The day of the moss-back who went for his mail once every week, the same

day he got shaved and sold his butter, is gone forever, so far as most of

our country is concerned. To-day about 20,000,000 of our rural neighbors

receive their mail at their own farms, delivered by Uncle Sam's

messengers; and this great change has occurred in a decade and a half. In

1897 $40,000 was the appropriation by Congress for the experiment in rural

free delivery. In 1909 the expense was about $36,000,000, and on June 1 of

that year there were 40,637 rural routes, nearly all of them daily

service. This rural army of the civil service is almost as large as the

whole military force of the country and possibly quite as useful. It is

rapidly driving from our rural homes the specters of ignorance,

superstition, provincialism and prejudice, and the positive good

accomplished cannot be estimated. Letter writing makes and keeps friends.

Thousands of farmers' families have joined The League of the Golden Pen in

recent years. Their mail collected and distributed doubles in four or five

years after the local R. F. D. is started.

Among the new civilizing factors is the metropolitan daily, bringing to

millions of farmers the daily stimulus to thought and action which the

continued story of the throbbing life of the struggling world unfailingly

brings. On one rural route the number of daily papers delivered increased

in three years from thirteen to 113. The great interests of humanity are

now intelligently discussed by the farmer and his boys as they go about

their work, and the broadening of interests is what prevents stagnation

and enriches life.

We are not surprised to find a wonderful increase of magazines and other

periodical literature in the country, especially the farm journals which

have attained such influence and excellence. R. F. D. did it. Likewise the

remarkable increase of shopping by mail is due to the same cause. Though

many such purchases are doubtless foolishly made, it is undoubtedly true

that even the great catalogs of mail-order houses with their description

of many of the comforts of modern civilization have been of great

educative value and have stimulated the ambition of countless country

homes for an improved scale of living.

A recent rural survey of Ohio revealed the fact that pianos or organs were

found in 25.9% of the 300,000 rural homes of the state, though only 4.8%

had bath tubs! We venture to guess that many of these musical instruments

were bought by mail, after the family had for many days studied the

alluring catalogs of Chicago mail-order houses. Incidentally, it would be

well for Chicago to sell more bath tubs! The new rural civilization is

rapidly requiring them.

_The Automobile, a Western Farm Necessity_

Often merely a luxurious plaything in the city, a saucy bit of flaunting

pride particularly irritating to envious neighbors, the automobile finds

great usefulness in the country. The average village as yet cares little

for it; but the western farmer in the open country is finding it almost a

necessity. The proportion of autos to farms, in the prosperous corn and

wheat belt, is very surprising. Low salaried tradesmen in the cities have

mortgaged their homes to buy the coveted automobile; the thrifty farmer

has also been known to do the same, but with vastly better reason. A

certain bank in a Mississippi valley state tried to stop the withdrawal of

funds for the purchase of machines, the vast sums being withdrawn from the

state for this purpose had become so alarming; but it was like damming

Niagara! In a prosperous little farm community in Iowa with only a few

scattering families, there were nine automobiles last summer; and the

situation is probably typical of prosperous western communities. A

reliable authority vouches for the fact that 179 automobiles were sold in

Cawker City, Kansas, in 1911. The population of the "city" in 1910 was

870. Obviously most of these machines must have been distributed among the

farms in the outlying country. The village itself had last year but

twenty-one automobiles.

Quite likely the per capita number of machines is greater in our great

agricultural states than in the cities. It is needless to emphasize the

social possibilities of this newest of our agencies for the newer rural

civilization. As a means of communication it outstrips all but the

telephone. It brings farm life right up to the minute for progressiveness,

with a pardonable pride in being able to keep pace with the city. It

annihilates distance and makes isolation a myth; and as the expense

becomes less and less with every year, the time is soon coming when every

farmer who can now afford the ordinary farm machinery will be able also to

possess this newest symbol of rural prosperity.

