minneapolis, and Chicago ; and five more divisions are planned. Tlie manufacturers attend their semi-annual conventions where they exhibit their goods and consult with the retailers as to what goods will be demanded during the next season. The putting into operation of such a plan generally among village merchants would do much toward insuring the economic life in many of these centers.^ TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION 1. What are the functions cities perform for the society of which they are a part! 2. Do the smaller places we call villages exercise the same or similar functions? 3. Would it make any material difference if villages were to disappear from American life? 4. Would it be possible to discover types of villages in the manner we have indicated types of rural communities? 5. Make a list of the villages you know and ascertain whether they are growing or losing in population. 6. What is the situation for the villages of your county? How does your county compare in this respect with other sections of your state? 7. Analyze the cause producing the decline in any villages you know. 8. What do the villages of your vicinity provide or lack in the way of recreation and amusement? 9. Do the villages you know possess attractive or unattractive features as to physical appearance? 10. Outline what is being done to improve conditions and life in any villages you know. REFERENCES Anderson, W. L. — The Country Town; Baker, N. Y., 1906. Bailey, L. H. — ' ' The Place of the Village in the Country Life Movement, ' ' in Tork State Problems, 2: 148-157; Lyons. Babbinoton, Charlotte — ' ' Revival of the Village Social Life, ' ' Nine- teenth Century, 83: 790-809. Bennet, E. N.— Problems of Village Life; Holt, N. Y., 1914. ' G. W. Hinman, Chicago Herald and Examiner, January 9, 1921. 484 RURAL SOCIOLOGY Bird, Jr., Chas. S. — Town Planning for Small Communities; Appleton, 1917. ■ Brunnee, E. de S. — "A Country Town Efficient," American City (Town and County Edition), 13: 24-7. Dantorth, Wm. E. — "The Story of a Church that Believes in a Town," American City (Town and County Edition), 12: 22-6. Douglass, H. P. — The Little Town; Macmillan, 1919. EcKERSON, CoENELrcs — "Farm Village as an Economic Unit," American City (Town and County Edition), 14: 127-9. Pabwell, p. T. — Village Improvement ; Sturgis, 1913. Galpin, C. J. — The Social Anatomy of a Sural Community, University of Wisconsin Besearch Bui., No. 34. , Bural Relations of the Village and Small City, University of Wis- consin Bui., No. 411. Gesell, a. L. — "Village of a Thousand Souls," American Magazine, 76: 11-15. Haetman, E. T. — "Village Problems and Characteristics," Annals, 40: 234-43. Hinckley, T. L. — "The Village as an Administrative Problem," The Survey, 30: 41. HiNMAN, G. W. — "A Little Lesson in Cooperation," Chicago Herald and Examiner, January 1, 1921. "Irresponsibility of the Small Town," The Survey, 29: 671-2. McVey, F. L. — The Making of a Town; McClurg, 1913. Nolan, J. C. — Comprehensive Planning for Small Towns and Villages, Bui. 16, American Unitarian Association, Boston. ' ' Old Village on a New Model, ' ' The Survey, 37 : 726. Phelan, John — Readings in Bural Sociology, Chap. XVI; Macmillan, 1920. Pinter, Eudolph — A Mental Survey of the School Population of a Village, School and Society, May 19, 1917. PuRViTTS, J. F. — "Typical Town of T. " American City (Town and County Edition), 14: 449-53. HOBINSON, C. M. — The Improvement of Towns and Villages; Putnam, 1919. "Schools in Villages Maintaining High Schools," Educational News Bulle- tin, November 1, 1916. Sims, N. L. — A Eoosier Village; Longmans, 1912. , ' ' The Disintegration of the Village Community, ' ' in The Rural Community, 133-152; Appleton, 1920. Stubbs, C. W. — Village Politics; Macmillan, 1878. Small, A. S., and Vincent, Geo. E. — ' ' The Eural Group and the Village, ' ' in An Introduction to the Study of Sociology, Book II, Chaps. II-III: University of Chicago Press, 1894. ' ' Tragedy of Village Slums, ' ' The Survey, 28 : 767-9. United States Census, 1910, Population, Vols. II and III. , 1920, Advanced Information. Vincent, Geo. E. — See under Small. VooT, Paul L. — Introduction to Bural Sociology, Chaps. XX-XXV; Appleton. Wauoh, F. a. — Rural Improvement, Chap. XIII; Orange Judd Co. CHAPTER XXn EELATION OF TOWN AND COUNTRY * TOWN AND COUNTRY The world of humanity falls apart into city and country with a twilight zone of villages which appears to belong to neither the one nor the other wholly but partakes in a measure of the nature of each. But for purposes of convenience the village communities may be cast in with the cities and the whole spoken of as town. Then it will be possible to examine the relations between town and country and such scrutiny may not be without value. It was discovered in an early chapter that town and country are not two absolutely separate and unrelated societies but that an interdependence in many directions exists. They are funda- mental parts of a national and world economy and each has functions to perform which are peculiar to itself and which the other half of society as well as itself needs in order to exist. There are other relations also of a non-functional nature, namely, the "influences" each exerts on the other. The country and town minds may be somewhat different so that in national or state elections there is a tendency for each to go its own way and to try to persuade the other to its way of thinking, and, failing in this, then to vote against it. There are influences flowing each way of press, pulpit, school, dress, custom, and so on. The counter-influence may not always be beneficial yet it persists as part of the mesh of inter-relationships. Thus, a writer in the educational field speaks of the influence of rural on urban education. "The fact that the rural and village teachers constituting nearly one-half of the teaching population are immature, tran- sient, and untrained, operates to depress standards throughout • Portions of this chapter have appeared in the Publications of the American Sociological Society, Vol. 16. 485 486 BURAL SOCIOLOGY the entire field. Most of the larger cities, for example, maintain local training schools for elementary teachers, and could easily require reasonably high standards of preparation. With a few exceptions, they demand but one or two years of professional training after the candidate has completed a high school course. It is generally agreed that two years of such training represent the minimum that should be tolerated, but even our largest and richest cities are content with this. Indeed, of all of our public school teachers only 1 in 5 have met this minimum standard. In England the proportion meeting a comparable standard is 4 in 6, and in many other countries of continental Europe the proportion is still higher. ' ' ^ TOWN GROWTH AND COUNTEY DECLINE In several directions it appears as if the great urban develop- ment which has occurred throughout all the advanced nations has been at the expense of the country. The appearance is so strong that many onlookers draw this inference : while the gen- eral tendency of the urban world is to develop, the tendency of the rural world is to decline. But it is not necessary to admit the last part of this statement while conceding its first propo- sition. Our study of the evolution of rural society disabused our minds of the idea that the country is actually and univer- sally declining, for we discovered a general and fairly steady rural advance since primitive times, and there is no evidence of a general decline now, although there are local and temporary set-backs. The decline which superficial observers believe they discover is a relative, not an absolute one. The urban develop- ment is so rapid and many-sided that the tortoiselike forward pace of the country appears like a recession. There is little room, however, to doubt that in some particulars the cities are developing at the expense of the open country and even of smaller cities and villages. In our study of population we have observed that there has been no decline in the nation as a whole in rural population. Less than half of the states actually lost rural inhabitants in the sense of having fewer at the last census than in the preceding one. But the country loses millions of people during a decade to the cities and the rate of » W. G. Bagley, in The New BepuUic, December 17, 1919, p. 90. RELATION OF TOWN AND COUNTRY 487 increase of urban population is several times (5.8) that of the open country rural populations. We also discovered that in our nation the villages and small cities are losing inhabitants and that the smaller the urban aggregation the greater is its likeli- hood of declining in population. Where these people who leave the villages go we cannot ascertain from statistics, but observa- tion in a number of them is to the effect that most of the young people emigrate cityward. That the flux from country to town is not at an end is indi- cated by replies from 40,000 farmers to a questionnaire of the Federal Post Office Department. Many of the answers indicated that the writers contemplated leaving their farms. That a stream of talent from country to town is the accom- paniment of the flow of population is obviously inevitable. It might be thought that it is only the more discerning who become dissatisfied in the country and go elsewhere. On the other hand, it could be contended that it is the nervously unstable and easily discouraged who do so. Only a resort to facts can settle this dilemma and the facts we have indicate that the leaders in the United States in industry, commerce, finance, engineering, news- paper publication, pulpit, and other lines overwhelmingly have been born in the country. This would indicate that persons not only of leadership capacity but of extraordinary capacity have been uprooted from rural districts. And since there is no com- mensurate return of population and talent from urban to rural districts, the latter are made poorer and the former richer thereby. There is also a disproportionate concentration of the wealth of the nation in the cities. The total wealth of the United States has multiplied with almost incredible rapidity since 1860. Stated in round billions of dollars that material wealth has been as follows: 16 billions in 1860; 44 billions in 1870; 65 billions in 1890 ; 188 billions in 1912 ; and it is now estimated at from 250 to 300 billions in 1920. It is true that fluctuation of prices and values enter in to create some of these values, but the trend of the series is unmistakably upward, and that very pre- cipitously. The average per capita wealth meanwhile increased from $514 in 1860 to $1,036 in 1890 and to possibly $3,000 in 1920. Were the wealth equally distributed the average sized family would possess about thirteen or fourteen thousand dol- 488 RURAL SOCIOLOGY lars. But this is not the case, and a good many students of society now think that the greatest economic problem is one of distribution rather than of production. The division of this national wealth between city and country for the census dates fi-om 1850 to 1890 has been estimated, and the results are presented in the accompanying table.^ Census Urban Wealth (Thousand Millions) Eural Wealth (Thousand Millions) Urban (Percentage) Bural (Percentage) 1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 3,169 8,180 15,155 31,538 49,055 3,967 7,980 8,900 12,104 15,982 44 51 63 72 75 56 49 37 28 25 It will be noticed that in the given period of time the propor- tion of urban wealth increased from 44 per cent to 75 per cent of the whole, while the proportion of rural wealth decreased from 56 per cent to 25 per cent of the total. Rural wealth increased 400 per cent, urban wealth increased 1600 per cent. In 1890, when the rural population owned but 25 per cent of the wealth, it constituted about 64 per cent of that of the nation. But this includes the incorporated villages, and perhaps almost 60 per cent would be the proportion of population living in the open country, the part of the nation for which the rural wealth is estimated. On this basis the per capita wealth of the rural population was about $423 as compared with $1,944 for inhabit- ants of cities and incorporated villages. How the case stands today, there is no estimate for, but probably the tendencies working to the advantage of urbanites has continued so that the discrepancy is still greater. The comforts and amenities of life seem to many to be located in towns. The homes have running water, inside toilets, bath- ing provisions, electricity for lighting and powers, furnaces and equitable heating plants. The streets are paved and there are sidewalks so that in driving and walking there is no necessity to get into the mud. There are parks for outing, movies and playhouses to attend, lodges, churches, clubs and organizations of all descriptions to belong to, frequent dancing, good schools, * C. F. Emrich, in Carver 's Readings in Bural Economics, p. 705. RELATION OF TOWN AND COUNTRY 489 newspapers dropped at the door as soon as they are out, easily accessible stores and shops of all sorts, the stimulus of crowds in the street, parades, and pageants, and the opportunity to be clean and dressed up and frequently to stay so. In comparison with this understated array of attractions and distractions, the country appears to make a poor showing, and only the decidedly rural-minded folk are content to live there. No blame can attach to cities for such concentration of appealing opportunities, but the glowing contrast between town and country in this respect is none the less a fact. ANTAGONISM BETWEEN TOWN AND COUNTRY A considerable part of sociology is devoted to the sociology of conflict, and it is inevitable that the rural social sciences should discover antagonisms somewhere within the country field. No doubt we could find plenty of family troubles, neighborhood jealousies and bickerings, and clan feuds in certain areas, did we concern ourselves with them. In previous discussions of the economic and political concerns of farmers it was found that they had combined at various times to fight the middlemen and that the conflict still continues. Now we are called on to make a general survey of the relation of country to city for the pur- pose of bringing the reasons for existing antagonisms out into the open. Opposition between country and city appears in a vague and hazy form out of the fact that farmers are farmers and town people are not, — the difference evidently being founded on loca- tion, mode of living, and calling. Says a recent writer: "Urbanity, being urban can fairly be claimed to have a commercial origin, while unsocial rusticity represents a more independent career. To a large extent mental traits are estab- lished by one's surroundings and practical interests, so that there are as many types of minds as there are occupations. "Occupations make people different. Training, environment, money-getting experience, and wind and weather combine their force upon an individual as soon as he becomes a banker, farmer, physician, or janitor and differences result as you see them. Even in one's earliest years the effects of occupations are regis- tered through the conversations of people known to the family. 490 RURAL SOCIOLOGY and especially through the tools and habits peculiar to the em- ployment of the male head of the family. The viewpoints estab- lished in childhood through these influences can scarcely be overthrown later. Thus, from the very beginning of one's life, occupations add to the differences among people. "Urbanites have always arrogated to themselves a position of superiority relative to the agricultural classes. The city dwellers of Roman times called those on the land rustics and the literary men had much to say of the simplicity and crude- ness of the rustic. Europe evolved its tillers of the soil into a distinct peasant class and its ignorance and stolidity are pro- verbial; the ideational product largely of white-bearded gentry delving in the field of urban literature. That the urbanites and townsmen of the United States 'look down on' the country- man is made evident in many ways. His rough dress, his tousled hair and beard, sometimes bearing chaff and straws, his lack of polish in social approach and conversation, his ignorance of city ways and manners have been mirrored in printed paragraphs and jibes of press, playhouse, and street. The refined and superior manners of city dwellers is exhibited in the taunts the town boy hurls at the country boy who puts his feet within the sacred precincts of the former. Conscious that he is different in clothes and calling, and feeling at a great disadvantage, the country boy comes to partly accept his assigned position to a lower class and to resent the situation and to ' want to get even. ' Out of this situation that has persisted generation after genera- tion has arisen a kind of unconscious class consciousness relative to each on the part of country and city dwellers." When we approach the relation of antagonism between town and country from the side of economic interest, we discover a perennial and world-wide source of renewal. From the time when the Roman slaves revolted against their masters down to the present, those on the soil have resented what has often been and always appeared to them to be their systematic exploitation by those in the town. And those in towns have resented the imputations that they were exploiters, even when the accusation was true. Perhaps the data presented of the concentration of wealth in cities together with the startling fact that had it not been for the doubling of agricultural land values between 1900 and 1910, farming in the United States would have been con- RELATION OF TOWN AND COUNTRY 491 ducted at a loss may seem sufficient proofs that the farmers have been subject to exploitation. At any rate, rightly or wrongly, the agriculturists in North America, Europe, and Australia at the present time are quite generally agreed that the currents of business run against them unduly and that industrial, financial, and commercial organizations identified with cities are organ- ized and operated to take undue profits at their expense. Whenever a class becomes conscious of itself as a class and begins to organize as a class to rectify its real or imaginary wrongs, the opposition between itself and any class or classes it deems to be the offender is immensely intensified. The farmers of the United States have been growing ever more class- conscious since the time of the Granger movement of last century and, as previously exhibited, are organizing themselves for pro- tection in both economic and political directions. But class consciousness appears to be much weaker in America than in Europe. In Canada and the United States farmers are mobile, willing to leave farming for other occupations under great provo- cation, while the peasants of Europe are wedded to the land, and, even though resorting to the cities at times to work, con- tinue to regard themselves as tillers of the soil. Ifloreover, recent events have intensified this class consciousness in Europe. Mr. A. E. Taylor writes that "perhaps the most impressive result of the war is the destruction of feudalism. Practically every country in Europe that possessed feudal estates before the war has condemned them to division into small holdings for indi- vidual peasants. The agrarian question has been a burning problem in central Europe for a century. Most violently agitated in Russia because conditions were worst there, the prob- lem was felt wherever large estates permitted tenants and agri- cultural workers to be exploited. More important than political freedom, more urgent than reform in education, more desired than change in government, more longed for even than abolition of compulsory military service was ownership of the land. . . . Now it is precisely out of the sense of new possession that the present conflict between city and country in Europe has assumed an exaggerated form. The city is trying to govern the policy of the country, and one reason why the country resists is be- cause of the new-found sense of ownership of the peasant. The governments of most of the countries of Europe are more or less 492 RURAL SOCIOLOGY anti-agrarian and the situation has in some places developed into a veritable impasse. Because the agrarians of Europe have always possessed a class consciousness they have always formed a political block. For a hundred years agrarian parties have been more or less influential in European politics and not infre- quently they have held the balance of power. ' ' ^ That organizations of farmers have intensified the strife be- tween city and country is generally recognized by students of the subject. Too often the blame is attached exclusively to the farmers, as if they have no rights of self -protection. It is not always perceived that the business elements of cities have been organized as a profit-getting class for a long time and that the tendency is for all these elements to present a united front when ameliorative agricultural legislation is proposed or when farmers attempt cooperative enterprises. The press of the United States has been generally quite violent and bitter against the Granger movement, the Populist movement, and the Nonpartisan League movement; and since the opinion of the press is determined by its advertisers and the advertisers are the businesses of the cities, it is evident where the source of opposition is. It is probable that the business men of the small places have had no animosity against farmers as such, but they have be- lieved their profits threatened and have resented interference with their business. They have been strengthened in their organized opposition by the great interests in the larger centers. These larger marketing, transportation, and credit interests are prone to use their influence against movements which threaten ultimately to reach and regulate their operations. Consequently we have the exhibit of business from top to bottom being regi- mented for defense and offense while on the other side the farmers are forming in ranks, sometimes recruited by organized labor of cities, to improve their economic position. It is a menacing picture, but one that appears inevitable as classes come to self -consciousness and form themselves into organizations. The position of the business man in the villages and small towns is especially equivocal because of his close contact with farmers. In these smaller places the patronage is predominantly from the country. Without this trade and banking-business the 'A. E. Taylor, "Conflict between City and Country in Europe," Satur- day Evening Post, August 14, 1920, p. Iff. RELATION OF TOWN AND COUNTRY 493 small businesses would fail and disappear. The merchant, bankers, and others are therefore under far greater dependence upon and obligation to agriculturists about them than to the strong interests in the large cities. Nevertheless, they commonly align themselves with the latter when farmers organize. The bitterness of the opposition which sometimes arises out of this situation is illustrated by this incident in the author's experience: He was engaged to speak in a village of North Dakota, and a few days prior to filling the engagement he re- ceived a letter from a pastor of the place from which the follow- ing extract is quoted : "Dear Sir & Brother: You are billed to speak in the Presby- terian Church Friday night, on 'Community Betterment.' I write to give you some facts about us here, so that you may 'have our number.' Hence my reason for troubling you with this letter. "We are an armed camp in C . The European War is being settled, but we have not yet gone ' over the top, ' except — that there is no open warfare, except that of back-biting and knocking one the other, but we have all things in readiness, both sides, have been making preparations for some months back. We are waiting for the season to open, and then there will be din, trouble and loss in the keen competition that must ensue from having two banks, two 'Farm Machine and Implement Co. 