II. The Emancipation from Drudgery.

_The Social Revolution Wrought by Machinery_

Next to the great social transformation caused by these modern means of

fighting isolation comes the emancipation from drudgery brought in by farm

machinery. Labor saving machinery is just as much a feature of modern

civilization in the country as it is in the city. Machinery, by developing

the factory system, centralized industry and produced the great cities,

attracting thousands from the farms to man the looms. But this is only

half the story. Meanwhile the invention of _agricultural_ machinery made

it possible for the farm work of the country to be done by fewer men.

Therefore the farm population of the United States decreased from 47.6% in

1870 to 35.7% in 1900, representing a change from agriculture to other

employments by three and a half millions of people. Meanwhile, comparing

the average value of farms, and the relative purchasing power of money,

the average farmer was 42% better off at the end of the century than fifty

years before.[16]

The tendency of farm machinery to throw men out of employment and send

many to the city is shown by these facts from the thirteenth annual report

of the U. S. Commissioner of Labor. The sowing of small grains is

accomplished nowadays by machine methods in from one-fifth to one-fourth

the time formerly required for hand-sowing. One man with a modern

harvester can now do the work of eight men using the old methods, while

the modern threshing machine has displaced fourteen to twenty-nine farm

laborers. Machinery displaces the labor or increases the crop, according

to circumstances; but usually both. It has greatly increased the output of

farm products, sometimes reduced prices, and vastly increased the

efficiency of the workers. Of nine of the more important crops, the

average increase in labor efficiency in the past two generations has been

500%, while in the case of barley it was over 2,200%, and nearly the same

for wheat.[17]

_The Evolution of Farm Machinery_

The great incentive in America for our astonishing development of farm

machinery has been our cheap lands and our relatively high wages. But the

noble desire to rise above the slavery of drudgery has constantly had its

influence. American ambition has combined with Yankee ingenuity to produce

this wonderful story. The plow, that greatest of all implements, has

passed through constant changes, from the crude simplicity of early days

to the giant steam gang-plow of the present.

The first steel plow was made in 1837 from an old saw blade! The first

mowing machine was patented in 1831. Imperfect reapers appeared two years

later and were made practicable by 1840, one of the triumphs of modern

industry. Meanwhile threshing machines began to come into use and

separaters were combined with them by 1850. The first steam thresher

appeared in 1860.

It was a dramatic moment in history when at the Paris Exhibition of '55 a

hopeless contest was waged between six sturdy workmen with the old hand

flail, and threshing machines from four different countries. In the

half-day test the six men threshed out by hand sixty liters of wheat;

while a single American with his machine threshed 740 liters and easily

beat all contestants.

By the time of the civil war great saving of labor had been effected by

the invention of the corn planter and the two-horse cultivator. By 1865,

about 250,000 reaping machines were in use and by 1880 our country had

become the greatest exporter of wheat in the world. The invention of the

twine-binder made this possible, making practicable the raising of greater

crops of wheat; for as Professor T. N. Carver says: "The _harvesting_ of

the grain crop is the crucial point. The farmer has to ask himself, not,

'How much grain can I grow?' but, 'How much can I harvest with such help

as I can get?'" By the late seventies the steam thresher was fast

supplanting horse-power and a great impetus was given wheat growing when

the roller process for manufacturing flour was invented. By this process

better flour was made from spring wheat than had ever been produced from

the winter grain, and this made Minneapolis the Flour City, in place of

Rochester.

In rapid succession the check-rower, permitting cross cultivation of

corn, the lister, for deep plowing and planting, the weeder, the riding

cultivator, the disk harrow and other kindred machines greatly helped the

production of corn, our greatest crop. Cheese and butter factories and

improvements in dairy methods helped to make Americans probably the

largest consumers of butter in the world. The Babcock test for determining

the butter fat, and the centrifugal separater for extracting the cream,

were most important.