's, ' two hardware houses, two groceries, two or three garages, two electricity producing plants, all in a small village of about two hundred inhabitants. All of this has come the past three months. Both sides are pretty well armed, provisioned, and their credits are first rate. The line separating the camps is 'the Nonpartisan League,' plus some personal frictions of years standing. Personally, I was anxious to have you come to help lift us a little out of the slough. ' ' BASIS OF COOPERATION BETWEEN TOWN AND COUNTRY Although antagonisms between classes seem to be inevitable in the onward march of humanity, they are none the less de- plorable because of the "bad blood" engendered between the opposing parties, the waste of effort and wealth incident to the struggle, the sacrifice of innocent bystanders, and the general resulting disorganization. The results of strife between town and country are so harassing and deplorable, involving in the conflict all elements, institutions, and interests, at least in the 494 RURAL SOCIOLOGY smaller centers and often the large ones, that it would seem that all would welcome measures for mitigating the struggle and, if possible, for ultimately eliminating it. But there is little hope of mitigation or elimination so long as common interests and justice in the distribution of the surplus are ignored. There is a large mutuality of interests between the small town and the adjacent country. The small place has more interests in common with the country than with large cities. The business of such places is more dependent on the farmers than they on it; for easy transportation, the multiplication of trading centers, and the development of the mail-order business have made it possible for the latter to largely ignore the nearby village. But the stores, banks, and shops cannot find a substi- tute for the farmer's patronage. On the other hand, a good local village is of unquestioned benefit to nearby farmers. It is a time-saver in making journeys to do business. Better satisfaction is usually derived from buy- ing goods over the counter, where their character and quality may be seen, than from the imseen purchase from mail-order houses. Local tradesmen will extend the credit that is often required by farmers. There is the advantage of the local bank for credit and deposit; of the doctor whose joke and visit are often more restorative than his medicine and whose close knowl- edge of the history of family ailments is a great asset ; of black- smith shop, barber shop, and of church and school. Good towns demonstrate their worth in land values, the nearer the town the higher being the value of farm land, doubtless the register of the price of convenience. There are many directions for farmers and townsmen to take in their teamwork together. Good roads are mutually desirable. They extend the arms of trade into the country and make mar- keting centers more accessible to farmers. Both sides have a common interest in promoting local industries. They make nearby markets for certain kinds of farm produce and serve as the basis of diversified farming. They increase the population of the town and so create a larger trade basis for local firms. It has been demonstrated that larger schools and churches are advantageous; so here are other joint tasks for townsmen and farmers. And we have previously discussed the desirability of RELATION OP TOWN AND COUNTRY 495 establishing county libraries with their branches in the various local communities and of joint clubs of town and country women. Since it is chiefly over matters of trade that country and town are arrayed against each other, the question arises as to how they can compose their differences. The local merchant insists that farmers and other consumers should patronize home indus- tries and grow quite bitter over buying from mail-order houses. The farmer, in turn, insists that local prices of the things he buys are too high and for things he sells, too low. Are there any compromises or alternatives? If both sides will be sensible and fair, there is a basis of compromise; but townsmen and farmers must put themselves in the attitude of making concessions. The farmers, for example, should not be expected to sacrifice all that they might gain from buying from mail-order houses; nor should they expect small merchants to meet the prices of such huge and efficient estab- lishments. But while the farmer should be willing to pay a percentage for the convenience of trading at home and of having a nearby village, the merchant, in turn, should seek to meet him half way by making substantial price concessions. Thus, good sense and a desire for fairness on both sides will do much to make a com- pletely cooperative town-country community. An alternative suggestion is sometimes made as a possible solution to this problem. It is to the effect that the development of cooperative stores by farmers might ultimately eliminate the small, local middleman, and thus the cause of strife would be removed. It is further suggested that the present middlemen might then become managers and salesmen in these cooperative establishments. Now, it is true that such cooperative stores have had a large growth in Ireland and some European countries and that they are being established in this country. It is also true that they might accomplish much in the direction of reducing prices to consumers at large and in securing better prices to farmers on some of their produce. But so far, American cooperative farmers' stores have not been a distinct success. They have failed more frequently than they have succeeded, and this gen- erally because of inadequate management; and we cannot hope 496 RURAL SOCIOLOGY for much from them until individuals and associations establish- ing them learn that running mercantile enterprises is an under- taking requiring special ability and large experience. The struggle over the marketing of farm produce involves not only small centers but large ones as well. The only light the present writer has as to the way out of the difficulty has already been shown in the chapter on farm marketing (or organized farmers and economic action) and the reader is referred to that treatment. TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION 1. Would it be possible to have all town or all country and at the same time preserve what we call modern society or civilization f 2. Are towns and cities the functions of rural society or of society as a whole? 3. What will be the outcome of the tendency toward concentration of national wealth in cities? 4. Is the concentration of wealth in cities one of mere residence of wealth owners, the wealth being distributed widely in both city and country, or of actual localization of wealth? 5. If you were a farmer, what would you be apt to think after an in- spection of the table on comparative urban and rural wealth? 6. Is the antagonism between town and country in America one of locali- ties or sections now? 7. Have there been waves of such antagonisms in the history of our nation? Has such antagonism increased in volume or intensity during our national development? 8. Assuming that rising class-consciousness among farmers is a large factor in producing this antagonism, is such antagonism likely to diminish under existing economic conditions? 9. Do you know of any town-country community where farmers exercise any considerable influence as leaders in the total community? (b) Is it in proportion to agrarian population and wealth? 10. What cooperative activities that you know are being carried on be- tween town and country? 11. If town and country cooperate on education, what should be the educa- tion given to satisfy both agrarian and town population? REFERENCES "Agrarian Conflict in Europe," The Nation, August 7, 1920. BooKWALTEB, J. W. — Eural Versus Urban; Knickerbocker Press, New York, 1910. Buckley, M. T. — "Linking of Village and Farm," American City (Town and County Edition), 12: 19-22. ' ' Canada 's Farmers ' Movement, ' ' Winnipeg Free Press. Quoted in Grand Forks (N. B.) Herald, editorial, December 15, 1920. Emeioh, C. F. — "An Analysis of Agricultural Discontent in the United States," Political Science Quarterly, Vols. XI and XII, December, 1896, and March, 1897. RELATION OP TOWN AND COUNTRY 497 Gillette, J. M. — Discussion, "Community Idea in Rural Development," Publicatiojis of the American Sociological Society, 15: 53-56, 1920. NAOEii, p. 8. — Testimony, Industrial Relations Commission, 10: 9074£f. Develops social psychology of business element in small town in South- west. P^UNKETT, SiK Horace — The Sural Problem in the United States, Chap. Ill; Macmillan, 1910. Tayloe, a. E. — "The Conflict between City and Country in Europe," Saturday Evening Post, 193, No. 7, August 14, 1920. Weeks, A. D. — Social Antagonisms; McClurg, 1918. White, W. A. — "A Country Town," The Survey, December 25, 1920: 461. See also references to last chapter, and to Chapters XIV and XV. PART VII SOME SPECIAL FEATURES IN RURAL PROGRESS CHAPTER XXIII RURAL PROGRESS The phrase, rural progress, is often used by speakers and writers on rural affairs. Assuming that we know what is meant by the term, progress, for the time being, it may be remarked that such an oft-repeated phrase as "rural progress" deserves some consideration. But it is not to be overlooked that already we have often dealt with considerations pertinent to discussions of rural progress in preceding chapters. Whenever we have dealt with the possibility and methods of improving any sets of conditions, we have dealt with what is commonly regarded as matters of progress. Consequently, this Part VII of this book does not include a discussion of the whole of rural progress but concerns itself with viewing rural progress in general and cer- tain features which are intimately related to the business of advancing rural life. THE NATURE OF PROGRESS There is a widespread belief that progress is universally de- sired and most persons think and assert that they believe in progress. It would be difficult to discover a man of any intelligence who would not profess to believe in it. Even those who are to be classed as conservative and ultra-conservative in the field of political action and social effort would maintain that they believe in and desire human progress. Nevertheless, it appears that progress has become a popular shibboleth much as did the expression, "the war for democracy," in recent times, and that were the idea of progress in its naked reality and as to what it involves and demands really grasped by all these "disciples" of progress, the most of them would recoil from it and protest that they would have nothing to do with it. For 501 502 RURAL SOCIOLOGY social progress, whatever else it may be, consists of profound changes and readjustments in all phases and relationships of society — in the family, the state, in religion and the church, in the ownership and distribution of wealth, within classes and in the relations between classes, and much more. But it is evident that the religious bigot would not favor a disturbance of his creed, or the aristocrat a leveling of human strata and classes, or the conservative owner of wealth a more equitable adjustment in the ownership of wealth. There are doubtless some beneficial changes that could well be made in funeral cus- toms, but most people would be frightened and appalled at the suggestion. In reality, the idea of progress is relatively youthful and has been so frequently identified with certain social innovations, such as discoveries and inventions in the material realm, that it has been accepted as a popular dogma. At best, the idea of progress is difficult to define and to distinguish from social evolution — so much so that some high sociological authorities refrain from dealing with it, preferring to use such a term as social control. This youthful and confusing characteristic of progress is illustrated by this quotation, the words of which are put in the mouth of Carthew by Samuel Blythe in his political story, The Mannikin Makers: "There is a wide chance for debate over the proposition that what we term progress is any more than the idea of progress, the belief in it, rather than in the thing itself." The Greeks had glimmerings of it; the Romans viewed society as static ; the people of the Middle Ages knew nothing of it. But the idea took root during the last two centuries. ' ' Then the race began to think they were progressing, whether they were or not, and from that thought developed what is the present-day belief in progress, which is what we term uplift; and now we have it all over the place, virulently in some quar- ters, moderately in others, and with reservations in others. ' ' ^ Paguet, a French writer, thinks that progress is impossible, because society as a whole, ages ago, would have had to define a goal for itself and to have continued to move steadfastly and directly toward that goal generation after generation, were there such a thing as progress historically. That, he claims, society has not done. Nor, he maintains, is it capable of doing • Saturday Evening Post, August 6, 1921 : 31. RURAIi PROGRESS 503 so because there is such a widespread disagreement as to the value and fitness of ends or the goal. Even the results of science, which is supposed to be inherently progressive, may not be moral. We must admit that at no time in the past has society delib- eratively and reflectively assembled itself together, defined its ultimate goal, and posted it up where it might serve as a guide to the various social movements. Yet dimly, at first, and more and more consciously, as science and information developed and became popularized, society has held somewhat constantly toward a goal — the attainment of democracy — at present a much abused but, nevertheless, useful conception. It would seem that during the course of history the masses have somehow entered, age by age, into a larger participation in the essentials of life and have gradually realized a closer control over the social means and agencies by which those satisfactions get dis- tributed among men. Thus the masses have attained freedom of person and of speech, the right to own property instead of being chattels, a wider use of material goods and of knowledge — conditions of further advance — freedom of belief; and politi- cal liberties. So it appears that history or social evolution is working out this conception of democracy which I have formu- lated thus: Complete democracy is the right of the masses of people to a participation in all the essential satisfactions of life and the right to control the means and agencies by which such satisfactions are distributed in society.^ Notwithstanding the doubts and confusion concerning the conception and term "progress," tlie term embodies useful ideas, and it is worth while to bring the conception into connection with rural life and society. Again, we have learned something about the nature of society and how, in a measure, its movements may be controlled. It is true that this is a sword which may be turned against the masses, at times, to their undoing, by certain unscrupulous leaders which may infest any of the spheres of social activity; and this by reason of the fact that the latter are able to comprehend the nature of society and collective psychology better than the masses, work upon their ignorance and prejudices by raising * Vocational Education, p. 83 ; and Publications of the American Socio- logical Society, Vol. XIV : 39. 504 RURAL SOCIOLOGY false issues or by polluting the channels of publicity with false- hoods, and so temporarily divert the "march of progress." However, it is possible for the common man to organize, estab- lish his own means of publicity, and under the direction of his own leaders, defeat the purpose of the unscrupulous ones alluded to. By the better understanding of the nature of society, we have likewise arrived at a better understanding of how to organize the agencies by which social ends are realized. This is an art which the masses do not yet comprehend clearly but one that is very well known by leaders in certain fields of life. As we shall see, there is likely to be much confusion here with refer- ence to many rural problems. Not only has society somewhat unconsciously set up a goal toward which it directs its steps, but its members have set up numerous ends to be attained; the major of these ends being consistent with or promotive of the realization of the general goal, democracy. Thus, freedom, liberty, equality, justice, righteousness, etc., are some of the more important of these ends, all of which are seen to be contributive to the major goal. The multiplication of these important ends, in itself, constitutes an important advance. Progress demands change but is not synonymous with mere change. There are many persons who think that to make a change or an innovation is to be progressive. But a change in fashion is likely to have nothing of value to it or not to be con- tributive to bettering life conditions — in fact, is often quite the reverse. A change in custom may likewise signify no more than a change, the one form or mode of procedure being quite as well adapted to serve its purpose as the other. But any change which contributes to the increase of the satisfactions of life is a factor in progress and is progressive. Thus, substituting the cradle for the reaping hook, the mower for the cradle, the reaper for the dropper, and so on constituted steps in progress, not just because one mechanism was more complicated than its predecessor, but because it was a better means and produced greater results with less effort. The political innovations such as the initiative, recall, proportional representation, and the like will prove progressive if they secure to the masses of people better means of controlling their public affairs. Considering RURAL PROGRESS 505 that all the ideas in society — ideas embedded in literature, art, religion, inventions, social organizations of all sorts — constitute the social structure, we may say that progress means such an orderly transformation in the social structure that the whole cooperative structure is improved and becomes more serviceable to securing the welfare, the increased satisfaction, of the masses of people. However, a change may only benefit the privileged few at first, but through a process of imitation and assimilation its influence may be widened to include practically all men. This taking over by the masses of the things that at first only were for the few is an important element in progress. If prog- ress is achievemeivl, as some sociologists have held and hold, this process is a form of collective achievement, a process of socializa- tion. While the exceptional men bring new things, new ideas, into existence and so make individual achievements, they would be of little worth to society until appropriated by the masses. Their ultimate social value is measured by the universality of their circulation. That socialization is a great social achieve- ment is seen in the fact that there are multitudes of most useful ideas known by scientists of all sorts that are not generally known. It would be a great forward step and the masses would be tremendously benefited could these ideas pass into circulation in short order. Thus, we may say that progress consists of those orderly and generally gradual changes in the social processes and structures which work out for the benefit of the masses of people by increas- ing their satisfactions in life. HOW RURAL PROGRESS IS TO BE ATTAINED Assuming that progress is not illusory and that rural society is able to participate in it along with the rest of society, let us inspect the process by which it is attained. 1. Rural society must define and clarify the ends it desires, so as to make them consistent with the great goal, democracy, with one another, and with the aims of society in general. Some illustrations will serve to bring out the import of this statement. Attempts to improve farm marketing should not extend to the point of becoming merely a class matter as opposed to other class interests or to the welfare of society in general. The 506 RURAL SOCIOLOGY marketing of agricultural produce should be rectified to the extent where the whole marketing process realizes for producer, middleman, and consumer their just share of economic values involved according to their rights as members of society. The improvement of rural education should not be antithetical to education elsewhere, but its motives should be to make rural schools better instruments for attaining efficiency and content- ment in farming and for producing men and women who are better equipped for citizenship in a democracy and in the world. The establishment of a consistent national land policy and land-settlement policy should have for its aim the more efficient and most effective utilization of the agricultural domain and natural resources in behalf not only of those serving in the various capacities as producers, but in consideration of the rights and welfare of all the citizens of the nation. In particu- lar, a land-settlement policy would seek to give bona fide farmers a chance to own and work a farm and those desiring to be farmers opportunity for access to the land. 2. Rural society must learn how to adapt the appropriate means and agencies for securing its ends. This may look like an easy task, but efforts at betterment everywhere and in every realm of social activity prove that it is not. In fact, it is one of the most difficult tasks in any realm of life. The young man or woman who desire and propose to secure a college education and who have not the financial means are apt to have the greatest difiiculty in securing them. Or even if they have the necessary finances, they discover that it is no easy task to choose the very fittest studies and courses of study to realize their objective ; for there are many kinds of education and many kinds of educated men, and the fact that there are so many upper classmen in col- leges who do not know what they are able and ought to follow as a life vocation is a demonstration that the situation is a confusing one. So rural society, given clearly defined objectives, is likely to stumble and follow a crooked road in its attaining them. Thus, it is admitted that an education which recognizes agriculture as one of its training elements is most necessary to the realization of an adequate rural life. But just how is this agricultural training to be bestowed? Shall it be in the grades or in sec- ondary schools? Shall it be in the rural schools already in RURAL PROGRESS 507 existence or in special agricultural schools? Shall it consist of class instruction, or academic training, merely? Or shall it be given by projects worked out on the farm or on experimental tracts, or both? Or, in the case of improving rural credit, farm marketing, and the like, shall farmers organize politically to obtain those worthy objects or shall they seek to attain them by economic organization only, such as by the formation of cooperative asso- ciations of the various and appropriate kinds? If the resort is to political action, shall it be by the use of the old party organiza- tions in voting as individuals or by the formation of an agrarian party? Shall the farmers unite with some other class, such as labor, in order to attain political strength, or shall they stand alone? If they decide to realize their reforms by cooperative associations, shall they establish their own financial agencies, such as farmers banks, or depend on those already existing? Shall they resort to obligatory or optional pooling of products for marketing purposes? Again, in the realization of a community and a larger com- munity life, some puzzles likewise arise. For what is the very best method of bringing into existence a full and relative perfect community life? Shall each locality invent its own agencies or borrow them from cities or other rural neighborhoods? Shall it begin with just one kind of activity, such as recreation or religion, or shall it seek to include all activities and interests? Shall it form one center or several centers, and if several, shall it group them in one central place or leave them apart in several places? How can it secure the largest and most effective use of outside agencies, such as the experts from agricultural colleges, universities, normal schools, and experiment stations, and of professional lecturers and entertainers? These illustrations are perhaps sufficient to carry conviction that in having made a decision as to what the goal is to be or what the numerous objectives are that are desirable, the process of realization is only just begun. In connection with every objective a medley of means and methods present themselves, how discover which is absolutely the best for the accomplish- ment of the purpose constitutes the puzzle. With respect to many of the cases which arise to confront rural people, it is 508 RURAL SOCIOLOGY not too much to say that, at the present time, no one but a sheer dogmatist would dare affirm which of many of the methods is best. This, of course, means that rural communities and rural society in general will be obliged to experiment extensively and for long before a positive assurance concerning the comparative effectiveness of methods is reached. This entails disappoint- ment, discouragement, and waste ; but it is the only way. 3. New wants must be created among the masses of rural people. It should be evident that no society, community, or people ever attains or moves toward achievement who are not spurred on by new wants. One way to conceive a perfectly static society is to picture it as composed of people who are satisfied with what has thus far been realized. Such a people want, to be sure, but it is to want the habitual and the custom- ary. It may put forth as much energy as does a dynamically progressive society, but the energy moves along old channels. A completely static society goes round in a circle, as it were, and never arrives anywhere. A progressive society, on the con- trary, moves forward, breaks habits and customs, brings into existence new things and methods, makes achievements — because some of its members, at least, work out new ideas to be realized, make inventions and discoveries, create — and the com- mon people have the good sense and intelligence to follow them. The function of the inventor of new ideas — whether embodied in machines, discoveries, or books — in relation to rural progress will be discussed somewhat extensively in the chapter concerned with rural leadership. What needs to be said and emphasized here is that there would be no progress were there leaders alone. An essential condition to social progress is the existence of a body of people who are intelligent enough to catch the signifi- cance for their lives of new ideas and so rise to the position of wanting them sufficiently to go after them strenuously. Neces- sarily, relative to any given community, it is likely that what is a new idea or device there may be really old, in the sense of hav- ing been in use elsewhere. The important thing is that the masses shall have the intelligence to appreciate and desire what the leaders present as desirable. The problem arises as to how these new wants are to be created or generated among the rural masses so that they shall strive for them, and in attaining them. RURAL PROGRESS 509 realize rural progress. The answer is to be found in the process of socialization of the rural mind. There is no necessity for going extensively into the psychology and philosophy of socialization in order to indicate in a prac- tical manner how the more expansive and higher wants are to be introduced among farming people, or, better, how farm people are to engender in their own midst an emphatic want for what is essential and best in life. "Where a great group or a great section of a population is concerned, the process is bound to be a slow and gradual one. No mushroom expansion over night is possible or desirable. Socialization is conditioned and determined by culture levels. A people with a relatively low level of culture may assimilate the culture contents of a somewhat more highly developed people by absorbing the ideas and devices of the latter; and, in doing so, they would be socialized in terms of the higher culture. The same is true regarding classes, a lower culture class being social- ized in terms of another class when it absorbs the culture of the latter. The ordinary psychological processes of suggestion and imitation are sufficient to account for the transition in the levels of culture — and suggestion and imitation work unostentatiously. The socialization of the young in the home, in the neighborhood, on the playground, and, to a considerable extent, in the school goes on by means of suggestion and imitation. And if we desire to recognize, especially, the emotional element as found in the transmission of sentiments and ideals, we might say that sympa- thetic radiation is also a contributive factor in the process. How best to secure the operation of these psychological processes in the work of socialization is a question. How to get them into activity in order to induce desires for the greater satisfactions is the problem. So long as the "lower" culture level or class remains apart from other "higher" levels or classes, there is little scope for obtaining results. Also, so long as the individuals and families of the culture class whose level of culture it is desirable to have raised and expanded are pretty much out of contact with one another, there is not much chance for suggestion, imitation, and sympathetic radiation to act as transfusers of idea germs. It is reasonable to think that the improved means of communi- 510 RURAL SOCIOLOGY cation now available for the nse of rural inhabitants will serve to multiply contacts between ruralites and urbanites. If these contacts are intimate enough, the process of absorption of many of the essentials of the more expansive culture will ensue. But close personal association between the two sets of people will prove necessary, in so far as contact is depended on for results, for suggestion, imitation, and sympathetic radiation are largely conditioned as to efficiency by the existence of confidence and sympathetic appreciation. It is to be expected, too, that the transfusion of culture will take place by means of the literature which reaches farm homes, especially by means of farm papers having departments dealing with modern conveniences and other desirable additions to farm life. Nor should we fail to mention the work of home and farm demonstrators who go among farmers, gain their friendship and confidence, and so come to have much influence. Organizations and associations in rural communities, provid- ing they furnish attractive objectives, will go far toward bring- ing the farming inhabitants together. Man's fundamental ten- dency and desire for personal contact and association will serve as a foundation; but association in itself may turn out to be inane and empty. Consequently, it is found necessary to furnish attractions. And probably of all attractions that are serviceable in this direction, none are more useful than the ancient play- tendency. From the most primitive times to the present, play, games, sports, recreation, and amusements of all sorts have proved the great initial agencies for securing the commingling of human beings. When the inhabitants of a neighborhood have formed the habit of associating upon occasion, it may be expected that sug- gestion and imitation will take care of the transfusion of ideas. For discussion soon takes place and the desirable features of modern methods of living and associating are brought out into the light. Then, speakers from the outside come in from time to time to expound and demonstrate their advantages. Also, those in the vicinity who have tried some of them out tell of their benefits. And, of course, along with all this, visitation and emulation play their roles in the process of transfusion. And thus, it appears, the better ideas and modes of living work their way through the body of the population by a slow but RURAL PROGRESS 511 effective process much as plant-building goes on within the plant by means of osmosis. LIMITATIONS TO RURAL PROGRESS Notwithstanding all the talk about the backwardness of rural people and rural life, yet there would seem to be abundant reasons for thinking that rural society has made great strides forward in many lines and that the rural masses in the United States, Canada, English Australasia, Great Britain, and Euro- pean nations generally enjoy much more expansive and higher- grade life than did the farmers of Europe during the Middle Ages or in any previous age. In many of the communities of the United States and Canada it would be impossible to distinguish a goodly percentage of the farmers from the better classes of urbanites. When they appear in public, there is nothing in their dress, speech, mannerisms, or quality of conversation that is of a peculiar or class character. And it is to be remembered that most of these men and women perform much of the labor of the farm and home. Such a statement could not be made con- cerning previous ages, and probably it is not true of the majority of European peoples today. But the fact that it is true here in the larger America constitutes an index of rural transformation. When viewed in this light, it may well be questioned whether farmers have not made as great advance in the life status as have those who dwell in cities. In fact, to have made such advances that the erstwhile conspicuous earmarks of class and class inferiority have disappeared and the status of social inferi- ority has been overcome is a mark of very great progress, a greater than which it would be difficult to find. While it is true that the country is wanting in many of the features on which city people prTde themselves and which pos- sibly may be desirable for everyone, the presence or absence of many of these features does not touch fundamentally the essen- tial quality of life. Farmers here have attained the position in society where their equality of rights with other kinds or classes of people stands unquestioned. Nevertheless, it must be recog- nized that in material comforts and conveniences and in socia- bility possibilities, generally, the cities are in advance of the country. This, however, does not necessarily mean that city 512 RURAL SOCIOLOGY conditions are farther removed from those of country people now than they were in times past. Considering the possibilities for such things in society now and in former ages, it is doubtful if the most luxurious urban residence is further separated from the best equipped farm home today than was the case formerly. Looking into the future, the query arises as to the comparative progress farming and farmers will have made. Will they be able to sustain the same relative advance they have mad* hitherto? So far as one can see, there is no inherent reason why farming populations must cease to make gains in all essential directions. Most farmers have already emancipated themselves from arduous drudgery by the employment of machines, and there is no reason to think that this will not go on. Indeed, inventions to improve the old farm machinery and to create new are being made each year and the volume increases rather than diminishes. When we consider that machines have already been made and put to farm use that will milk cows and tie knots in binding up grain, it would appear that inventors will succeed in creating devices for every nook and cranny of the agricultural process. In respect to indoor conveniences, the strides now being made in introducing them in many farming sections bodes well for the future. There is nothing in the nature of the case to impede this advance. Anyone who is able to own a farmstead that is unencumbered with debt is able to equip the home with all essential labor-saving devices and sanitary conveniences. The owners of farms are still far in the majority among farmers, constituting 62 per cent of all farmers in 1910. At that time 65 per cent of farms operated by owners were free from encum- brances and the ratio of average farm debt to farm value had decreased from 35.5 per cent in 1890 to 27.3 per cent in 1910. There apparently are no statistics relating to encumbrances on rented farms. But it seems fair to say that anyone who is able to own a farm to rent is also able to furnish modern conveniences in the farm home. The average landlord would stand aghast at the suggestion, but public sentiment could be developed to the point of making such landlords comply, just as it is being developed to induce farmers to build new modern homes or to remodel the old ones and equip them with modern conveniences. Relative to sociability and recreational facilities, something RURAL PROGRESS 513 can be aflSrmed regarding the future possibilities. First, farm- ing people distributed on individual farms can never hope to have all the close and frequent contacts city people have. Sec- ond, it is not necessary that they should have them, for many of those things in the city are perfectly empty and even demor- alizing. Again, farming people as a general thing do not actually crave for all the social activities to be found in cities and would be satisfied did they come into possession of only the substantial and fruitful portion. Third, it is only a question of a comparatively few years until the majority of farmers throughout the United States will be in possession of the facilities of easy and rapid travel. It is a foregone conclusion that trunk-line highways and their impor- tant tributaries are to be hard-surfaced. The main neighborhood roads will also be surfaced with gravel or its equivalent. The minor neighborhood roads will be graded so as to be practically always usable. Our automobile statistics demonstrated that practically every farmer is to own a motor vehicle. These things being so, it is apparent that farming people will be able to avail themselves of quite distant social opportunities or to attend any that occur in their own locality. In other words^ practically all the social contacts and opportunities that are necessary and wholesome for busy people will be rendered available. TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION 1. Indicate some changes that are not progressive; some that are. 2. Why is it that {icople like to be thought progressive? Was it alvfays 80? 3. Can an institution or organization that believes in an immutable idea, principle, or plan be progressive? 4. Are there any rural movements which have objectives not in harmony with the principle of democracy as defined in the text? 5. What would be necessary in order for the country to obtain a stable labor supply that is treated in a democratic and fair manner? 0. Is socialization to be regarded as a means or as an end relative to the attainment of rural progress? 7. Can the country ever become as progressive as the larger cities? 8. List any progressive open country communities you know and tell what made them progressive. Demonstrate upon principle that they are really progressive. 9. Of the three institutions discussed in Part V, which is to be regarded as the more important for attaining rural progress? 514 RURAL SOCIOLOGY REFERENCES DEMOCRACY CooLET, C. H. — Social Organization, Part III; Scribners, 1909. Cboley, Herbeet — Progressive Democracy ; Maemillan, 1915. "Problem of Democracy." (A symposium of 16 papers, with their discus- sion, on various phases of democracy.) Puhlications of the American Sociological Society, Vol. XIV; University of Chicago Press, 1919. Sellaks, R. W. — The Next Step in Democracy ; Macmillan, 1916. Weyl, W. E. — The New Democracy ; Macmillan, 1912. PROGRESS BoGARDUS, E. — Introduction to Sociology, University of Southern California Press, 1917. "Social Control." (A symposium of 14 papers, with their discussion, on various phases of social control.) Puhlications of the American Socio- logical Society, Vol. XII; University of Chicago Press, 1917. Standard works on general sociology. Todd, A. J. — Theories of Social Progress; Macmillan, 1918. RURAL PROGRESS BuTTERriEiiD, K. L. — Chapters in Rural Progress; University of Chicago Press, 1908. , The Farmer and the New Day ; Macmillan, 1919. "Country Life." (A collection of 28 papers devoted to the discussion of the rural problem ; rural industrial problems ; and rural social prob- lems.) Annals, Philadelphia, 1912. Gillette, J. M. — Constructive Rural Sociology; Macmillan, 1915. MacGaer, L. — The Rural Community, Chap. IX, Macmillan, 1922. Phelan, John — Readings in Rural Sociology; Macmillan, 1920. Sims, N. L. — The Rural Community, Part III; Scribners, 1920. ' ' Sociology of Sural Life. ' ' (A symposimn of 14 papers, with their dis- cussion, on various phases of rural life and rural improvement.) Publi- cations of the American Sociological Society, Vol. XI; University of Chicago Press, 1916. VoGT, Paul L. — Introduction to Rural Sociology; Appleton, 1917. See also special works on the rural church, education, marketing, manage- ment, labor, etc. CHAPTER XXIV DEVELOPING A RESIDENT RURAL LEADERSHIP^ The question of leadership in rural life has assumed much importance during the course of the discussion that has taken place and the investigations which have been made relative to country life problems during the past few years. Quite in agree- ment with the findings in other fields of human effort the im- portance of the personal factor has emerged as the problems of rural communities have become better understood. The tra- ditional tendency, to elevate the personal factor above all other elements in the situation, first asserts itself when new social problems arise and men turn their attention toward discovering solutions; it is asserted that it is inconsequential to change the form of organization, since if individuals are right all will be well. The radical reaction from this view consists in the stress- ing of organization ; the attitude being assumed that if the perfect form of organization can be found and adopted the social Utopia will have been realized. But eventually the intelligent conclusion is reached that since society is an assembly of organi- zations which human beings use to realize their interests, neither the human nor the structural factors can be disregarded but that a greater perfection of institutions is a necessary attainment for the realization of more perfect men. To generalize, it may be asserted that the attitude of the rural population concerning its own problems has run the course of these three stages. The first attitude was the passive one of taking dogmatic teaching for granted and allowing things to drift. When the rural problem arose in its full significance, almost the entire emphasis was placed on organization, so that reorganization became the shibboleth, and the economic factor received almost exclusive consideration. But with the passage of ' The larger part of this chapter appeared in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Volume XTiVII, under the title, "Training for Bural Leadership." 515 516 RURAL SOCIOLOGY time the farmers have become wiser and, imbued with a larger degree of humanistic sentiment, they are now discussing what sort of institutions will turn out the best men and women. And it is very significant that the perception has gradually arisen that a rural leadership is an indispensable means to the attain- ment of permanent improvement. THE MEANING OF LEADEBSHIP The significance of leadership cannot very well be observed until a somewhat definite meaning is attached to the term. The necessary implication of the word may be brought into per- spective by the use of particular cases. A dirty urchin and an aristocratic lady alike exercise the function of leadership in respect to a dog through the instrumentality of a chain, in which cases physical superiority and necessitous instincts play the chief role. Superficially, the gaily attired drum major marching at the head of a band is the epitome of the leader, for does not the band go where he leads and does it not respond to his spectacular gyrations? Yet the cynical doubtless would assert that he exer- cises less influence over the band than on the minds of the spec- tators and that his chief asset resides in his gay uniform and spectacular movements. Then there is the body of troops, which, under its commander, goes through the manual of arms, and periorms all sorts of field maneuvers, filing right and left, marching and countermarching. Surely the commander is the genuine leader. But so far, he is only a drill master and the responses which his troops make are purely formal and mechan- ical, not due to individual initiative and foresight, but to the will of a superior officer clothed with absolute authority. Thus by a process of exclusion and ascent we arrive at the point where it is seen that leadership must be invested with certain characteristics and qualifications which enable it to exercise particular functions relative to free but susceptible human beings. I shall express in a few words what I consider the prime requisites of a productive rural leadership, namely, the power of initiative, organizing ability, sympathy with human aims, trained intelligence, and vision or outlook. That these qualifications must be present in the individual who assumes the function of leadership, at least to a measurable degree, and that DEVELOPING A RESIDENT RURAL LEADERSHIP SIT their absence in a working form from all of the inhabitants of any given community precludes the possibility of the manifest- ing of any resident leadership in that particular community, are statements which probably will prove acceptable to all. THE FUNCTION OP THE LEADER In order that the place and function of the leader in the rural community may be intellectually visualized, it may be well to depict and exposit the sociological view of the role of the excep- tional man in relation to society and the community. The well- balanced sociological view puts the capable individual into relationship with the concept of social progress, not making him exclusively responsible for it, as does the "great man" theory of Carlyle, not investing him with exclusive power to bring about changes in society; but constituting him a very essential factor in the realization of movements and transformations which advance collective interests. "Within the scope of this limited conception, then, that part of progress which is due to direct human intervention is brought about by the few human beings who constitute the innovating class. By reason of their inborn capacity and developed ability they constitute an exceptional class. Out of this class arise the inventors, discoverers, creators of aU kinds of new ideas whether social or ' ' material. ' ' Without this class of innovators the structure of society would remain relatively fixed and the readjustments which are essential to secure a greater measure of satisfaction would not take place. In striking contrast with this small class, the great mass of human beings living in any particular society are regarded as static relative to society. Were the affairs of society to be left with them exclusively, they would forever remain as they are and have been, except for the perturbations set up by means of other agencies. Instead of having innovating, creating minds, these people are endowed with imitating minds. They are able to follow example, to fashion after the models already produced, but not to initiate, in the sense of projecting the new. As a consequence the preponderating majority of people are (followers only. In seeking