_The Evolution of the Plow_

In the last quarter century the improvement on these earlier farm machines

has been remarkable and elaborate. One of the most wonderful continued

stories of human ingenuity is the evolution of the plow, from the historic

crooked stick that merely tickled the surface of the ground (and is still

used in many countries) to the steam gang-plow which tears up the earth at

an astonishing pace, and thoroughly prepares the soil meanwhile. When with

a gang-plow and five horses, it became possible for a man to plow five

acres a day, it was supposed the acme of progress was attained. But soon

steam traction was introduced on the prairies and two men were able thus

to plow a dozen furrows at once and cover thirty to forty acres in a day.

Now, however, a 110-horse power machine, a monster of titanic power and

expert skill, plows a strip thirty feet wide, as fast as a man could

comfortably walk, and also does the harrowing and sowing simultaneously.

This completes the work of plowing and planting at the rate of 80 to 100

acres in a working day, or under favorable conditions even twelve acres an

hour, thus doing the work of forty to fifty teams and men. Yet millions of

people in the cities are not yet awake to the fact that we have a new

rural civilization! When we think of the thousands of men who have

patiently experimented and labored to perfect the plow, many of them now

unknown, we must consider the modern planting machine not an individual

but a race triumph. Among these innumerable experimenters was no less a

man than Thomas Jefferson, gentleman farmer, who gave months and years of

study in nature's laboratory to the single problem of perfecting the

moldboard of the plow, that it might do the most thorough work with the

least unnecessary friction.

Likewise the harrow, so simple in our grandfathers' days, has remarkably

developed, and we have peg-tooth, spring-tooth, disk, spader and

pulverizer harrows, drawn by horses or mules, which follow the plow with a

four- to twenty-foot swath. But here again the city mechanic must tip his

hat to the prairie farmer who uses twentieth century machinery, for we

have now a harrowing machine 100 feet in reach which harrows thirty acres

in an hour or a whole section of land in about two days! These astonishing

facts are particularly staggering to the small farmer, but they need

discourage only the incompetent. They have of course combined small farms

into great enterprises, and have driven some slovenly farmers from poor

soil. The pace is so fast. But specialized farming and intensive farming

have their own successes to-day as well as extensive farming, and it all

tends to elevate the whole scale of living and standard of efficiency upon

the farms; in short producing a new rural civilization.[18]

_Power Machinery on the Modern Farm_

A most interesting chapter in the story of human industry is the evolution

of power machinery. Gradually the drudgery of hand labor has been relieved

by water power, horse power, steam power, wind power and the modern

gasolene and electricity. The giant gang-plow with its 110-horsepower

traction engine is a prairie triumph, but it has very little interest for

the ordinary farmer on an average farm. Yet even the small farmer finds

the gasolene portable engine wonderfully useful and a great labor-saver at

slight expense.

Perhaps the surest way for a farmer to interest his discontented boy, who

is crazy for the city, is to buy a gasolene engine. A machine shop on the

farm is a great educator and a great resource for the boy as well as a

money-saver for the farmer. But best of all is the portable engine, which

not only relieves the boy of the most back-breaking labor but gives him

the keen delight of _controlling power_,--a mighty fascination for every

normal boy.

The most recent publication of a great farm machinery trust entitled

"Three Hundred Years of Power Development," dismisses electricity as

impracticable for farm uses because of its expense; and says of wind

power: "This power at best is unreliable and usually unavailable when most

needed." Yet the writer has discovered a 1,120-acre farm in North Dakota

where electricity is generated by wind, and wind power is stored in

electricity at a very slight cost, and it meets many of the mechanical

needs of this prosperous farm. So far as known this is the first instance

of a _storage-battery electric plant upon a farm, the battery being

charged by wind power_! The ingenious older son, now a graduate of the

State School of Science, experimented with this plan all through his

boyhood and is now securing patent rights to protect his invention.[19] He

discovered from the U. S. Weather Bureau reports the mean wind velocity

which could be depended upon at Mooreton, N. D., and built his windmill

accordingly. An ingenious automatic regulator protects the battery from

over-charging. The electricity provides 75 lights for house, barn and

other farm buildings; power for wheat elevator, all laundry machinery,

washing, ironing, centrifugal drying; cream separater and other dairy

machinery; electric cook stove, et cetera, in the farm kitchen; electric

fans for the summer and bed warmers in the winter; electric pumps for

irrigating, and even an electric vulcanizer for repairing the auto tires!

This is the way one farm boy succeeded in harnessing the fierce prairie

winds and compelling them to do his drudgery.

_The Social Effect of Lessened Drudgery_

To the mechanic the story of agricultural machinery suggests the miracle

of the conquest of nature by human ingenuity and perfected mechanical

skill. To the economist it suggests fascinating new problems of production

and consumption, and the new values of land, labor and capital. To the

speculator it means a greatly enlarged field for manipulation and wilder

dreams of profit. But to the country lover rejoicing in the new rural

prosperity it first of all suggests that from thousands of progressive

farms has the curse of drudgery been lifted.[20]

Hard, grinding, back-breaking labor, often with surprisingly meager

returns, and in some seasons with total crop failure, has been in the past

the bitter lot of the husbandman. Many a farm boy has thus had the courage

crushed out of him in early teens and has ignominiously retreated to the

city. Many a farmer's wife has grown prematurely old and has slaved

herself to death, leaving her children and her home to a younger

successor. These conditions of course still continue even in the new age.

Great numbers of farmers are still hopelessly poor, many of them

needlessly so, through ignorance, slovenly management, laziness or

willful unprogressiveness. But the rural moss-back is being laid upon the

shelf with other fossils and soon will possess only historical interest.

Great organized effort is being made to redeem him by the gospel of

scientific farming before he dies, and the effort is by no means vain.

III. Increased Popular Intelligence.

The new rural civilization, however, is by no means a mere matter of

methods. The farmer himself has been growing more intelligent. County

agricultural societies, first organized in 1810, set the farmers to

thinking. Many farm journals have contributed widely to the farmers'

education. But in the past twenty years many agencies have united in what

has been a great rural uplift. The government's department of agriculture,

the experiment stations established in each state, the better-farming

trains with their highly educative exhibits, the countless farmers'

institutes for fruitful discussions, the extension work of state

universities, the local and traveling libraries, and especially the

agricultural colleges, through their short courses in the winter, their

stimulating and instructive bulletins, their great variety of extension

service through their territory, are among the many agencies for popular

education in country districts which are becoming thoroughly appreciated

and highly effective. In a great variety of ways a genuine rural culture

is being developed, with its own special characteristics and enduring

values. All this is helping to make country life vastly worth while.

[Illustration: This picture illustrates school garden work at the

Macdonald Consolidated School, Guelph, Canada, E. A. Howes, Principal. The

time is June.]

[Illustration: The same garden at harvest time, in September.]

This increased culture among country people is a great factor in the new

rural civilization which must be given due consideration. It is this which

is overcoming rural narrowness and provincialism. Herein is great hope for

the future of the open country as a worthy home for people of the finest

tastes and of genuine culture. This important topic will be considered in

detail in Chapter VI, under Education for Country Life.

IV. The New Social Consciousness.

In these days when the gospel of class consciousness is being preached by

labor union leaders, as requisite to success, the farmers may well heed

the lesson. Let them stop the luxury of self-pity and discover a genuine

pride in their life calling. Thousands do not in the least need this

exhortation. They rejoice in their privilege as scientific tillers of the

soil. They are also discovering a real social spirit among themselves

which speaks well for the future. As a class they are claiming their

rights with a new insistence and a new dignity which is commanding a

respectful hearing.