to apply this conception, which, I think it will be agreed, essentially depicts the historic situation, it, at first 518 RURAL SOCIOLOGY thought, might be concluded that if a community possessed no rare individuals of the first class it could not hope to make progress, unless happily it could borrow innovators. This makes necessary a closer inspection of the second, the imitating class, to discover if the case is that extreme, and, fortunately, there are signs sufiScient to renew our shrinking optimism. Since democ- racy is so largely constituted of common people it is a satisfac- tion to learn that there is no such thing as a "dead level" in it which is inevitable. Recalling the statement which was previously made regarding the qualifications a leader must have — initiative, organizing ability, sympathy, trained intelligence, outlook — it is apparent that an imitative mind may possess all of these attributes, and as a consequence it may prove serviceable as a community leader. It does not follow that a talented person could not perform a greater work, or that an effort should not be made to retain and develop all the latent talent possible in rural districts. When it is recalled that most of the businesses are operated by the imitating class and that the great majority of governmental agents have merely imitative minds, it becomes apparent that the non-creative mind may have sufficient intelligence to appre- ciate what has been worked out by others elsewhere and to see the advisability of taking steps to appropriate the plan on the part of its own community. This is also vision, and organizing ability ; for appreciation of what has been done is vision, and the power to appropriate is organizing ability, or the ability to rein- state organizations. Beyond this there must be a reservoir of energy that speeds the work, and a sympathy with life which makes the undertaking seem desirable. All of this assumes, of course, that somewhere there must be leaders of the creative kind, otherwise there would be no plans to borrow. And because of this we are able to see the reason why the democracy of community life is not forced to remain on a dead level. Given the creative power somewhere resident in society, and given the sympathetic, intelligent, initiating, imi- tative mind resident in all communities, and the power of the community, whether urban or rural, to lift itself to a higher level is provided for. As in the arena of national society the creative minds are passing down their ideas and plans to the DEVELOPING A RESIDENT RURAL LEADERSHIP 519 masses of people, and the life of the whole people is therehy enabled to approximate the higher ideals of the talented class, so in rural communities the cooperative democracy may be heightened and improved by developing a resident leadership capable of appropriating the efficient plans of others. POTENTIAL LEADERSHIP IK THE OPEN COUNTRY It is a common saying that the country lacks leadership and no doubt it is true. But the same statement could be made successfully relative to the city, although it seems to have less force there. There are to be found in our cosmopolitan centers, and in lesser places also, wide areas, in some cases great aggre- gations of nationalities and submerged neighborhoods, where perhaps the most conspicuous deficiency is that of a competent and loyal leadership. When the objection is made that the interests of cities as cities are well looked after, that the ablest men in the nation are deeply interested in the direction of municipal business, it is sufficient to ask : Then why these waste places, these neglected warrens of headless populations in such centers? The existence of slums and of congested backward populations impeaches the pretended leadership in municipali- ties, and finds it guilty of lacking a fundamental recognition that the welfare of all alike is the interest of the city and of falling far short of just and humanitarian reconstruction. It is possible, even likely, that, as compared with cities, there is an equal or greater amount of potential leadership in the country. The best indications point to the existence of an equal abundance of potential ability in all classes of normal people, and the conditions of life in rural districts are in favor of the country, since both advantageous conditions of health and the absence of a large percentage of the backward classes are de- cidedly in its favor. Regarding the amount of talent possessed by society generally, and therefore by country districts, we have somewhat divergent estimates. In his studies of the amount of genius in England, Galton concluded that its ratio in the population is about 1 in 4,000. Lester F. Ward, on the other hand, as a result of his analysis of European studies, estimated that there must be 1 520 RUEAL SOCIOLOGY person in every 500 who is possessed of potential ability.^ By potential ability, Ward meant the undeveloped inborn talent resident in populations, the greater portion of which never manifests itself by means of creative work. In his estimation, therefore, visible historic genius is but a fraction of the potential supply, while with Galton it constitutes the entire supply. Applications of the Binet test to school children, with a view to discovering the proportion of exceptional children, gives support to Ward's position. According to the reports from such investigations, unusual children number from 1 to 3 in each 100 of the school children tested, which for the population would be nearly 1 to 500. Both Ward's estimate and the latter are based on the inclusion of both sexes, while Galton 's obtained for men exclusively. According to the more liberal estimates, therefore, in rural neighborhoods having a few hundred inhabitants each, we might expect to find a number of individuals, who, if developed, would possess innovating ability. A part of the problem, then, is one of training this talent so as to secure a due proportion of it for rural service. As to the imitative class, since it contains the larger number of people, and since we may conclude that at least the higher-grade members possess qualifications which would enable them to initiate, organize and direct community enterprises, we are war- ranted in concluding that the country contains an ample quota of such potential leadership. But as in the ease of the poten- tially talented, the problem is one of arousing, educating and keeping these persons for duty in rural communities. WHERE LEADERS ARE PRODUCED A question is often raised concerning where our leaders are produced, whether in city or country. Since the reply bears on the supply of leadership in the country, a review of some of the important data pertinent to the question is in order. And this can be done only in a compressed and suggestive manner. Those who desire to follow the matter further are referred to the sources indicated. 'See "The Conservation of Talent Through Utilization," The Scientiftc Monthly, Vol. I, 151-165, where the author gives a more extended presenta- tion of the data of these two writers. DEVELOPING A RESIDENT RURAL LEADERSHIP 521 From a study of the birthplace of noted men of French- speaking countries for the period, 1300-1825, Lester F. Ward concluded that the cities were about thirteen times more prolific in the production of men of repute than were rural districts. But Ward satisfied himself that the productive cause of the difference was to be found, not in the hereditary factor but in certain environmental factors of a cultural nature to be found in cities to a much greater degree than in the country. Taking Who's Who in America as the supply house of his reputable men studied as to birthplace, Dr. F. A. Wood has shown that 30 per cent of the persons listed in Who's Who were born in the city, whereas at the average time of their birth only 16 per cent of the nation's population was to be found there. He explains this relatively high percentage by supposing that city environments exercise a constant selective influence in drawing the talented to themselves, in building up by that means a proportionately larger body of able persons, and in transmit- ting, by heredity, leadership qualities. Dr. W. J. Spillman questions this position of Dr. Wood. He gives the following results of his investigations into the birth- place of prominent and reputable men in America. He found that, up to the time he wrote (about 1909), 92 per cent of the presidents of the United States and 91.2 per cent of the gov- ernors, 83.9 per cent of cabinet officers, 70.6 per cent of the 85 members of the United States Senate from whom replies could be gained, 55.4 per cent of 47 railway presidents replying, and 64 per cent of the members of the House of Representatives were born in the country. The average for the six classes is 69.4 per cent or 69.4 individuals out of each 100 leaders. This is in the nature of a challenge relative to the factual basis of Dr. Wood's conclusions. Dr. Spillman says: "It will be noted that the higher we go in the scale of leadership in those classes which are least influenced by extraneous considerations, the higher is the per cent of country -bred men." And even if we accept Dr. Wood's facts as to the proportion of leaders born in the city, he would hold that the environment, rather than physical heredity, is the explanation. The Reverend Dr. N. D. Hillis states that 95 per cent of the leading citizens of one of our most important eastern cities were brought up on the farm. And a few years ago a study was made 522 RURAL SOCIOLOGY as to the birthplace of 100 of the most reputable and successful business and professional men of Chicago, the result being that 85 per cent of them were found to have been farm or village bred. Probably the most scientific study of this question has been made by Professor Geo. R. Davies in his book, Social Environ- ment. He makes use of the same statistical method of correla- tion which biologists and eugenists employ in their studies of heredity in order to discover the force of the social environment in the production of men of repute. He ranks the states axjcord- ing to density of population and the production of men of repute found in Who's Who in America, Who's Who in Science and Catell's list of scientific men, and discovers that the coefficient of correlation between talent and density is high, sufficiently high to compel the conclusion that urban states have a higher proportion of such individuals than rural districts, various cen- suses being used in making the test. The correlations range from 0.59 to 0.76, according to the source for noted men em- ployed; and when negroes are excluded, the correlation is 0.74, showing that they do not affect the case. In order to determine whether or not it is the environmental factor that is determinative of the production of reputable individuals in urban states. Dr. Davies correlates urban popu- lations with number of leaders produced; also ranks such dis- tricts according to manufacture and correlates with their rank- ing according to the men born there ; the coefficients of correla- tion being 0.82 and 0.89, respectively. To his mind, therefore, it appears that the cultural conditions rather than physical inherit- ance account for the relatively higher fecundity in men of repute of urban districts. So far his study gives results in favor of the city as a pro- ductive place of reputable men. But he proceeds to say that "the natives of large cities do not achieve fame any more readily than do the natives of the neighboring smaller places and rural districts. Dr. Catell gives statistics that show that one-seventh of the population, comprising the inhabitants of the largest cities, produces 26 per cent of the great scientists, or 1.83 times its pro rata share. Now his data show that a similar percentage of the nation, comprising the total population of the most thickly DEVELOPING A RESIDENT RURAL LEADERSHIP 523 settled states, can be credited with from two and one-fourth to three times its proportionate share of great scientists. That is, the inclusion of the contiguous smaller places and rural districts with the large cities results in a better showing. It seems, then, that under American conditions the great scientist is most likely to be born on the farm or in the town that lies within reach of the great city; the next most probable birthplace is the great city itself ; while the least probable is the town or district remote from the large cities.' This position of Professor Davies is reinforced by that of Ward in the study referred to above. While it was true that the cities were more fecund in the production of talented men than were rural districts, they differed greatly among them- selves in the rate of fecundity. The following tabulation illus- trates this variation. VARIATION AMONG FRENCH CITIES IN FECUNDITY OF TALENT City Population Number Literary Men per 100,000 2,500,000 400,00 112,000 404,000 150,000 65,000 133,000 115,000 88,000 1 626 Lyons 151 117 Marseilles 79 Toulouse 86 88 Saint-Etienne 5 Nice " " 3 From this list, which might be increased without changing its import, it is observed that the size of the city counts for little in determining the birth of literary notables. But an examina- tion of the resources of French cities makes it evident that the opportunities presented by the cultural environment is what counts in their development, once they are born. From the above considerations two conclusions are warranted : first, we might expect cities to produce proportionally greater numbers of matured but not of potentially talented individuals than the country ; second, that it is environmental opportunities rather than selective inheritance that chiefly account for the ' Social Environment, pp. 106-107. 524 RURAL SOCIOLOGY difference, and accordingly, that improved cultural opportuni- ties in rural districts will serve to increase the supply of leaders. THE MIGRATION OP RURAL LEADERS TO THE CITY The country is unfortunate in suffering a large loss of poten- tial ability of both the creative and imitative kind. During the decade, 1900-1910, rural districts saw an exodus to the cities of about 3,500,000 persons, a number which amounted to about 30 per cent of the total urban growth of the decade.^ This would mean an annual loss to the country of about 350,000 souls, enough to make a city of approximately the size of Kansas City. On the one side we have the pull of the city, on the other the repulsion of the country. The city attracts and fascinates what a recent writer terms the "urban-minded" individuals^ and the country being distasteful to them or seeming to offer fewer advantages, acts as a repellent factor. One reply to a question- naire, sent to students of the University of North Dakota, seek- ing to ascertain what those from rural districts thought of the country, a reply from a city youth who had lived in the country for a number of years, stated: "If God will forgive me I will never go back to the country." This, however, is not represen- tative but symptomatic, but that there is a deep-seated pref- erence for city life is evidenced by the fact that such great numbers of retired farmers move to neighboring towns. Many of the ablest men and women are drawn away from farm life to the city through the instrumentality of the higher institutions of learning. An investigation I made a few years ago showed that few graduates of any such schools who origi- nally came from the country return there to live. Normal schools, state universities and state agricultural colleges almost uniformly returned evidence that their graduates of the indi- cated class were settling in cities almost exclusively.' Only the agricultural colleges associated with universities made much headway toward the return of such graduates to rural regions. 'See Chapter V. ""Psychic Causes of Rural Migration," Ernest E. Groves, American Journal of Sociology, XXI, 622-7. ' Quarterly Journal Vnvversity North Dakota, 1 : 67-79 ; and American Journal of Sociology, XVI : 645-67. DEVELOPING A BESIDENT RURAL LEADERSHIP 525 THE NEED FOK ELTtAL LEADERSHIP The open country possesses a genuine need of a qualified leadership for many kinds of undertakings. Representing as it does two-fifths of the national population and nearly one-fourth of the nation's wealth, the agricultural class is the most impor- tant single industrial and social class in the United States. Because no class is as completely and loyally represented by members of another class as by those of its own, farm populations should have more trained agriculturists in Congress, and they should have a more competent agricultural representation in state legislatures than they now have. As Fiske has said, there are seventy times more farmers than lawyers in the nation but the latter are far more influential in legislative matters.^ Agri- culture demands leaders, having economic insight and statesman- ship qualities, rightly to organize and regulate institutions to carry on marketing of produce and the extension of a fair system of rural credit in behalf of farmers. For the improvement of agriculture it requires men living on farms who understand the best methods of production and who are able both to apply their knowledge and to stimulate others to imitate. In the work of betterment of home conditions and in advancing institutions and agencies which shall help overcome rural isolation and realize a socialized country life there is an urgent call for men and women having specialized training and leadership qualities. In so far as the country needs "redemption," if it is to be "redeemed," deliverance must come from the prophets of the rural peoples themselves, because, in the last resort, only a people is able to work out its own salvation. TBAINING FOR RURAL LEADERSHIP Hence we come to the problem of how to obtain a permanent, resident leadership in and for rural communities. Up to the present time, for community purposes, the country has depended on a transient leadership from the outside in the shape of itinerant preachers and teachers, and for purposes of improving production, on the occasional able farmer and the visiting expert. ^Challenge of the Country, p. 121. 526 RURAL SOCIOLOGY Due reflection over the situation leads us to think that such sources will never prove sufficient or efficient, and that what the country wants most is men and women who by their training are at one with farm life and whose influence is ever present because they live in the country and have their interests there. Several kinds of agencies may contribute toward supplying a leadership of the right kind. Our institutions of higher learning must devote more attention to training men and women for country service. Those which train pastors, teachers and Y. M. C. A. workers should establish courses of instruction, the con- tent, spirit and emphasis of which will serve to specialize their students for constructive work in rural institutions. The nature of the rural community must be emphasized, its particular prob- lems studied, and the agencies capable of supplementing and improving agricultural life receive much consideration. When training schools renounce the absurb notion that general train- ing courses qualify equally well for rural and urban service, a great step in advance will have been taken. Educating indi- viduals specifically for rural service has the double advantage of qualifying them to carry on constructive undertakings and of retaining them in that service because their qualifications tend to make them ineligible for urban positions. Much is being accomplished by the county agent and the cooperative demonstrator which the agricultural colleges have educated for country service. The various states are, especially, placing many county agents in the field and they have proved themselves helpful in furthering not only production but com- munity undertakings of different kinds. Many states have county and city high schools which are giving instruction in agriculture and farm subjects, and the occasional state agricul- tural high school is a still more intensified approach to the desired goal. Summer chautauquas with their lectures and instruction on farm life and with their visiting groups of farm boys and girls; farmers' institutes; farmei's' clubs, and associa- tions of farmers' clubs; and kindred organizations are helpfully contributing to the establishment of a constructive point of view concerning farm life and its problems. However, the institution which is needed to reach the masses of country children and to do most to create an abiding interest in rural affairs is one which is located in the rural neighbor- DEVELOPING A RESIDENT RURAL LEADERSHIP 527 hood, which touches and ministers to the lives of the residents daily, and which, filled with an agrarian content and spirit, exercises an abiding, molding influence on the young in the direction of rural undertakings and improvement. The con- solidated rural school, with communityized building and equip- ment, a corps of efficient teachers, a teacherage, experimental plot, graded and ruralized curriculum, and having high school facilities as an organic part of the socialized course of instruc- tion, possesses the greatest power of appeal because it is articu- lated with actual farm life and because it is within reach of all. Such an institution should stimulate the talented class toward higher achievements, tending to command the permanent inter- est of some members of that class in farm life, and develop the abler members of the imitative group up to the level of their greatest efficiency. It doubtless also would accomplish for the less able individuals all that any training agency could hope to do for them. TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION 1. Study the political movements of farmers and determine whether <« not the failure of most of them to live was to any considerable extent due to inadequate leadership. 2. Does the history of the Grange and other agrarian economic and social movements reveal adequate leadership? 3. How long did it take the English labor movement to attain competent leaders? Is there any indication in that as to what farmers must do? 4. Assuming that there is an ample supply in the country of potential leadership material, what have been the chief obstacles to its de- velopment? 5. What potential inducements exist in the country to hold developing leaders? 6. Why are not rural teachers to be classed as rural leaders? Does that situation promise to change? 7. Can leaders be developed in high schools of the right sort, or is college training necessary? 8. Do our colleges turn their graduates back to the country from whence they emanated? 9. Would specialization of preachers, teachers, and others in terms of rural life do much toward increasing the supply of real rural leaders? 