Legislatures and the national Congress are taking notice; likewise the

railroads; but the middleman remains unterrified, secure in his

speculative castle. He may look well to his profits however, for the days

of organized agriculture are not far distant. The farmers are getting

together for business and are comparing notes with the consumers. The

producer finds he is often getting less than half what the consumer pays

and the cooperative spirit grows apace. The efficiency of farmers'

organizations for mutual profit has varied greatly in different sections,

but they serve a genuine need and have a great future, as class

consciousness increases among farmers.

But the new social consciousness in the country is not merely a matter of

group loyalty. It has to do with the interests of the whole community. The

selfish days of the independent farmer are rapidly passing. The social

spirit of mutual interdependence is certainly growing. One of the tests of

modern civilization is the capacity for cooperation. Tardily, very

tardily, the country has been following the city in this ability to

cooperate for common ends and the community welfare, but improvement is

very evident.

The problem of community socialization will be treated in Chapter V. We

shall find that the need of cooperation runs through every phase of rural

life and explains the common weakness of every rural institution. But

leaders of country life, both East and West, have caught the social vision

and are sharing it with their neighbors. "_Together_" is the watchword of

the new day in the country, and the incentive of cooperative endeavor is

the key to the new success in every rural interest and organization.

V. Effect of the New Order on Rural Institutions.

For several decades we have been seriously troubled by the decay of rural

institutions. The strain upon them resulting from rural depletion has been

very serious. First of all the country schools began to deteriorate and

thousands of them doubtless have been closed. With the decay of the

village, the village store, that social center and fountain of all wisdom,

has lost prestige and most of its trade. The trolley and the mail order

houses have made it unnecessary. With the coming of the rural delivery

route, even the village post-office has lost all social importance. With

the advent of farm machinery and fewer farm hands, many of the jolly

social functions of the past, such as husking bees, barn raisings,

spelling bees and lyceums, have ceased to be; while the rural churches in

all depleted sections have suffered sadly and in hundreds of cases have

succumbed.

In some scattered communities, away from the beaten paths, this social

decay has resulted in de-socializing the neighborhood. Feuds, grudges,

gross immoralities have followed and the people have relapsed into

practical heathenism. But in many places _social readjustment has come_,

with a new efficiency in rural institutions. Centralized schools have

brought a new largeness of vision in place of the little district

knowledge shop. The great advantages of the rural free delivery have

certainly outweighed the loss of the social prestige of the post-office,

just as the trolley is more valuable than the village store. Many of the

old time social functions were worth while, but new institutions like the

Grange and the farmers' clubs, institutes and cooperative organizations

are better fitted to the modern age and are contributing largely to the

new rural civilization, while the village church and the church in the

open country are discovering new opportunities for service, broader

community usefulness and a great social mission.

The new rural civilization is bringing a new prosperity into the great

business of farming. It is bringing new and permanent satisfactions and

comforts into country homes. It has greatly diminished the vexed problem

of rural isolation, with its many new ways of communication. It has to a

remarkable degree eliminated drudgery, through the use of wonderful

machinery. It has popularized education and developed a new social

consciousness and new efficiency in rural institutions, amounting often to

a total redirection of the community life. But fundamentally the new

civilization is naturally religious. It is revealing the strong religious

sentiment in country folks, even when they are not associated with

churches. It is calling upon the church to gird itself for new tasks and

under a new, virile type of leadership undertake real community building

with the modern church as the center of activity and source of inspiration

and guidance. The church should be, and with adequate leadership is, the

local power house of the country life movement.

_Rural Progress and the Providence of God_

Every man of faith must see in this new rural civilization the purpose of

God to redeem the country from the dangers of a rural peasantry and moral

decadence. Progress is the will of God. Christ's vision of a Kingdom of

Heaven involved a redeemed world. That Kingdom of Heaven is coming

ultimately in the country as well as in the city. Every sign of rural

progress indicates it and should be hailed with joy by men of faith. The

triumph over isolation and the gradual emancipation from drudgery, the

development of good roads, trolleys, telephones, rural mail service,

automobiles, and the wonderful evolution of farm machinery are all

way-marks in the providence of God indicating the ultimate coming of his

Kingdom. The increased intelligence among farming people, the many new

agencies for popular education, the new social consciousness and growing

spirit of cooperation, the new efficiency of rural institutions, a better

school, a community-serving church, a character-building home, as well as

a scientifically conducted farm, every one of these makes for better rural

morals and better religion, and should delight the heart of every earnest

man who "desires a _better country_, that is a heavenly."

[Illustration: Plan of Macdonald Consolidated School grounds and gardens,

Bowesville, Ontario, Canada.]

TEST QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER III

1.--Why are the terms "countryman" and "farmer" ceasing to be used as

terms of ridicule?

2.--What effect, in past years, has _isolation_ had upon people living in

the country?

3.--What modern means of intercommunication have largely overcome the

evils of rural isolation?

4.--What are the social possibilities of the telephone for people living

in the open country?

5.--Why are good roads so essential, socially and industrially, in the

country sections?

6.--When was the "Good Roads Association" formed, and how much has your

state expended for state roads the past twenty years? (Inquire of your

County Surveyor.)

7.--What do the rural sections owe to the steam railroad system of the

country?

8.--What have the trolleys accomplished which the steam roads could not

do?

9.--What changes in rural life are due to the rural free delivery of mail?

10.--Describe what these changes have accomplished in your own home

county.

11.--To what extent has machinery relieved farm labor of its drudgery?

12.--Describe the evolution of the plow and the harrow.

13.--What inventions in farm machinery have had the greatest influence on

rural progress?

14.--What can you say about the increase of intelligence in the country

sections you have known?

15.--What agencies are now at work in the country making popular education

possible?

16.--Have you observed anywhere yet the new social consciousness or class

consciousness among farmers?

17.--To what extent do you think cooperation has gained acceptance in the

country?

18.--In what rural institutions is cooperation still greatly lacking?

19.--What changes have already come in rural institutions?

20.--How is this new rural civilization revealing the will of God, and

what relation has it to the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven?

CHAPTER IV

TRIUMPHS OF SCIENTIFIC AGRICULTURE

CHAPTER IV

TRIUMPHS OF SCIENTIFIC AGRICULTURE

I. _Its Struggle with Rural Conservatism_

Modern efficiency in city and country.

The natural conservatism of farmers.

What is progressive agriculture?

Its development by government patronage.

II. _Some Special Aspects of Scientific Agriculture_

Intensive farming and conservation of fertility.

Achievements of scientific breeding.

Marvels of plant production.

Irrigation and the problem of the desert.

Dry farming possibilities.

III. _Some Results of Scientific Farming_

Agriculture now a profession.

Conservation: a new appeal to patriotism.

Permanency of rural Christendom now possible.

CHAPTER IV

TRIUMPHS OF SCIENTIFIC AGRICULTURE

I. Its Struggle with Rural Conservatism.

_Modern Efficiency not Confined to Cities_

_Efficiency_ is everywhere demanded by the spirit of our times. We are

living in an age that does things. Whatever the difficulties, it somehow

gets things done. It brings to pass even the seemingly impossible. Are

there mountains in the way? It goes over, under, or through.--There are no

mountains! Is there an isthmus, preventing the union of great seas and

blocking commerce? It erases the isthmus from the world's map.--There is

no isthmus! The masterful time-spirit has little patience with puttering

inefficiency. It expects every man to pull his weight, to earn his keep,

to do his own task, and not to whimper.

Our cities are hives of efficiency, cruel efficiency often. With new

pace-makers every year, the wheels of industry speed ever faster, raising

the percentage of effectiveness, per dollar of capital and per capita

employed. Hundreds at the wheels, with scant nerves, fail to keep the

pace; and the race goes by them. But the pace keeps up. Other workmen grow

more deft and skillful. The product is both cheapened and perfected. The

plant becomes more profitable, under fine executive efficiency. The

junk-heap grows apace: Out goes every obsolete half-success. In comes

every new machine which reduces friction, doubles results, halves the cost

of maintenance, and swells dividends. Surely efficiency is the modern

shibboleth.