10. Why should we emphasize the demand for a permanent leadership and a resident leadership? -)28 RURAL SOCIOLOGY REFERENCES BuTTBEMBXD, K. L. — The Farmer and the New Day, Chap. XI ; Macmillan, 1917. , ' ' Training Rural Leaders, ' ' The Survey, 33 : 13-14, October 3, 1914. Campbell, W. J. — Vital Problems in Sural Leadership; Association Press. , ' ' The Enlistment of Trained Leadership, ' ' Proceedings of the First National Country Life Conference, 120-24. ' ' Training for Bural Leadership, Proceedings of the Third National Country Life Conference, 187-95. Cattell, J. M. — American Men of Science; Science Press, New York, 1910. CuBTis, H. S. — Play and Secreation for the Open Country, Chap. XIV; Ginn and Company, 1914. Davies, Geo. B. — "Social Environment and Eugenics," in his Social En- vironment, Chap. IV; MeClurg, 1917. FiSKE, G. W. — The Challenge of the Country, Chap. VIII; Association Press, 1912. Gillette, J. M. — Constructive Rural Sociology, pp. 338-344; Macmillan, 1915. , "Training for Rural Leadership," Annals, 47: 87-96. , "Conservation of Talent through Utilization," Scientific Monthly, November, 1915: 151-64. Phelan, John — "Leadership," in Readings in Rural Sociology, Chap. XIX; Macmillan, 1920. ScuDDER, M. T. — "Rural Recreation, a Socializing Factor," Annals (Coun- try Life Number), 1912: 175-90. Sims, N. L. — The Rural Community, Chap. XI, Sect. 5; Appleton, 1920. Ward, L. F. — "Opportunity," in Applied Sociology, Chap. IX; Ginn and Company, 1906. Who's Who in America; Marquis Co., Chicago. Who's Who in Science; Macmillan, 1912. Wilson, W. H. — "Leadership of the Community," in Church of the Open Country; Missionary Education Movement, New York, 1911: 177-202. Woods, P. A. — Mental and Moral Heredity in Royalty; Holt, New York, 1906. CHAPTER XXV MITIGATING RURAL ISOLATION^ COUNTRY VERSUS URBAN ISOLATION The statement is often made that the great urban problem is that of congestion of population while the chief drawback to rural life consists in the isolation of families and people. It is held that life in cities is too compact while that in the country is characterized by too great an aloofness. Although there is truth in such statements they must be accepted with due quali- fication, for a knowledge of urban conditions teaches that con- gestion is only partial in cities, that such centers present great variations in compactness, and further, that crowding of popu- lations is but one of the many problems of municipal aggrega- tions. In like manner an acquaintance with rural conditions indicates that while isolation of families is extreme in some portions of the United States, such as in the Rocky Mountain division and in certain of the newer prairie states, in many sections of the nation homes occur at frequent intervals, afford- ing many opportunities for social exchange. And as congestion is but one of the problems which city communities face, isolation constitutes only an instance of the various kinds of rural problems. It is also worth noting that isolation is not peculiar to country populations. Isolation is not solely a matter of spatial separa- tion, the greater the distance persons are removed from one another the more intense the consequent social aloofness. On the contrary, isolation is in part a state of mind, one of the chief factors of which is a feeling of loneliness, and such a state fre- quently occurs among per.sons living amid dense urban popula- tions. Perhaps the greatest hunger for human association and friendship is often to be found in the midst of the throngs of ' This chapter appeared as an article in the Quarterly Journal of the University of North Dakota, Vol. VII, January, 1917. 529 530 RURAL SOCIOLOGY great cities. Neighboring in cities is not always or mostly with those who live next door or in the same block. The urbanites' closest friends may be blocks or miles removed, necessitating the occurrence of social exchanges at infrequent intervals. Simi- larly the church and other institutions that are attended, the theater, the recreation place and the like, may be far distant, requiring a considerable journey to attend them. Nevertheless, although there is danger of exaggerating the isolation obtaining in the country, the social aloofness that exists there is real, considerable, and serious. Grant to indi- viduals living in cities friends and a standing in some circle or set of persons, and unquestionably opportunities for intercourse and amusement, culture and social service are not only much more numerous in cities than in country but in general the distance traveled to reach them is less ; and perhaps it should be added that the facilities of transportation and communication are better. CAUSES OF EUEAL ISOLATION Prior to any attempt to prescribe a solution for the problem of rural social isolation it is essential that the causes of that condition shall be discovered. In consequence of the under- taking it may be realized that some of the causal conditions are relatively absolute, unconditioned, and therefore irremovable and unpreventable. Were this premonition to prove true it would be necessary to think and speak, not of overcoming rural isolation but of mitigating it. There are three proximate conditions which account for the rural social isolation existing in the United States; namely, spatial separation of families, fewness of social institutions, and what may be called the rural state of mind. These will be con- sidered for the purpose of evaluating tlie difficulty of overcoming or of mitigating them. 1. Spatial separation. A fairly approximate perception of the degree of separation obtaining among persons and families in each of the nine geographical divisions of the nation may be gained by dividing the rural population by the appropriate divi- sion area. This is only approximately correct for rural density, since, besides the rural territory, the total division area contains the urban area ; and further the rural population includes that MITIGATING RURAL ISOLATION 531 of towns and villages, or all segregated populations of less than 2,500 inhabitants each. The latter statement is undoubtedly of greater import than the former, creating the likelihood that the rural population density is somewhat, though not greatly, less than the accompanying figures indicate. The following table sums up the data : RURAL POPULATION DENSITY IN THE UNITED STATES, 1910 • Division Division Area Rural Population Population per Square Mile Families per Square Mie New England Middle Atlantic East North Central .. West North Central . . South Atlantic East South Central . . . West South Central . . Mountain 62,000 100,000 246,000 511,000 269,000 179,000 430,000 859,000 318,000 1,097,000 5,593,000 8,633,000 7,764,000 9,103,000 6,836,000 6,827,000 1,686,000 1,810,000 16 56 35 15 34 38 16 2 6 4 12.7 8.1 3.3 6.8 7.9 3.2 0.47 Pacific '. 1.4 * AbstTiict Thirteenth Census, pp. 29 and 60. In this table the figures for area and population are correct only to thousands and the error in the population per square mile is less than five-tenths. The number of families per square mile is obtained by dividing the division population per square mile by the average size of family for the corresponding divi- sion.^ While no pretension is made to absolute measurement, the figures are valuable as an aid to visualizing what spatial isolation means in the various portions of the country. Since the density figures are averages for whole divisions it is apparent that the situation in extreme states must be widely different. According to this table, four of the divisions have 34 or more persons or practically 7 or more families per square mile, the Middle Atlantic having 56 persons and almost 13 families per such area. Where there are 8 families to the square mile they might be so located in that space that the homes need be only about one-fourth of a mile apart. What really occurs is that the homes are placed along adjacent lines of travel and lie compara- tively near each other. In the -case of three divisions, containing over three-tenths of the total rural population of the nation, there are from three to four families to the square mile, requiring ■ Abstract Thirteenth Census, p. 60. 532 RURAL SOCIOLOGY a separation of homes of perhaps one-half mile or more. The Mountain and Pacific divisions contain about one-twelfth of the rural population and in these divisions the families must be on the average from a mile to over two miles removed from one another. 2. Social institutions. Should we compare an urban with a rural community in respect of the number and quality of social institutions used for communal purposes it would be possible to estimate roughly the force of the second assigned cause of rural social isolation. It would be scarcely fair to contrast with the average rural neighborhood the average city as a whole for this purpose, for such a city is a series of communities rather than a single commimity. It would be better to institute the com- parison between types of rural and urban neighborhoods. In the typical rural community are to be found church and school generally, although there are many neighborhoods without churches. Farmers' clubs are developing rapidly but are not yet sufficiently numerous and universal to be considered typical of farm communities. But perhaps Grange, Society of Equity, the Union, or some such organization might well be included. This list which is liberal practically exhausts the list of institu- tions which rural neighborhoods commonly possess and enjoy. In the town-country communities (villages with the closely asso- ciated surrounding agricultural region) no doubt should also be included the lodge. The typical city community supports school, church, saloon (save in prohibition territory), lodge, play houses, dance halls, movies, pool halls, and kindred places. Besides these the shops, stores, factories, and streets bring indi- viduals into frequent contact. Certainly institutional facilities for social interchange in the typical urban neighborhood are far more abundant than in the typical farm community. Relative to their quality for purposes of social interchange the institutions of the city communities are likely to be superior. The average rural church is an anachronistic, semi-decadent affair. It typically comprises a one-room building where all activities must be accommodated. It practices what aptly has been called "ministerial vivisection," the distribution of a min- ister's services between two or more churches, with the probable consequence of being ministered to by a man of inferior training MITIGATING RURAL ISOLATION 533 or ability. In consequence of these conditions, not to speak of others, its activities are few and listless. The typical country school is likewise a backward institution. It, too, is a small one-room affair, without facilities for diversified instruction, sustaining an ill-adapted course of study, with too few pupils to create competitive interest in class work or to sustain organized play. It is ungraded, demands a multiplicity of brief classes daily, and is taught by a poorly paid, poorly trained pedagog. In contrast with these the average city church and school appear to be very progressive and efficient institu- tions, and the other agencies found in urban neighborhoods but not in rural are of equally prepossessing character. 3. Rural consciousness. Rural consciousness, or the form the rural social mind takes, is a large factor in the production of rural isolation. What may be phrased "passive rural-minded- ness" operates as an efficient but indirect cause of such isolation. This form of consciousness consists in being satisfied with aloof- ness, paucity of social organizations, dearth of contact and com- munity activities, with the consequence that the individuals so conditioned do nothing and want to do nothing toward improve- ment. Of course those who are so minded are not aware of it any more than do the mass of people take cognizance of the social customs and modes of procedure of their national, class, or local groups. Not all inhabitants of country districts are possessed by passive rural-mindedness. Some there are who are "urban minded, ' ' being discontented with rural life and having a strong desire to dwell in the city. Probably only the powerlessness to secure the financial means to carry out a successful removal stands in their way of joining the urban ranks. Again there is a state of consciousness which may be called "active rural-mindedness." Those who are actively rural minded dwell in tTie country because they wish to do so. Never- theless, they are intelligent regarding the deficiencies in rural community matters and positively desire and strive to remedy them. This body of citizens constitute the hope of the country- side. However it is likely that the passively-minded individuals are in the majority, thus making changes toward a better situa- tion difficult and slow. 534 RURAL SOCIOLOGY Those who have studied the origin and evolution of the various forms of social consciousness would say that passive rural- mindedness is far less the result of biological inheritance than of habitual association, the unresisting acceptance during the formative period of life of those conditions and forms of life which obtain in the family and neighborhood. Only in so far as rural individuals are differentiated at birth by natural capacity, some being born more active and aggressive psycho- logically than others, does heredity play any considerable part in the establishment of the passive and active rural-minded classes. Given custom-bound families and neighborhoods, a person of good ability by birth may and probably will accept the prevailing outlook and develop into an individual of the pas- sively rural-minded sort. When the outlook of the masses of country inhabitants is such that what obtains is accepted as inevitable, when the materials and currents creating intellectual ferment are lacking, when social isolation is viewed as an ordinance akin to the order of nature, aloofness, discreteness of existence, and impoverished social life appear under the category of the anticipated and the established. SIGNIFICANCE AND EFFECTS OF ISOLATION 1. Rural inhabitants not inherently unsocial. Rural social isolation is commonly alluded to as an indisputable evil and the tendency is to accept this judgment without question. The conception that man is gregarious by nature has been so widely sanctioned that any situation in which this collective inclination does not or is not permitted to operate is at once viewed as unnatural and harmful. Without pausing to challenge this idea, it may be profitable to review the evidence in its support. If ancestry counts for anything toward fastening traits upon the descendants, it would be expected that gregariousness and the love of social contact would be among man's most ingrained attributes. First, with a few exceptions all vertebrate mammals are addicted to leading a group existence. The droves, herds, flocks, and packs of both domesticated and wild animals bear testimony to this. Then man's most direct and immediate an- cestral forms, the simians, were social to the extent of living in MITIGATING RURAL ISOLATION 535 families, sometimes, at least, in larger groups. While man did not descend directly from simians, his immediate ancestor must have been closely related to them and doubtless partook of about the same characteristics. Again, archeological evidence pertaining to the remains of prehistoric man points unquestionably in the direction of the communal existence of those ancient but near-of-kin ancestors. The finds in caves, kitchen middens, lake dwellings, and the like yield testamentary support. Further, aU our knowledge of mankind within historic times, information regarding ancient Asiatic and African men and, especially, concerning early Euro- pean inhabitants, bear no trace of normal men and women leading other than a group existence. Europeans have been village dwellers from the earliest historic times, so much so that even agricultural activities are carried on from village centers. Finally, there is the profound and widespread movement in recent times, the world-phenomenon of urbanization, the rapid trend of population toward city centers, and the building up of municipalities, great and small, the advance of mankind into an ubiquftous and urban civilization. While the ultimate springs of this process are science and invention applied to geographical and economic things, forces which are intrinsic to modern soci- ety, the psychical processes of men are not only not averse to being impelled by these forces but manifest distinct and solici- tous cravings for the conditions and attractions to be found in compact aggregations. The consequent expectation regarding the deep-seated results of heredity and the inference from age-long participation in none but collective existence compels the conclusion that modern man has received a reinforced gregarious tendency from remote times and that, unrestricted by contingent circumstances, he finds his highest satisfaction in living under close intercourse with his fellows. The American rural inhabitants are products of the past in like manner with those of cities. They are inherently collectively inclined and sensible of some of the advantages of association with neighbors and friends. Abundant evidence of this exists in the events and currents manifesting themselves in the country. Under favorable conditions the constituted pro- clivities assert themselves in the direction of rural community improvement. 536 RURAL SOCIOLOGY 2. Some effects of isolation. Since we may say that the desire for human association and for frequent personal contact is deeply ingrained in man's constitution, it would be expected that any considerable deprivation and repression of that inclina- tion would be considered an affliction and that those limitations perhaps might bring pathological consequences. That rural social isolation is regarded as undesirable by coun- try people is attested by several sets of events to be mentioned without discussion: the flow of large numbers of persons from country to city ; the settlement of retired farmers in neighboring towns and villages; the frequent testimony of intelligent rural- ites to the irksomeness and the undesirability of the customary social poverty; and the response to the introduction of social facilities by practically every class of non-urban residents, in- eluding the group we have alluded to as the passively rural- minded. That the latter class respond is not inconsistent with calling them passively rural-minded, since they may take advan- tage of privileges without participating in their establishment. The pathological consequences of rural isolation must be indi- cated briefly. Isolation may be either absolute or relative. It is sufficient to indicate the evil results of absolute isolation by alluding to the fact that in penal systems solitary confinement has long been regarded as one of the most extreme forms of punishment to be accorded a prisoner and that it is generally used as a method of last resort. Very few convicts are able to endure its horrors of mental strain for long, it is held in dire dread by prisoners commonly, and psychical collapse, even in- sanity, have often been its result. To condemn prisoners gen- erally to solitary confinement would be so inhuman that society would repudiate it. It has been recorded frequently in the annals of the frontier that sheepherders who remain on the plains with their flocks for months apart from human beings have lost their mental poise and become insane. Freedom in the midst of nature without the stimulus of personal association may not be sufficient to guaran- tee a normal mental functioning. This brief survey of the possible effects of absolute isolation offers a good background for regarding aloofness in its relative form. Relative isolation is found in the case of families who live sufficiently remote from others to make social exchange diffi- MITIGATING RURAL ISOLATION 537 cult and infrequent and where organizations to carry on asso- ciational activities are very insufficient. Life under these con- ditions entails a degree of dehumanization. The fullness of personality which frequent social exchange brings is absent. If mind sharpens mind and ideas breed ideas, continuous con- finement within the circle of a single family is insufficient to make a full-orbed mind and to incite mental variation. Nor can the greatest satisfaction be found in meeting and holding converse with such a limited group, no matter how deeply regarded. Such intense intellectual inbreeding results in an enfeebled psychical stock and a narrowed existence. Perliaps the most severe strain arising out of this situation is suffered by the women of the farm homestead, especially by the mother. As we have seen, her sphere of practical action is within the confines of the house, she cannot meet the neighbors at the borders of the adjoining fields as city women may talk across lots, nor in the exchange of tools and work does she have the opportunity to converse as do the men of the farm, and her field of cooperative exchange is limited. Neither does she go to the neighboring town for marketing and repair purposes as often as the men. Further, her work is of a routine nature, lacking the variety and the occurrence of new situations that call for inventive talent which the activities of the outdoor workers involve. That farm women age much earlier in life than do the men is no doubt partly due to the greater absence of intellectual incitement. The sparseness of the data relative to rural and urban insanity has been one of the weak places in a comparative study of the conditions regarding country and city. The conclusions which may be drawn from the accumulating facts are somewhat tenta- tive and to be accepted with reservation. But, so far, they indi- cate that rural populations are more prone than are urban inhabitants to melancholia and senile dementia.' Such being the case the interpretation is somewhat obvious. Melancholia ap- pears to be an affliction to which farm women especially are addicted. Its great inciting cause may be regarded as the monotonous and empty mental life they are compelled to lead. A perfectly inept and stupid existence is well calculated to end in a great stupor. Brooding over real and imaginary troubles ' Bee pp. 109-110. 538 RURAL SOCIOLOGY and wrongs breeds profound pessimism and despondency that the feeble spark of intellectual interest involved in the surround- ings is insufficient to counteract. The author came upon an instance in en agricultural state of a housewife who had not been beyond the confines of the farm for over three years. Her round of duties was her sole interest. It is remarkable that she and thousands like her are able to withstand the strain and keep from succumbing to an overwhelming depression. Perhaps only the sensitive and the imaginative fall easy victims to melancholia. Senile dementia seems to be the form of insanity that is most rife among agricultural males. When a man is too old to farm actively there is little in rural communities to stimulate his mental life. Probably he has never formed the reading habit, so that papers and books are not attractive to him. There is noth- ing to see or to go to. His life work is closed and there is little to stimulate to activity the mind and will. Left without incite- ment to normal expression, the will to live and to be interested in life is empty and logically collapses. QUESTIONABLE REMEDIES The problem of rural isolation has attracted much attention and naturally has brought forth a number of proposals for solutions and panaceas. Since some of these solutions are re- garded with a degree of seriousness, they should receive a brief critical examination. 1. Familism. One of the most short-sighted and brutal sug- gestions is what may be called "familism." It is asserted that the social activities and satisfactions of rural inhabitants inevi- tably must be limited to the sphere of the family, since that institution represents the scope of normal human association possible to country districts. This proposal flies in the face of accomplished facts and is only a dogmatic generalization from a narrow range of data. It is doubtless true that the majority of rural inhabitants realize the larger portion of their associa- tional life within the family and that many will do so for some time to come. But notwithstanding the fact that the family is a most worthy and indispensable institution and that it is des- tined to furnish much of the social contact for both rural and urban inhabitants in future; it must be said that it is too small, unresourceful, and monotonous to supply complete associational MITIGATING RURAL ISOLATION 539 satisfaction. Moreover, multitudes of country neighborhoods have established and now enjoy larger community organizations. The trend of the rural movement without question is toward the creation and the adaptation of varied recreational and social facilities. 