Here is the new Tungsten electric lamp, which uses half the current, at

low voltage, but doubles the light; the very dazzling symbol of

efficiency. How it antiquates the best Edison lamp of yesterday! Yet the

Tungsten becomes old-fashioned in a year. It is too fragile and is

speedily displaced by the improved Mazda.

But _city_ life has no monopoly on efficiency. In fact we do not find in

the mills or factories the best illustrations of modern effectiveness. We

have to go back to the soil. Agriculture has become the newest of the

arts, by the grace of modern science. To make two blades of grass grow

where one grew before is too easy now. Multiplying by two is small boys'

play. Burbank has out-Edisoned Edison! He and other experimenters in the

scientific breeding of plants and animals have increased the efficiency of

every live farmer in the land, and have added perhaps a billion dollars a

year to the nation's wealth.

They have not yet crossed the bee and the firefly, as some one has

suggested, to produce an illuminated bee that could work at night by his

own light. Nor have they produced woven-wire fences by crossing the spider

and the wire-worm! Not yet; but they have done better. By skillful

cross-breeding, they have raised the efficiency of the sugar beet from 7%

to 15% sugar. They have produced hardy, seedless oranges, plums, apples,

and strawberry plants which will stand the climate of the frozen north.

They have developed fine, long-stapled cotton, high-yielding cereal

grains, and mammoth carnations and chrysanthemums. They have produced the

wonderberry, the Wealthy Apple and the Burbank Potato. They have developed

flax with 25% more seed. And the "Minnesota Number Thirteen Corn," so

hardy and sure, has carried the cornbelt in three great states fully fifty

miles further to the north, with its magnificent wake of golden profits.

No wonder America feeds the world. Such is our splendid Yankee genius for

efficiency. It is the master-spirit, the ruling genius of our age; and it

shows itself best on our fields and prairies. Other nations compete fairly

well with our manufactures. They outstrip us in commerce. But they are

hopelessly behind our American agriculture. The farm products of this

country amounted in the year 1910 to almost nine billion dollars. The corn

crop alone was worth a billion and a half; enough to cancel the entire

interest-bearing debt of the United States, buy all of the gold and silver

mined in all the countries of the earth in 1909, and still leave the

farmers pocket-money.[21]

_The Natural Conservatism of Farmers_

In all fairness it must be said, the modern gospel of progressiveness has

not been everywhere accepted, far from it. Plenty of farmers, doubtless

the majority, are still following the old traditions. Country folks as a

rule are conservative. They like the old ways and are suspicious of

"new-fangled notions." Director Bailey of Cornell enjoys telling the

comment he overheard one day from a farmer of this sort. It was after he

had been speaking at a rural life conference, doubtless proposing various

plans for better farming, which differed from the honored superstitions of

the neighborhood. A stolid native was overheard saying to his neighbor,

"John, let them blow! They can't hurt me none." He prided himself on being

immune to all appeals at such a rural life revival.

Such a man is very common among the hills, and wherever the soil is poor;

but he is beginning to feel lonesome in really prosperous rural

communities, for the new agriculture is fast winning its way. That is, the

application of science to agriculture has proved its efficiency by actual

tangible results. A farmer may be so superstitious as to begin nothing on

a Friday, nor butcher during a waning moon for fear his meat will shrink,

nor use an iron plow for fear it may poison the soil! But when his

neighbor by modern methods adds 50% to his crop, he knows there must be

something in it. The new _theory_ he always greets with "I don't believe

it!" but the knock-down argument of facts compels his reluctant faith.

Soon he gives the new heresy a trial himself; and success makes him a

convert to the new gospel.