2. Farm villages. Another proposition is that American farmers shall abandon their present system of widely distributed, separate homesteads and segregate themselves in some kind of central farm village. Various actual and ideal types of such communities present themselves, some of which deserve attention. The European form of farm village is generally thought of when the proposal in question is considered. European farmers almost universally live in small segregated communities, pro- ceeding from these during the daytime to prosecute their agri- culture on the outlying farms. In America, also, are to be found a few types of agricultural village. In various sections of the United States immigrant Mennonites have established themselves in such communities, very largely reproducing here the custom- ary European prototype. The most indigenously American farm village is to be found among the Mormon settlements of the western portion of the United States and Canada. When the Mormons settled Utah they designated an agricultural com- munity somewhat peculiar to themselves. The Mormon settlers and recruits were to settle in centers, all of which were built from a common plan. Each village resident had a considerable plot of land surrounding his house, another plot of a few acres just outside the center, a still larger piece still farther removed, and might have more land still farther distant. The dwellings are characteristically arranged relative to each other to secure family privacy. A further important characteristic is that the church is the center of community interest and lies at the foun- dation of the Mormon farm village plan. (For a more extended account of the Mormon farm village, see the writer's Construc- tive Rural Sociology, second edition, pp. 61-4.) Besides these existent types of agricultural villages, a strictly cooperative farm village community has been urged. It is pro- posed that not only dairies and creameries, but also laundries, kitchens, dining halls, and all phases of domestic and distribu- tive economic business should be cooperative. These plans of and proposals for farm villages possess both 540 RURAL SOCIOLOGY interest and value, nevertheless they are confronted by several obstacles and objections. First, the great majority of American farmers have much capital invested in houses, barns, other build- ings, orchards, and other home equipment on their separate allotments of land. To make a change to such a completely different system of living as the farm village represents would involve the destruction of much of the capital so invested and the incurring a large removal expense. The economic loss involved in the proposal is so heavy that we cannot expect seriously to see it executed. Second, to the average farmer it would seem a costly incon- venience to drive daily several miles to carry on his farm work. Where farms are small, as most of them, are in Europe and to a less extent in the irrigable sections of the United States, the distances to the outlying land are not great. But the average size of farms in the United States is 138 acres. Were the farm village large enough to be of any gi-eat social advantage it should contain probably 100 families. This being so, in a district composed of average sized farms, the more remote farms would be about four or five miles removed from a centrally located village. This would mean a daily drive of eight or ten miles in order to carry on farm work, which is practically prohibitive because of the economic loss involved. Third, a small village of the usual type possesses questionable advantages, socially, when compared with open-country com- munities. Without the fuller social life, intellectual interests, ideals, and resources of the larger urban aggregations, the petty gossip, jealousies, and bickerings are not conducive to increased satisfaction or a higher existence. The paucity of recreational and amusement facilities, the almost entire absence of those of a wholesome kind, especially for boys from ten to sixteen years of age, engenders idleness and the resorting to vicious gangs and forms of sport which are demoralizing. The average small village in the United States represents one of the most deadening and disheartening forms of community, and, as a problem, chal- lenges the serious attention of the American nation. The suggestion of a cooperative form of farm village is worthy of consideration. That the scheme is Utopian should not con- demn it in advance. Its real test is, can it overcome the diffi- culties just presented relative to farm villages in general? MITIGATING RURAL ISOLATION 541 In the case of the establishment of new agricultural communi- ties, especially in irrigation districts where farms are small, the cooperative proposal is most deserving of attention. Aside from these relatively infrequent situations, the heavy investment in separate farm plants and the remoteness of the majority of farms from the central village would appear to make the pro- posal impracticable. In view of these considerations we may regard our present system of distributed and separate farm homesteads as relatively permanent, and are forced to conclude that the mitigation of rural isolation must come from other directions. In this con- nection it is worthy of note that in agricultural Utah there is an observed tendency toward independent farm homes. From the top of the divide between Cache and Salt Lake valleys in north- ern Utah it is seen that in the former valley, which was settled very early, there is an occasional homestead in the open country while in the northern portion of the former, a region settled more recently, separate farm homes appear to be the rule. VALID SUGGESTIONS There is little consolation to be found in picturing the sociali- zation of rural life by revolutionary methods. Society in general makes its advances by easy stages. Time seems to be abundant for the operation of cosmic forces and, in most respects, social development resembles cosmical evolutionary processes. Types of social life persist almost unchanged from generation to gen- eration and communities of a given kind undergo transforma- tions slowly, keeping well within the confines set by their nature. Rural communities must be expected to continue essentially as they are, with the exception of some necessary and useful re- adaptations to meet the rising demands for a larger and richer associatJonal life. Probably few or no brand-new agencies will be created to meet the more pressing needs but there will be an adjustment and expansion of the means that rural society now First, considerable may be expected from the improvement and extension of the rural communicating system, including under this caption roads, rural delivery, automobiles, inter- urban trolleys, telephones, and periodical literature. Each of 542 RURAL SOCIOLOGY these agencies is making its contribution toward the establish- ment of a more effective rural solidarity and also toward bring- ing country and urban districts into closer touch. Improved and extended roads are essential to the development of the economic interests of agriculture and are the indis- pensable foundation for all larger community organizations and activities. The larger organizations which the improved rural church, the consolidated school, farmers' clubs, and recreational and community centers are demanding can materialize only as the highways are built to permit rapid and comfortable transit. The automobile and rural delivery are serviceable in creating larger contacts and in stimulating the building of a better high- way system. Where population density warrants the establish- ment of rural free delivery of mail, rural routes are assigned by the national government on condition that the routes to be used in carrying the mail shall be put and kept in passable shape. Organizations and individuals interested in the extended use of the automobile are promoting both local and inter-community highway improvement. Since so many farmers have become owners of cars, they have the more heartily joined the movement for the establishment of good roads. The automobile quickens rural life by bringing families and communities into closer and more frequent contact. Distances which once took hours or days to compass by horse or horse- drawn vehicle, now are covered in a few minutes or hours. Could every farmer possess an automobile, the problem of estab- lishing larger and better rural institutions in considerable measure would be solved because transit would be speedy and easy and because the care of teams involved in travel by horse- drawn vehicles would be obviated. Rural free mail delivery and the circulating library are effec- tive agencies for reducing isolation. The former places within reach of out-of-town residents the possibility of daily contact with the world of events by means of the daily press; makes possible more frequent correspondence with friends and rela- tives; and helps cultivate a habitual perusal of periodical and library literature. In its turn the circulating library brings to neighborhoods which command its services the enlivening store of fiction, the inspiration of good literature, and the prac- MITIGATING RURAL ISOLATION 543 tical knowledge of the whole range of natural and social science. Social contact is more than the association of human beings in the flesh. Much of the face-to-face give and take between individuals, while measurably demanded by nature and highly satisfying, is likely to be empty and of little ultimate worth. While a somewhat similar objection may be raised against pro- miscuous reading, good reading does make possible a touch with vital affairs and a sympathetic understanding of current, impor- tant movements. Society is psychical in its nature; its binding ties and relations are non-material ; it is made up of the mental elements which relate human beings in a somewhat enduring manner. Consequently some of the most fundamental advances toward socializing rural life are to be effected by that wider and deeper reading which reveals the more significant truths about collective humanity and brings the individual into touch with the great currents of life. Second, a definite local communitization of rural districts con- stitutes a further method of mitigating rural isolation. Com- munitization takes place to the degree to which the inhabitants of a particular locality think and act together, the alternative, individualization, being most often observed in the country, in that residents of such locality think and act as if they were only individuals. It is highly desirable that people generally, and rural inhabitants especially, should cultivate a neighbor- hood outlook, appreciate the good results which flow from increased cooperation, and set about establishing the agencies for realizing the community spirit. A great deal needs to be said about the cultivation and educa tion of the social mind of rural districts as the means of realizing an effective socialization and as a consummation of such process. It may be said that socialization of country life has been accom- plished when and where the social mind of the inhabitants has been prepared adequately. Students of social psychology are convinced that no great object or ideal for society can be realized until the collective mind has been aroused, informed, and molded in the direction of the desired goal. Intelligent leaders are a great asset to a cause but perhaps their gi-eatest function is that of developing among the masses a sympathetic point of 544 RURAL SOCIOLOGY view. There are at least two classes of leaders, those who collect, organize, and interpret the facts of rural communities, and those who carry the results of that work directly to the people. The former workers really determine the direction rural progress shall take by establishing a reasoned basis of interpretation and of undertaking. The function of the other set of workers is that of propagandist and disseminator, a very indispensable service. It is imperative that there shall be many institutions that train missionaries for rural service and that there shall be multi- tudes of such agents to come into direct contact with the farming families throughout the United States. Let the original students of rural life establish and expound the doctrine of socialization of country life by printed page and lecture. Then let all the seminaries that send out preachers, all the normal schools that educate teachers, all the agricultural colleges that train county agents and instructors in agriculture and domestic science for their work, and all agencies which prepare and send speakers and lecturers into the rural field emphasize the doctrine and with it discipline the minds of their candidates for country work. Only by such a thoroughgoing process of education and dissem- ination can the fundamental social institutions of rural commu- nities be reached, and community outlook, life and cooperation be established as second nature in the minds of the people. ' ' As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he, ' ' and as the social mind of community and nation is formed and constituted, so its achieve- ments and realizations will be. In conclusion, it is not too much to say that all mitigation of rural social isolation depends on and awaits the education of the rural social mind. TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION 1. Is rural isolation anything more than a state of mind among rural people? 2. On the assumption that it is only a state of mind, is it any the less real and undesirable because of that? 3. How are states of mind produced and overcome? 4. Is not the urbanism that requires incessant but often superficial per- sonal contacts a disease? 5. Would not an ample supply of diversified reading matter and ample leisure in which to peruse it provide adequate social contacts for rural inhabitants? 6. Will the general use of automobiles by farming populations decrease or increase the drift to cities? MITIGATING RURAL ISOLATION 545 7. What is likely to be the effect of improved communication, including transportation, on local rural institutions? 8. What would be necessary in order to perpetuate local rural associa- tions of a satisfying order? 9. Providing it were possible, would it be desirable to substitute the farm village plan of Europe for the American plan of country existence? 10. Is there anything hopeful in the California plan of establishing farm villages 1 CHAPTER XXVI COMMUNITY BUILDING NATURE OP THE EURAli COMMUNITT In treating the characteristics of rural as distinct from those of urban society, a good deal was said about the rural com- munity and the following tentative definition was proposed: "By a rural community is meant a population of low density inhabiting a wide area and having a consciousness of kind based on common interests and modes of living and working; whose members communicate and cooperate on the basis of one or more interests housed in a center or centers; whose chief industry is agricultural extraction, whose social organizations and reactions are relatively few and simple, and are correspondingly modified by spatial separation and mode of production, and whose chief social dependence and resort is the family." Theoretically, a community is the smallest type of a self- sufficing society, excluding the family, which is, of course, the most diminutive society. Needless to say, no small society in the midst of the great society is completely self-sufficing. How- ever, the community in many ways approximates the concep- tion. The neighborhood is not necessarily a community in the sense the term bears here. The word neighborhood bears two mean- ings: an area populated by families sufficiently close to one another to have some contact ; and a cluster of families engaging to some extent in an exchange of ideas and services. To be sure, neighboring in itself has something of a community character; but if the whole rural area were composed of scattered families who did nothing more than neighbor, it would be impossible to stake out any particular and definite community, since there would be no boundaries and centers of interest. The only mean- ing neighborhood could have in this case would be related to the family. The neighborhood for any family would be. the circle of families with which it neighbored. For the next family in any 546 COMMUNITY BUILDING 547 direction, the same would be true ; and so for the next, and the next, and so on. But whenever a common interest arises which leads to coop- eration on the part of several families, and especially when there is a center of interest established — the home of the common interest — the definitive community begins to be. This is the neighborhood of the second meaning. Such a neighborhood begins to have meets and bounds. It may be bounded by ranges of hills, extensive forests, considerable streams, lakes, or com- binations of these. Or the boundaries may be only approximate as in regions fairly homogeneous and level physically. When a relatively small rural area has more than one center of interest, the community gains greater content. Then the school, church, and perhaps a neighborhood hall bind the inhabitants together in many ways. But in the open country there is likely to be no defined boundary for all of these together, so that somewhat different populations and areas center in each. A rural community, then, is in varying degrees a social unit, comprising as it does those whose fundamental interest is farm- ing, who have a center or centers where they meet to satisfy and realize common interests, and who recognize each other as members and cobperators. The initial common interests recog- nized and provided for are generally educational and religious and about these as nuclei, the other interests come to coopera- tive recognition. Thus, while farming is the fundamental occu- pational interest and, in a way, common, its boundaries of cooperative participation are likely to follow and to be deter- mined by units already established. But when the economic interest comes to full consciousness, it is liable to swamp the other interests in the minds of the farming community, as being the fundamental and determining interest. Farmers then organize along occupational and business lines and know them- selves as distinct from urban and even small village communities. This fact, that open-country and village populations develop a consciousness of diverse economic interests and so organize appositively for their realization, makes it difficult, often impos- sible, for a joint town-country community to exist peacefully. The dominant economic interest of the village being the selling of consumers' goods at a profit, and the profits being largely determinative of the support of village institutions and profes- 548 RURAL SOCIOLOGY sions, villagers generally support the economic contentions of village merchants. This is made all the more inevitable because of close personal contacts and associations between village men and villagers of position. The social mind is, consequently, organized along business lines and in support of business. The bulk of the villagers have no practical interest in farm processes, such as soil improvement, seed selection, pure breeds, farm man- agement and accounting, marketing of farm products, and the like. Further, merchants and bankers would be hostile to any attempt of farmers that looked in the direction of so reorgan- izing the marketing and credit system that their profits would be scaled down to any degree. For the above reasons, as well as because attention has been paid previously to village improvement, the considerations of this chapter are confined largely to open-country communities. WHERE RESPONSIBILITY FOR INITIATING COMMUNITY-BUILDrNG BESTS It is generally agreed that there are many defects in rural society, and, as a consequence, that a satisfying and holding life there is dependent on bringing about additions and improve- ments. So the question arises as to the method of introducing improvements, whether by outside or inside efforts, whether by society at large or by rural society itself. Previous discussions have developed some conception of the way beneficial changes may be brought about. The question was not raised concerning the responsibility for initiating such changes, but the impression must have been gained that country inhabitants are largely responsible for new undertakings, although the settlement of some policies vital to rural people, such as those pertaining to land settlement, rural credit, taxation, state industrial enter- prises concerned with marketing and financing matters, and education, to mention a few specific cases, depends on the atti- tude and cooperation of the larger public. It is a mistake to think that agriculturists must be left to work out their own salvation, the solution of their many problems, alone. It is noticeable that other groups are regarded either as incompetent or as too selfish to settle complications involving their businesses without resort to public and state action. So we have questions COMMUNITY BUILDING 549 of the relations between employers and workers, of rate control, of banking, and the like thrown into state or national politics and finally into state or national legislature. Because these affairs affect the public at large, the public undertakes to say what bankers, employers, employees, and railways shall do and how they shall conduct their business, no matter how much the members of those interest groups believe that they alone are capable of running what they choose to call their own business. In like manner the states constantly legislate on municipal prob- lems, determining forms of government, charter provisions, the powers of cities, and numerous other matters. Agriculture is certainly as fundamental in the life of the nation as are any of these concerns, and it is to be expected that the public at large will interest itself in the solution of some of the embarrassing and grievous problems of the country. Coun- try populations have a right to demand assistance of the public and the latter has a right — which it frequently has exercised — to interest itself in country -life conditions whenever it sees itself implicated and its welfare involved. But there is much that can be done to add to the success and satisfactions of rural populations which the locality is respon- sible for. Self-help is the best form of help, and a working democracy is largely dependent on the spirit and resources of the people of the various localities. In the long run, self- preservation is dependent on the powers and capacities of indi- viduals in their particular habitats, although their cooperative abilities have been at times strengthened in their struggle to- gether against other species. And since the struggle for existence in society is becoming increasingly between groups instead of individual against individual, it behooves communi- ties, especially those of the agricultural type, to put themselves in shape to withstand the ordeal. This means organization for cooperative effort, both of the general and special kind. NEED OP RURAL COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION It has been said that the nineteenth century saw the deteriora- tion and the twentieth century is to see the regeneration of the neighborhood. A study of urban life makes it evident that dis- integration of the neighborhood has certainly occurred in the 550 RURAL SOCIOLOGY lower sections of large cities and there are those who hold that it has also taken place in rural life. E. A. Ross believes the villages and village communities of New England have deteriorated morally, culturally, and in per- sonnel ; and F. L. Morgan writes of the decline in the rural New England neighborhoods in recent years due to many causes. The statistics of rural depopulation would lead us to think that multitudes of neighborhoods had been thinned out in respect to both common and exceptional individuals to such an extent that local interests suffer. And we have had reason to state that in so far as tenantry displaces ownership in farming the neighbor- hood spirit and interest in community matters are weakened. To the extent that these various statements are true, it is demon- strated that there is a call for agencies which will be capable of rejuvenating rural communal life. The need for organization is also seen in the function the neighborhood has exercised in social evolution. Professor Cooley has shown that it is one of the three vital social institutions society has used from the very first to promote itself by face- to-face contacts. And Mr. Robert Wood emphasizes its present value as an agency in reconstructing society. Not only is it needed in cities where much attention is being devoted to attempts to draw people together into some form of local asso- ciation — such as the social unit plan — for developing a unity of spirit and efforts in behalf of the neighborhood, but it is vitally needed in rural districts as a clearing-house, a stimulator, and both a self -discovering and a realizing agency. Organization is necessary to carry on the work of further socialization of rural life. What is lacking is a consciousness of the community needs, benefits, and purposes, the recognition of community rights and the common life as above that of individual aims and ambitions, and the dedication of self to the promotion of the larger social life and of realizing the larger individual life thereby. Or, in the words of Professor N. L. Sims : ' ' Specifically stated, the higher degree of socialization consists subjectively in bringing about the realization of a com- mon consciousness — a consciousness which perceives that the interests should be pursued in common — and objectively — in developing cooperation."^ It is essential to get individuals ' Sims, The Sural Community, p. 627. COMMUNITY BUILDING 551 and organizations to thinking of their activities in terms of the community. In the average neighborhood, there exists a great deal of prejudice, misunderstanding, and working at cross- purposes which hinder development. A tendency arises sooner or later in all organizations and institutions to become self- centered, to regard themselves as ends and not as agencies by which to secure ends, to place their interests above the general good. Since the community is constituted of all the interests its in- habitants regard as vital to living, there must be a best way to coordinate and promote those interests and to develop the com- munity in so doing. And the interests can find their highest expression in community undertakings. If farmers cannot cooperate locally, they cannot successfully cooperate at large, so that community cooperation serves as a foundation for all cooperative enterprises. There is no local interest that deserves to survive which would not be greatly benefited by having the whole thought and consideration of the community devoted to it. Consequently, organizing the community for improvement purposes is not a new-fangled notion but is the most efficient way to get things done. Moreover it has been tried out widely — in Massachusetts, California, Australia, and elsewhere — and its benefits practically demonstrated. Its efficiency is to be seen in what group discussion accomplishes, as denoted by Professor C. E. Rainwater. (1) The ballot in various governmental units affords a demo- cratic chance to the individual of using his influence in register- ing his desires as to governmental policies ; but our government is weak in providing opportunities for making decisions about politics. We have not developed the art of focusing public opinion by means of neighborhood cooperation. The people really have no voice of their own, but depend on ideas of partisan press, propagandists, bosses. In the political, religious, and in- dustrial group meetings attended, the masses participate but little. (2) Again, many things may not be settled by ballot but by direct community effort. The people must get together and discover suitable solutions and objectives. By the aid of specialists and those versed in education, health, recreation, in- dustry, etc., the best way is discovered and all ages and classes 552 RURAL SOCIOLOGY are brought into contact in the process. "The reconstructed neighborhood is thus the fulfillment of democracy. In itself, it is a little democracy ; in its relation to city, state and national government, it is a dynamo of greater efficiency; a bulwark against rule by a boss or a class. ' ' ^ PRINCIPLES OF COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION There are certain principles in community organization which are useful as guides in the work of organization. I am obligated to Professor Rainwater for the formulation of the following points. 1. Participation. — Obligation to the community requires of all normal persons the opportunity to participate in making plans and decisions and in their execution. Community organ- ization furnishes such opportunity to all individuals of every age and sex. 2. Correlation. — A system based on economy eliminates and prevents duplication of effort. Society is full of duplicating agencies, those that work at cross-purposes, getting in one another's way in working for the same objective. A completely organized community finds a place and function for every indi- vidual and worthy organization, but avoids cross-firing. 3. Development. — Social evolution in the progressive sense requires the expenditure of effort in view of a well-defined goal. Society has stumbled along in the dark and has zigzagged its way to its present level with much lost motion and many back- ward steps. Neighborhoods are likely to go through the same wasteful process, due to the fact that they have not discovered what they should have and do, and have no means of doing so. The organized community has the equipment for self -inventory and plan-projection. In thinking, planning, and working to- gether its people move forward together concertedly and, there- fore, quickly. 4. Self-support. — A self-developing community is likely to be self-supporting. This does not mean that it will not borrow ideas and requisition experts and leaders from the outside or that it may not receive state and national aid for some enter- prises. But in the long run, when social justice is more widely ' Sociological Monoaraph, University of Southern California, No. 15, p. 2. COMMUNITY BUILDING 553 realized, in fairness to one another, communities will be both able and willing to depend on resources other than their own to the minimum. Just as no individual of dignity and worth likes to be considered a social parasite, so self-respecting com- munities will scorn dependence. 5. Democracy. — Democracy is based on majority rule and provides means for realizing majorities. An improved democ- racy even finds a means of giving a voice and influence to minori- ties, as is done under Proportional Representation. The organ- ized community, theoretically, provides a medium by which all individuals and interests are heard and have force in making determinations. In the work of the Council, all interests are represented and, lest some may not belong to any organized interest, members at large are provided for. The rural com- munity organization often adopts the Grange motto: "Each for all and all for each." ^ WHAT AN OEGANIZED RURAL COMMUNITY SEEKS TO PROMOTE The basic idea of a community implies that every valid interest of individuals and organizations is recognized and promoted. A valid interest cannot, of course, be one that does injustice to anyone in the relationship. The community plan, rules out promotion of selfish interests on the part of persons and asso- ciations cooperating. In the case of the organized rural community, the economic, religious, educational, cultural, sociability, and recreational interests of farm people are recognized and plans devised to promote them. Since farmers are vitally interested in getting better returns from their investments and labor, it is quite natural that soil and .stock improvements, marketing, credits, management, accounting, etc., should enter largely into con- sideration. As a matter of fact, the first efforts of community councils are quite apt to be devoted to some of these matters. Probably the primary rules of cooperation can best be learned in these directions, because they seem to the common man to be more tangible and the results more readily discovered. But when the community has attained some success and its foundation is secure in the confidence and respect of the resi- ' C. E. Baintrater, loc. cit. 554 RURAL SOCIOLOGY dents, it is certain to turn to other matters. No commimity can long remain organized and alert without looking in on itself. It is bound to practice community introspection, and, then, as when the individual studies his own mind and character, it is sure to discover many defects. This in turn leads to that dis- satisfied sense concerning its own condition which leads to self- improvement. Thus, one by one, it studies its facilities for education and culture of young and old; for renewal of life stimulus and for finding enjoyment in play, sports, amusement, entertainment, books; for considering the religious and moral problems of life in religion; for beautifying roadsides, homes, grounds, and the physical externals of the neighborhood; and for considering the water supply of homes and school, ventila- tion of homes and public buildings, introducing baths, toilets, and other home conveniences, and putting into effect practical principles of isolating and eliminating infectious germs. METHODS OF PEOMOTING COMMUNITY BUILDING 1. Organization. — The service organization for community building can perform has been set forth and it is now requisite to learn how organization takes place and what measures it uses. Naturally there are efforts at community improvement from many angles and under various guises. Some are partial, some fragmentary, some ill-advised; others contemplate the com- munity in its wholeness and undertake its all-round improve- ment. Local, state, and national agencies, all are heeding the task and seeking to render service. But perhaps the most last- ing results are observed where a community organization is established. Many states are promoting such organizations and it is becoming customary for state agricultural colleges to maintain a community organizer, whose business it is to aid localities in organizing. Massachusetts may be taken as an example of this. The policy in Massachusetts is not to attempt to organize every rural community in the state but to organize them as fast as they are ready for it. To be ready for organization is to see the desirability and to take steps in that direction. The or- ganizer and other agencies may cultivate in communities a desire COMMUNITY BUILDING 555 to organize, but caution is exercised lest hasty and ill-advised undertakings end disastrously and the work be made impossible there. A part of the work of the organizer is to keep in touch with communities having organizations for purposes of stimu- lation and encouragement. A southern community organizer writes me: "My work is to organize rural communities and to see that they stay organized." The plan is to organize the community agencies already exist- ing into a cooperative undertaking in behalf of the community, rather than to perfect a new and supplementary organization. Were there no organizations in a place, some kind of an organ- ization would have to be made, but this is scarcely ever the case. The first step taken is to get a public meeting of all the in- habitants, old and young, for the purpose of discussing the advisability of organizing. Since a real community organiza- tion is to involve the interests of all, it is imperative that all should be interested, informed, and ready to support it. Should the public meeting vote to proceed with organization, a community council is formed, consisting of a representative of each of the already existing organizations and several mem- bers at large. This council then studies the local situation thoroughly and drafts plans to be submitted to a later public meeting. One of its members is a secretary who is the executive agent as well as record keeper, and since this is so, it is impor- tant that he should be chosen with care. The council, in its study of the locality, makes use of the secretary, and the assistance of an expert from the agricultural college is commonly sought. It is found advisable to make the preliminary survey sufficiently comprehensive to reveal the weak points in the situation. The expert is able to contribute valu- able services, not only in organizing to get conditions studied but also in putting the results into a form that will make its appeal to the public. This important work of interpretation is much furthered by the construction of maps, tables, and charts, all of a size to be visible at a public assembly. The plan of organization is embodied in a constitution or by-laws providing for a name of the organization, setting forth its purposes, providing for officers, committees, time of meeting, and so on. When approved by the public assembly, it goes into effect, officers are elected, the committees are appointed and the 556 RURAL SOCIOLOGY work is begun. As to the committees, it is desirable that each phase of the work planned for should have a committee to look after it. Some of the committees will be look-out and study com- mittees until such time as they are called on to act and to work intensively. It is found advisable to take up not more than one or two of the most important projects at first so that failures do not kill the enterprise. Then one by one the other projects can be attacked. That this plan of action succeeds is evidenced in the fact that there are several hundred organized communi- ties in the state of Massachusetts. There the village is the cen- tral home of the community. "West Virginia may be taken as representative of effort at community building which follows the plans developed by the Social Relations Bureau of the Federal Department of Agricul- ture and acts in conjunction with its agents. Probably most of the attention now devoted to rural community organization by agencies outside the communities themselves is of this nature. Under this plan, county agents and home demonstrators, both of whom are quasi-Federal agents, visit communities, talk to leading men and women, and call a conference of leaders, if the situation is favorable. The conference makes plans for organ- ization in given directions, which plans are submitted for the approval of all residents at a public meeting. The meeting organizes as a country club. There were about 400 such or- ganizations in West Virginia in 1915. The community plan of work of the state embraces a com- munity course of study — in and out of the schoolroom — ^that is broad enough to reach every man, woman, and child. First, it seeks to meet the educational needs of A. as a producer of hay to produce more hay to feed cattle — and Mr. A. becomes an alfalfa demonstrator ; to meet the needs of Jennie A. 's ambitions and fit them into girls' club work; to get Mrs. A. interested in women's club work to solve her individual problems; and so on for all the other members of the family. But there are community problems that the individual as such cannot solve. The group needs to be educated in cooperation; so the community club promotes improvement of soil, animals, and crops, and provides for the play needs of boys and girls, for recreation, social clubs, or whatever else seems advisable. COMMUNITY BUILDING 557 Score cards by which the various communities may grade themselves, by the aid of experts, as to possible and earned standings in historical, religious, educational, domestic, social, political, health, agriculture, and economic directions are pro- vided. The results of these scores are presented on Community Day of Farmers' Week which is held at the state agricultural AtmeutTVPAi eXTCNSION otPAmrncNT Focusing ON THE C0LL£0£9f AQmCULTURe /.'/ Country ;v^;#community college each year and awards given for the purpose of arousing competition. Plans for a year's work are made at the community meeting and the various clubs decide on and pledge themselves to under- take certain work. Also community fairs, boys and girls en- campments, and other special features are arranged for. The 558 RURAL SOCIOLOGY County Farm Bureau Council makes plans for the county for a year, based on the plans of the several clubs. This plan of bringing state and national resources to the aid of local rural communities is illustrated by the accompanying diagram taken from the West Virginia Extension Circular. ^ A third method of attacking the rural community problem is that being undertaken by the state government of California. This is a land-settlement undertaking which plans and builds a farm community de novo, providing for a farm village at the center and for the various conveniences and organizations which are requisite to a bona fide rural community. This plan is borrowed from Australia and modified to meet the needs of life in the United States. The essentials of this method were pre- sented in the chapter dealing with land settlements, and the reader is referred to that treatment. This is a remarkably con- ceived method of building rural communities and promises much for the distant future; but for present purposes it is evi- dent that it can do little to alleviate the situation at large, since, as yet, only two communities of that kind have been established. Community centers. — In the discussion of the community idea, much attention is devoted to the community or social center. It is conceived that the developed community — the com- munity that is conscious of itself and is organized to supervise and stimulate to new achievement each of its several activities — that this going enterprise should have a central, common meeting-place or home. We discovered that a community build- ing is a great desideratum for the achievement of village im- provement. The need is even greater in the average open- country neighborhood. The needs are equally as imperative in the town-country, or urban, community. Doubtless it will transpire that for a long time there will be makeshifts in place of a commodious and well-equipped center. Farmers and community clubs will meet about at farmhouses, schoolhouses, churches, or wherever they can find a place. But as most homes, schools, and churches are constructed, they fur- nish very inadequate facilities for the many activities a wide- awake community demands. They have little or no provision for play and athletics — so attractive to the young. They are not specialized. Consequently a community stands in need of a •Circular 211, July, 1918, COMMUNITY BUILDING 559 physical plant that is sufBciently differentiated as to rooms and adequately equipped to house every legitimate neighborhood activity. Such an establishment may be provided for in several ways. When a community plans for a consolidated school building, it may so plan it as to accommodate not only the pupils at school, but, also, all the citizens at play, in discussion, for entertain- ment and sociability purposes, and for whatever else the neigh- borhood may desire and undertake. Or when a community decides tO have a community church and is planning a suitable home for it, the community needs and activities may be provided for. But in both of these cases, great care and foresight must be exercised lest the needs of either the institution or of the community may be interfered with. This applies with even greater force to the church than to the school, since it is com- monly regarded as too sacred to house some very legitimate activities, such as sports, plays, and dancing. Accordingly, we arrive at the conclusion that either a com- munity building or a set of community buildings is the goal to strive for. President Butterfield suggests ' that what may be needed is a "group of buildings, preferably, though not necessarily, grouped in the geographical center of the com- munity, each building embodying some large general interest." He further suggests that such buildings might be the Farmers Exchange, headquarters for all business interests ; the school- house, the educational and cultural center; the Community House, home of recreational and sociability interests; and the church, "the recognized center of the great ideals and the spiritual refreshment of life." He continues with point: "Let us get firmly fixed the thought that the mere enthusiasm for a community center is not necessarily good in itself. What we want is something that brings the community together, that gives com- munity interests a hearthstone, as it were, a building which will be the concern and practical expression of community interests. We find at least four main interests in every community : "The community working. "The community learning. "The community playing. "The community worshiping." ' The Farmer and the New Day, pp. 178-181. 560 RURAL SOCIOLOGY TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION 1. Is the rural community sufficiently definite to warrant the proposal to undertake community building? 2. Recall, from an earlier chapter, what proportion of rural neighbor- hoods have a center or centers of some sort. 3. Is it likely that cities and larger towns can contribute much toward rural community -building? 4. What is the relation of community interests to organization? Might either exist without the other? 5. What qualities should a community organizer or builder have? 6. How would you rate community -building as a vocation? 7. What rural communities do you know that have been rebuilt or re- juvenated by special community -building effort? 8. Study the last census on rural depopulation in the various divisions of the nation and form a judgment as to the effect of such depopulation on rural community life. What is the highest rate of county rural depopulation you can discover? 9. Investigate the work of county agents in your section in behalf of promoting community building. 10. Estimate the influence of the National Country Life Conference in this direction. REFERENCES Abvold, A- G. — TTie Little Country Theater. Bailey, L. H. — How Shall We Secure Community Life in the Open Coun- try? The Country Life Movement in the United States. Benson, O. H., and Waeken, Gertrude — Organization and Results of Boys and Girls Clubs, Circular No. 66, TJ. S. Department of Agriculture. Bishop, E. G. — "Rural Community Life in the Haute Marne, " Sociologi- cal Monograph, No. 12, University of Southern California. Burr, Walter — Community Welfare in Kansas, Extension Bui. No. 4, Kansas State Agricultural College. , Sural Organization, Macmillan, 1921. Butteepield, K. L. — The Farmer and the New Day, Chaps. IX-X. Mac- millan, 1920. , The Community Idea in Rural Development, Publications of the American Sociological Society, 15: 46-53, 1920. Carver, T. N. — "The Organization of a Rural Community," Tearbook of the United States Department of Agriculture, 1914: 89-138. Cheney, Rosa M. ; Larson, W. E. ; McDonald, Ellen B. ; and Comings, G. F. — Social and Civic Work in Country Communities, Bui. No. 18, Department of Public Instruction, Madison, Wis. Cole, C. L. — "An Experiment in Community Religion," The Survey, De- cember 20, 1913. Community Center, The. Eiles of. Comings, G. F. — See under Cheney. Cooley, C. H. — Social Organization, Chaps. III-V; Macmillan, 1909. Dadisman, a. J. — French Creek as a Rural Community, Agr. Exper. Sta- tion, Morgantown, W. Va. Davies, G. W. — See under Galpin. Foster, W. D. — Organized Recreation, Proceedings of the National Educa- tion Association, 54: 49-54. Frame, N. T. — Focusing on the Country Community, Agricultural College Extension Circular, No. 211, University of West Virginia. COMMUNITY BUILDING 561 Galpin, C. J. — Sural Social Centers in Wisconsin, Wiseonsin Agricultural Extension Station Bui., No. 234. Galpin, C. J., and Davibs, G. W. — Social Surveys of Rural School Districts, Wisconsin Agricultural Station Circular No. 51. Hanifan, L. J. — A. Handbook Containing Suggestions and Programs for Community Social Gatherings at Rural School Houses, Department of Public Instruction, Charleston, W. Va., 1915. , "The Rural School Community Centers," Annals, September, 1916: 130-138. Hates, A. W. — Rural Community Organization, The TTniversity of Chicago Press, 1922. HoAO, Emily F. — The National Influence of a Single Farm Community, Bui. No. 984, U. S. Dept. Agr. Kimball, Alice M. — ' ' Rallying Round a School, ' ' Country Gentleman, January 19 and 26, 1918. KoLB, J. H. — Rural Primary Groups, Research Bulletin 51, Agr. Exper. Station, Madison, Wis., 1922. Larson, W. E. — See under Cheney. LiNDEMAN, E. C. — The Community, Association Press, 1921. McDonald, Ellen B. — See under Cheney. Mayland, Edwin — Farmers Clubs, North Dakota Agricultural College Circular, No. 23. Morgan, E. L. — Mobilizing the Rural Community, Massachusetts Agricul- tural College Extension BuL, No. 23. Nason, W. C. — Rural Community Buildings in the United States, Bui. No. 825, U. S. Department of Agriculture. , The Organization of Rural Community Buildings, Farmers' Bui., 1192. Nason, W. C, and Galpin, C. J. — Plans of Rural Community Buildings, Farmers' Bui. 1173, 1921. Olds, F. A. — "The 'Movies' as a Rural Community Organizer in North Carolina," American City (Town and County Edition), November, 1918. Pollock, R. C. — The Farm Bureau, Circular 'No. 23, North Dakota Agri- cultural College. Quick, Herbert — The Rural Awakening in its Relation to Civic and Social Center Development, Bui. University of Wisconsin, 'General Series, No. 310. Rainwater, C. E. — "Community Organization," Sociological Monograph, University of Southern California, No. 15. Ross, E. A. — "Folk Depletion as a Cause of Rural Decline," Publications of the American Sociological Society, 11 : 21-30. RuBBNOW, 8. G. — "The Community Fair — a Factor in Rural Society," School and Society, July 28, 1917. Sanderson, Dwioht. — Locating the Rural Community. Cornell Reading Circle, Lesson 158. June, 1920. Simons, L. R. — Organization of a County for Extension Work — the Farm Bureau Plan, Circular No. 30, U. S. Department of Agriculture. Sims, N. L.— "Rural Socialization," in The Rural Community, pp. 621-245. Also Part III of same work for many excellent selected readings re- lating to Community Reconstruction. The largest assembly of printed information on rural communities. Smith, E. D. — Community Councils, National Country Life Association, 1919: 36-46. Syllabus of Home-County Club Studies, University of North Carolina, Record, No. 121. Thompson, C. W. — "How the Department of Agriculture Promotes Or- ganization in Rural Life," Yearbook of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, 1915: 272ff. 562 RURAL SOCIOLOGY VOGT, Paul L. — Introduction to Rural Sociology, Chap. XXVII. Waeren, Gertrude — See under Benson. Woods, R. A. — "The Neighborhood in Beconstruction, " American Journal of Sociology, 19: 577-591, 1914. Wtman, Grace — What One School Did and How It Did It, BuL TTnivexsity of Wisconsin, General Series, No. 487. , The Organization of Bural Conununity Buildings, Farm. BuL 1173, 1921. SUBJECT INDEX Age distribution, 99 Agrarian moT.ementB, 346ff Granger, 346 Alliance, 346 Populist, 346 Non-partisan League, 352 Patrons of Husbandry, 354 United Farmers of Canada, 352, 354 Agriculture Ancient, 33 Medieval English, 34 Early American, 36 Becent American, 38 Agricultural production, 175ff Importance, 175 relative, 176 nationally, 177 to country, 178 as a business, 179 Question of economy, 182 Methods of increasing, 186 soil, 186 seeds and plants, 188 animals and dairying, 189 Antisocial classes, rural, 119ff Prostitution, 120 Tramps, 121 Delinquents, 124 Juvenile delinquents, 125 Automobiles Number used on farms, 376 and village decline, 472 Birth rate Rural, 84 Urban, 84 Capital and farming, 267 Child labor, 319 Children, farm Home a social center for, 391 Play and recreation, 391 Church, the rural, 438£f Historical Import, 438 Present conditions, 439 Decadence, question of, 440 Decadence, causes of, 442 Stake in rural problem, 447 Directions of improvement, 449 Objects to foster, 453 Clubs, boys and girls, 422 Community buildings, 546fE. Besponsibility for, 548 Need of organization, 549 Principles of organization, 552 Ends to promote, 553 • Methods of promoting, 554 Community houses, 482 Community, rural Nature of, 546 Goals of organized, 533 Organization, 554 Centers, 556 Consolidation of schools Advantages, 415 Objections, 416 Extent, 417 Cooperation, agricultural History, 250 California experience, 251 Extent of, 253 Cultural conditions, 48 Cooperative enterprises Social results of, 383 County government Defects, 359 Corrective proposals, 360 Credit, agricultural, 245 Dairying, 189 Death rate Rural, 84, 135 Rural vs. urban, 136 European, 137 Diseases, 145 Urban, 84 Delinquents, 124 Depopulation, rural, 91ff Diseases, rural an^ urban, 145 Economic traits, 44 Education, rural, 400flf and science, 401 and improvement, 404 Lack of articulation with local life, 411 County Unit plan, 430 Outside improvement agencies, 431 Education Value and function of, 401 and productivity, 403 563 364 SUBJECT INDEX Epilepsy, 114 Extensive farming, 192 Family, rural, 47 Farm Choice of, 261 Size of, 262 Farmers Open-minded, 194 and economic action, 223fF and middleman system, 227 and political action, 248, 347ff and labor income, 262 Backwardness in government, 343 and agrarian movements, 346 Political organizations, legiti- macy, 356 Class consciousness, 135-6 Farmers political organizations Legitimacy of, 352 Farming Extensive, 263, 265 Intensive, 265 As an occupation, 262 Type of, 265 and capital, 267 and credit, 268 Farm management, 257ff Meaning, 257 Qualifications of manager, 258 Social implications, 259 Principles and illustrations, 260 and capital, 267 and records and accounting, 270 Farm marketing, 223£E Importance, 224 Marketing functions, 225 Defects, 230, 242 Question of manipulation, 230 Grains and price, 231 Abuses, 237 Improvement, 244 Farm marketing system — Improve- ment of National market recording, 244 Improving agricultural credit, 245 Bringing producer and consumer together, 245 Political action, 248 Standardizing products, 249 Reducing middlemen, 249 Cooperative marketing, 250 Feebleminded, rural, 115 Treatment, 117 Female labor, 301 Foreign-laborers, 302 Forests and forestry policy, 205 Extent of forests, 205 Forest policy, 209 Granger movement History, 346 Causes, 347 Legislation, 351 Health, rural, 131fE Interest in, 132 Death rate as index, 134 Defects as an index, 140 Sanitary conditions as index, 141 Deficiencies, 142 Improvement, 42 principles, 147 useful a^eneieSj 153 health supervision of schools, 157 hospitals and dispensaries, 158 health laws, 159 health centers, 160 Home, the rural, 367fE. As a social institution, 367 Its unique position, 368 Its problem, 370 Equipment, 373 Conveniences, 373, 381 A social center for children, 390 Planning, 395 Architecture, 397 Home demonstration work, 384 Home project work, 421 Immigrants, rural, 104 Insanity, rural, 108, 537 Burai and urban, 109 Treatment, 113 Intensive farming, 192 International health board, work of, 155 Kelly land settlement bill, 221 Labor, agricultural, 297fE Nature of problem, 297 Extent and sources, 298 Supply, 299 Regular labor, 303 supply, 303 conditions, 304, 305 wages, 306 Improvement of conditions, 308 Seasonal labor season distribution, 310 demand for, 311 sources, 311 causes, 312 quality, 313 remedial, 315 Child labor, 319 SUBJECT INDEX 565 Land Supply and farming, 201 and population, 202 Use of in U. S., 203 Land policy, national, 197ff reasons for, 197 and general welfare, 198 and production, 199 and labor, 200 and tenancy, 200 and isolation, 201 Historic policies, 211 Land settlement policy, 215 Leadership, rural, 515fE Nature of, 516 Supply of in country, 519 Where produced, 520 Migration to cities, 524 Need of, 525 Training for, 526 Libraries, school, 422 Markets, 192 Marriage, 100 Middleman system, 226 Minerals, conservation, 210 Ministers, rural and several churches, 442 Salaries, 445, 450 Training, 446, 450 Mondell land settlement bill, 221 Nationality, 102 Natural increase, rural Rate, 84 causes, 86 Nonpartisan [League Rise, 352 Program, 352 Pauperism, rural, 106 Pests, 189 Physical defects Rural children, 140 Physical environment Influence of, 167 and agriculture in U. 8., 168 and rural society, 171 and production, 191 Population, rural Density, 531 Poverty, rural, 106 Price, agricultural products Cotton, 230 Grains, 232 Spread, 239 Progress, 18 Nature of, 501 Possibility of, 502 Progress, rural Methods of attainment, 505 Limitations to, 511 Prostitution, 120 Race, 102 Rainfall, distribution and crops, 170 Recreation, 48 Rest rooms, 388 Roads (see rural communication) Amount improved, 326 Administration, 326, 325 Grades, 327 Classification, 329, 335 Finance, 336 Construction, 337 Improvement, 338 Benefits of good roads, 330 Rural communication, 323ff Significance, 323 Defects of road system, 323 Benefits of improved roads, 330 Improvements of, 334 Rural communities Discriminating types, 55 Meaning of term, 57 Common traits, 60 General types of, 62ff Rural community, Tenn., 57 Rural isolation, 529ff Country vs. urban isolation, 529 Causes of, 530 Effects of, 536 Questionable remedies, 538 Valid remedies, 541 Rural life problems, 23 Socialization as chief one, 23 Social aspects to all, 24 As general social problem, 25 Rural migration, 88 By divisions, 91 Causes of, 94 Prevention of, 97 Rural mind, 50 Rural organization, 52 Rural population Character of, 42 Limits of, 79 Increase in, 79 factors of, 81 rural and urban increase, 83 Natural increase in, 84 Rural migration, 88 Age distribution, 99 Sex distribution, 100 Nativity and race, 101 Rural society and society, 21, 41 and urban society, 21 Interactions within, 23 566 SUBJECT INDEX Nature of, 29 and evolution, 29 Origin of, 30 Its economic stages, 30 Stages of development, 33 Distinctive character of, 41 Characteristics, 41 Economic traits, 44 Domesticity traits, 47 Culture traits, 48 Recreational traits, 48 Psychological traits, 50 Organization, 51 Rural sociology — as a science, chap. 1 Development of, 4 Purpose and scope, 6 Relation to general social, 6 Eeiation to other rural subjects, 10 Main tasks, 8 Statistics of institutions teaching, 4 Methods of instruction, 11 Fitness of title, 14 School, rural Typical, the, 404 Small schools — handicaps, 404 Attendance, 407 and illiteracy, 409 Consolidation, 415 Equipment, 418 Curriculum, 420 and libraries, 422 Supervision, 430 Sex distribution, 100 Society and rural life, 16flE Nature of, 16 Kinds of, 16 Independence in, 17 Evolution and change, 18 Progress, 18 and physical conditions, 19 Rural life as phase of, 21 Teachers, rural Supply, 411 Wages, 412 Migrants, 413 Turnover, 413 Housing, 419 Securing efficient, 424 Tenancy, 274 Spread in TJ. S., 274 Increase and disease, 275 Social significance, 278 as to yield, 279 as to farm plant, 280 as to community, 281 as stepping stone, 283 Causes of Price of land, 286 Supply of land, 286 Loan system, 288 Retirement of farmers, 288 Prevention Tenancy contract, 290 Land settlement, 291 Land ownership, 292 Organized action, 293 Theological seminaries and training rural ministry, 451 Town Town and country, 485fE Growth and country decline, 486 Concentration of wealth, 488 Antagonisms with country, 489 Cooperation with country, 493 Tramps, 121 Types — rural community, 54 Meaning, 59 Traits common, 60 General type, 62 peripatetic, 63 crop response, 64 ethnic, 66 open country, 69 farm village, 70 rurban, 71 single center, 73 cultural, 74 Villages Decline in population, 460 Incorporated places losing, 462 Divisional losses, 465 Losses by states, 467 Causes of decline, 469 Conditions in, 474 Agencies of improvement, 479 Water power conservation, 211 Wheat Price, 232, 234 Mixing, 238 Marketed, 234 Exported, 234 Women, farm, 367ff Economic importance of, 371 Outdoor work, 373 Conveniences in home, 373, 382 Isolation, 376 Housing, 376 Discontent, 379 What they want, 379 Improving conditions, 383 Power machinery, 383 Work of national government for, 384 Organizations, 388 y. M. C. A., 451 AIJTHORS' INDEX Adams, A. B., 240, 254 Adams, B., 62 Agee, ■ A., 173 Aitkin, T., 340 Alden, P., 62 Alderman, L. E., 434 Allen, W. H., 162 Allen, W. v., 362 Alvord, C. H., 294 Anderson, A. P., 30 Anderson, W. L., 483 Andrews, B. J., 398, 434 Andrews, F., 340 Andrews, J. B., 362 Arvold, A. G., 560 Ashenliurst, J. TJ., 455 Ashley, W. J., 40 Askew, Sarah, 434 Atwater, Helen W., 398 Austin, C. H., 294 Ayers, S. H., 162 Bagley, W. G., 434, 486 Bailey, L. H., 104, 321, 398, 434, 483, 560 Baker, H. F, 248 Baker, O. E., 221 Barnes, J. H., 254 Barrington, Charlotte, 483 Barrows, Ann C, 398 Bassett, C. E., 254 Beattie, W. R., 399 Bemis, E. W., 362 Bennet, E. N., 483 Benson, O. H., 434, 560 Bernard, L. L., 54, 61, 125, 131, 431, 455, 526 Betts, G. H., 434 Billings, G. H., 321 Bird, C. S., 483 Bird, F. L., 71 Bishop, E. G., 560 Blanchard, A. H., 340 Blythe, S., 502 Bogart, E. L., 40, 294 Bonner, H. R., 434 Bookwalter, J. W., 496 Botsford, G. W., 40 Bourne, J., 340 Bowman, T., 173 Bowsfield, C. C, 195 Boyken, L. E., 340 Boyle, J. E., 104, 254, 362 Bradt, S. E., 340 Branch, G. V., 254 Branson, E. C, 286, 294, 362, 441, 455 Breasted, J. H, 40 Breed, H. E., 340 Brewer, H. H., 321 Bricker, G. A., 455 Brigham, A. P., 173 Brisbane, A., 283, 294 Bronson, Sara, 37, 129 Brooks, J. W., 340 Brown, D. T., 340 Brown, H. A., 434 Bruere, R. W., 434 Brunner, E. S., 480, 484 Brunner, H. E., 429, 434 Bryoe, J., 54 Buck, S. J., 345, 362 Buckley, M. T., 496 Burkett, C. W., 173 Burnham, E., 434 Burr, W., 76, 560 Buttefield, K. L., 15, 362, 456, 514, 559, 560 Cady, L., 399 Campbell, G. M., 37, 129 Campbell, H. C, 340 Campbell, W. J., 4, 528 Cance, A. E., 254 Carpenter, Mrs. G., 321 Carrier, L., 294 Carter, H. R., 162 Carver, T. N., 36, 40, 273, 321, 362, 395, 456, 560 Cattell, J. M., 521, 528 Chapin, F. S., 40 Chenery, W. L., 47, 129, 162 Cheney, Rosa M., 560 Cheyney, E. P., 40 Childs, R. S., 362 Chisholm, G. G., 173 Clark, E., 104 Clark, T., Ill, 129, 434 Claxton, P. P., 434 Clopper, E. W., 321 Clow, F. R., 434 Cole, C. L., 560 5G7 568 AUTHORS' INDEX CoUings, G. L., 434 Collins, J. H., 340 Colquette, E. D., 252, 255 Coman, Katberine, 40 Comings, G. F., 560 Commons, J. K., 362 Cook, Catherine M., 434 Cook, O. F., 195 Cook, O. H., 434 Cook, W. A., 435 Cooley, C. H., 514, 560 Cooley, H. R., 129 Cooley, S., 294 Coulter, J. L., 255, 289, 294, 321 Cox, A. B., 221 Cox, J. W., 162 Craig, Wallace, 173 Creswell, Mary E., 387, 399, 431, 435 Croley, H., 514 Cromwell, A. D., 195 Crooker, Orin, 195 Crow, Martha F., 375, 376, 391, 399 Cubberly, E. P., 435 Cunningham, W., 40 Currie, B. W., 321 Curtis, H. S., 394, 399, 528 Cutler, H. M., 435 Dadisman, A. J., 560 Danforth, E. J., 481, 484 Daniels, A. M., 383, 399 Danley, P. V., 340 Davenport, E., 195, 435 Davenport, H. J., 173 Davidson, W. C, 162 Davies, G. E., 104, 521, 523, 528 Davies, G. W., 560 Davis, E. E., 437 Davis, A. C, 362 Dean, E. O., 273 Deardorff, Neva E., 162 Derivaux, E. C, 162 Dewey, Evylin, 435 Dillon, C, 294 Dixon, S. G., 399 Dougan, W. J., 321 Douglass, H. P., 484 Dorland, C. E, 255 Doty, S. W., 255 Dressier, F. B., 435 DuBois, W. E., 295 Dugdale, E. L., 120 Dunning, W. A., 362 Dyer, W. A., 435 Earp, E. L., 435 Eckerson, C, 484 Edgerton, J. A., 362 Eggleston, J. D., 435 Ellwood, C. A., 104, 129 Elsden, J. V., 340 Ely, E. T., 221, 288, 295 Emrich, C. F., 488, 496 Evans, Anna M., 389, 399 Evritt, J. A., 362 Faber, H., 255 Faguet, E., 502 Fairchild, G. T., 362 Fairlie, J. A., 362 Farwell, P. T., 484 Fay, C. E., 221 Ferguson, E. H., 255 Fernald, W. E., 129 Ferrero, G., 40 Fetter, F. A., 173 Filley, H. C, 255 Fisher, I., 162 Fiske, G. W., 522, 528 Fletcher, A. B., 340 Floher, L. B., 255 Foght, H. W., 418, 435 Folks, Gertrude, 435 Foote, J. M., 435 Forbes, E. S., S78, 399 Foster, W. D., 560 Frame, N. T., 560 Franklin, P. F, 362 Frissell, H. B., 295 Froley, J. W., 295 Frost, H., 330, 340 Frost, N. A., 435 Furbush, Edith M., Ill, 129 Galpin, C. J., 76, 114, 288, 295, 399, 455, 484, 560 Gaston, H., 362 Gates, F. T., 435 Gates, L. F., 255 Gerhart, W. S., 330, 340 Gosell, A. L., 484 Gibbins, H. de B., 40 Gill, C. 0., 410, 440, 442, 443, 444, 447 455 Giddings, F. H., 173 Gilbertson, H. S., 362 Gladden, W., 363 Glasson, W. H., 162, 289, 295 Goddard, H. H., 129 Godkin, E. L., 363 GoUlenberger, J., 47, 162 Goldenweiser, E. A., 104, 264, 265, 273, 284, 288, 289, 293 Graham, A. B., 435 Graves, H. S., 221 Greaves, J. E., 188, 19o Greeley, W. B., 206, 207, 221 Green, J. F., 295 Greenwood, A., 341 AUTHORS' INDEX 569 Grembry, J. E., 295 Grifaths, T. K. D., 341 Gross, H. H., 341 Groves, E. E., 541, 455, 524 Gustafson, C. H., 248 Hackenberry, J. E., 435 Haggard, H. R., 129 Hall, L. D., 195 Hall, O. E., 435 Hamilton, Alice, 162 Hamilton, J., 435 Haney, L. H., 221 Hanifan, L. J., 561 Harper, M. W., 40 Harrison, F., 40 Hart, J. IC, 435 Hartman, E. T., 484 Hawboker, C. C, 255 Hawthorne, H. B., 274, 399 Hayes, A. W., 561 Hayes, E. C, 54, 455 Haygood, JI. F., 162 Hayward, C. E., 456 Heath, F. G., 311, 321 Hedrick, W. O., 295 Henderson, C. R., 130 Hennis, C. M., 170 Henry, L. J., 295 Hibbard, B. H., 221, 255, 287, 295 Hill, G. G., 255 Hill, H. W., 154, 162 Hillis, N. D., 521 Hinckley, T. L., 484 Hine, L. H., 321 Hines, E. N., 341 Hinman, G. W., 333, 334, 341, 483, 484 Hoag, Emily F., 295, 561 Hobson, A., 255 Hobson, J. A., 87, 104, 135 Hodges, L., 363 Hodges, R. E., 295 Holden-Stone, 0. D., 341 HoUis, Mabel M., 162 Hollman, C, 282 Holmes, F. L., 321 Holmes, G. K., 40, 240, 273, 300, 301, 307, 308, 321 Hoover, H., 241, 255 Houston, D. F., 186 Howard, L. O., 162 Howe, F. C, 221 Hoyley, H., 341 Hubbard, P., 341 Hunt, T. F., 188, 190, 195, 273 Huntington, Ellsworth, 173 Hurd, W. D., 435 Israel, Henry, 456 Jacobstoin, M., 273 Jesness, O. B., 255 Johnson, A. N., 341 Johnson, G. H., 255 Johnson, O. K., 295 Johnson, R. M., 363 Johnson, S., 341 Jones, T. J., 432, 435 Judson, W. P., 341 Kelly, O. H., 363 Kennedy, J., 435 Kerr, W. H., 255 Kern, O. J., 435 Kile, 0. M., 255 King, F. H., 173 Kimball, Alice M., 561 King, D. W., 341 King, F. H., 295 Knapp, B., 387, 431, 435 Knorr, G. W., 435 Koester, F., 399 Kolb, J. H., 76, 561 Ladd, A. J., 435 Ladd, C. E., 273 Lane, F. K., 221 Langworthy, C. F., 399 Larson, W. E., 435, 561 Laski, H. J., 363 Lathrop, Edith A., 436 Law, J. W., 255 Leiserson, W. M., 321 Leonard, W., 282, 295 Lewis, C. M., 341 Lewis, H. F., 436 Lewis, O. E., 123, 130 Lewis, W. D., 295 Libby, O. G., 173 Lindeman, E. C, 561 Lippincott, I., 40 Lloyd, C, 341 Lloyd, 0. G., 288, 295 Longstaff, G. B., 104 Lubin, D., 255 Lumsden, L. L., 162 Lundberg, Emma 0., 116, 119, 130 Lusk, H. H., 221 Lynde, C. J., 399 McCormick, E. B., 399 McDonald, Ellen B., 561 McDonald, N. C, 436 MacDonald, T., 328, 341 McDougall, Jno., 374, 399 McElheney, Y. R., 255 MacGarr, L., 76, 436, 514 McKaye, B., 208, 221 McLenegan, C. E., 436 570 AUTHORS' INDEX McNutt, M. B., 456 McVey, F. L., 363, 373, 484 Macklin, T., 255 Magill, H. N. W., 436 Magnusson, L., 221 March, L. G., 456 Marquis, J. C, 436 Marr, W. M., 341 Marsh, B. C, 363 Martin, E. W., 363 Masters, V. I., 436 Maxey, C. C, 363 Mayland, E., 561 Mead, E., 221, 273, 295 Meitzen, E. O., 295 Mendum, Gladys, 129 Metz, C. W., 162 Meyer, W., 424, 436 Mill, H. E., 173 Miller, J. C, 436 Miller, K. E., 162 Millis, H. A., 321 Mills, J., 321 Mitchell, E. B., 382, 399 Monahan, A. C, 436 Moore, W. H., 341 Moorfield, C. H., 341 Moomaw, C. W., 255 More, C. T., 255 Morgan, D. T., 273 Morgan, F. L., 550, 561 Morgan, W. S., 138 Morman, J. B., 221, 273, 295, 321 Morrison, C. E., 341 Morse, .Tosiah, 163 Mullan, E. H., 436 Nagel, P. S., 283, 295, 497 Nash, J. C, 363 Nason, W. C, 561 Nearing, Scott, 195 Newton, E. L., 231 Nolan, J. C, 484 Nordman, E., 255 North, C. E., 163 Nourse, E. G., 221, 295, 306, 321 Obenchain, "\V. A., 341 Olds, F. A., 561 Page, L. W., 341 Parker, C. H., 314, 321 Parker, H., 341 Parmlee, M., 130 Parsons, P. W., 328, 341 Pearson, E. H., 163 Peffer, W. A., 363 Pennypacker, J. E., 341 Perky, C. N., 255 Phelan, J., 15, 40, 54, 163, 436, 456, 484, 514, 528 Phelps, E. B., 163 Phillips, H., 436 Plunkett, H., 399, 477 Pierce, P. A, 373, 399 Pieraon, C. W., 363 Pierson, E. A., 126 Pinchot, G., 410, 442, 443, 444, 447, 456 Pinter, E., 129 Pitner, E., 475, 484 Poe, C. H., 173 Pollock, H. M., Ill, 129, 138 Pollock, E. C, 561 Pope, G. W., 163 Potts, C. S., 37, 129 Powell, G. H., 242, 255 Powers, G. L., 321 Pratt, J. H., 341 Prezzolini, G., 295 Purvius, J. P., 484 Quick, H., 271, 273, 309, 379, 399, 561 Bainwater, C. E., 551, 552, 561 Eamsey, H. J., 255 Eeese, Madge J., 399 Eiee, 0. S., 436 Eichards, Ellen M., 399 Eipley, W. L., 174 Eoads, C, 456 Eoberts, A. E., 456 Eobinson, C. M., 484 Eoekefeller Foundation, report, 156, 157, 163 Kogers, A. L., 273 Sogers, F. F., 342 Eogers, T., 40 Boot, E. T., 456 Boss, E. A., 54, 63, 75, 550, 561 Eubenow, S. G., 561 Bubin, M., 104, 134 Eussell, C. E., 363 Saint-Maur, Kate V., 399 Sanderson, D., 4, 5, 6, 15, 76, 129, 561 Sanford, H. M., 342 Sargeant, P. D., 342 Sapiro, 252 Schmidt, C, 382 Schmidt, C. C, 436 Scott, Ehea C, 399 Seudder, M. T., 528 Seebohm, F., 40 Seerley, H. H., 436 Sellars, E. W., 514 Semple, Ellen C, 63 Shaw, A., 363 AUTHORS' INDEX 571 Shibley, G. H., 363 Showalter, W. J., 22? Simon, G. W., 295 Simons, L. B., 561 Sims, N. L., 11, 40, 76, 129, 436, 456, 484, 514, 528, 550, 561 Small, A. S., 174, 484 Smith, C. B., 295 Smith, E. D., 561 Smith, J. R., 174 Smith, K. E., 174 Smith, T., 476 Smith, W. R., 436 Snedden, D., 421, 436 Solomon, M. A., 342 Sowers, D. C, 363 Sparks, J. E., 163 Speed, G. H., 321 Spillman, J. W., 284, 285, 288, 289, 295, 321, 521 Spillman, N. J., 190, 195 Spoon, W. L., 342 Starratt, F. A., 456 Stern, R. B., 399 Stevens, E. A., 342 Stevenson, J. A., 363 Stewart, C. L., 295 Stewart, Cora W., 436 Stewart, 0. B., 456 Stiles, C. W., 63 Stinson, R., 436 Stone, Julia M., 436 Strong, H. M., 221 Stubbs, C. W., 484 Sundberg, G., 134 Taylor, A. E., 491, 492, 497 Taylor, G., 363 Taylor, G. B., 163 Taylor, H. A., 163 Taylor, H. C, 195, 256, 273, 276, 295, 321 Thomas, A. O., 428, 437 Thomas, A. V., 363 Thompson, C. W., 273, 295, 379, 399, 445, 461 Thompson, E. H., 373 Thompson, H. C, 37, 130 Thompson, J., 363 Thompson, W. S., 88, 104, 195, 222 Tillotson, L. R., 342 Tipple, E. S., 456 Todd, A. J., 399, 419, 437, 456, 514 Towne, E. T., 163, 195, 222 Treadway, W. L., 116, 119, 130, 437 Trego, E. A., 342 Trueblood, V. C, 317, 321 Tniesdale, L. E., 273 Tubbs, M. W., 363 Utlcy, G. B., 437 Van De Water, Virginia T., 399 Veblen, T., 45, 250, 256 Verry, W. B., 295 Vincent, G. E., 174, 296, 437, 484 Vogt, P. L., 15, 124, 130, 163, 282, 321, 437, 456, 470, 484, 514, 561 Von Tunglen, G. H., 374, 399 Waldron, C. B., 196 Walker, C. S., 363 Warber, G. P., 282, 295, 379, 399, 445 Ward, L. F., 528 Ward, Florence E., 373, 374, 379, 382, 384, 400 Ward, W. G., 397, 399 Warren, G. F., 187, 188, 192, 196, 267, 273, 295, 300, 321 Warren, Gertrude, 437, 561 Warren, B. S., 173, 196 Watson, T. E., 363 Waugh, F. A., 400, 437, 484 Weber, J. J., 163 Weeks, A. D., 497 Welch, R. H., 383, 400 Weld, L. D. H., 240, 242, 255, 256 Wells, G. F., 456 Welton, T. A., 89, 105 Weyl, W., 414 Wheeler, A. S., 293 Wheeler, I., 5 Whipple, G. C, 104 White, E. v., 282, 295, 437 White, W. A., 497 Wilcox, E. v., 300, 301, 303, 309, 321 Wilcox, W. F., 104 Willard, R., 170 Williams, A. D., 342 Williams, E. W., 362 Williams, G. H., 437 Wilkins, L. K., 342 Wilson, Elvina T., 400 Wilson, J., 186, 196 Wilson, W. H., 442, 456, 528 Witt, J. F., 342 Woodbum, J. A., 104 Woods, F. A., 521, 528 Woods, J. B., 342 Woods, R. A., 550, 561 Workman, J. M., 231 Wyman, Grace, 561 Yohe, A. S., 256, 342 Young, F. G., 342 Young, G. B., 437 Youngblood, B., 295