An experience like this is a serious thing for a hide-bound conservative,

long wedded to old methods. It means that "the former things are passed

away and behold all things are become new." He loses his superstitions as

he discovers the laws of cause and effect. He gradually concludes that

farming is not a matter of luck but largely a matter of science; that it

is not merely tickling Dame Nature till she grudgingly shares her

bounties, but that it is a scientific process, the laws of which may be

discovered. This means mental growth for the farmer, the stimulus of many

new ideas which bring wider horizons and a larger life; and incidentally a

heightened respect for his own life-work.

_What is Progressive Agriculture?_

The old-fashioned farmer, particularly in America where methods have been

so wasteful because of the cheapness of land, has planted and harvested

just for the season's returns, with little regard for the future. The

modern farmer, self-respecting and far-sighted, plans for the future

welfare of his farm. He learns how to analyze and treat his soil and to

conserve its fertility, just as he would protect his capital in any

business investment. Scientific management and farm economy are taking the

place of mere soil-mining and reckless waste. The best farmers plan to

leave their farms a little more fertile than they found them. Good

authorities in rural economics assert that if depletion of soil fertility

were taken into account, the wasteful methods of American agriculture in

the past, though producing apparently large returns, have actually been

unprofitable. So long as new land could easily be obtained from the

government for a mere song and a few months' patience, the pioneer farmer

was utterly careless in his treatment of the soil. He moved from state to

state, skimming the fat of the land but never fertilizing, following the

frontier line westward and leaving half-wasted lands in his trail.

It was really a blessing to the land when the scarcity of free homesteads

brought this wasteful process towards its end. When new lands became

scarce, the farms of the middle West increased in value. For twenty years

farm values have been rising steadily, with two evident results: intensive

farming and speculation. The demoralizing effects of the latter are at

once apparent. It was a sad day when the prairie farmer ceased to think of

his farm as a permanent home, but as a speculative asset. But it was a

good day for the business of farming when the farmer discovered the need

of more careful, intensive cultivation to keep pace with rising values.

This marks the beginning of scientific thoroughness and efficiency in our

tilling of the soil.

_Its Development by Government Patronage_

Just then something very timely happened. The modern period of American

agriculture really dates from 1887, when Congress, by the Hatch Act,

established the first national system of agricultural experiment stations

in the world. Previous to this date there had been a few private and state

enterprises; but this Act of Congress established at public expense an

experiment station in every state and territory. The vast usefulness of

this movement in developing a real science of agriculture is evident from

this paragraph from the law:

"Sec. 2. That it shall be the object and duty of said experiment stations

to conduct original researches or verify experiments on the physiology of

plants and animals; the diseases to which they are severally subject, with

the remedies for the same; the chemical composition of useful plants at

their different stages of growth; the comparative advantages of rotative

cropping, as pursued under the varying series of crops; the capacity of

new plants or trees for acclimation; the analysis of soils and water; the

chemical composition of manures, natural or artificial, with experiments

designed to test their comparative effects on crops of different kinds;

the adaptation and value of grasses and forage plants; the composition and

digestibility of the different kinds of food for domestic animals; the

scientific and economic questions involved in the production of butter and

cheese, et cetera."

As a result of this and later laws, over three millions of dollars are now

spent annually, by the national and state governments, to support

experiment station work. Over a thousand men are employed in the

investigations and their publications cover practically the whole range of

the science and art of agriculture. About five hundred separate bulletins

are issued each year, which may be obtained free on application.

This great chain of experiment stations is working wonders. In cooperation

with the agricultural colleges and the U. S. Department of Agriculture,

they are raising agriculture to scientific levels. They are, by their

laboratory work, doing the farmer's experimenting for him and doing it

better and with greater certainty. Thus they are eliminating much of the

uncertainty and "luck" from farming which has been its curse and

discouragement. And thus they are equipping the farmer to cope more

effectively with the difficulties of nature and to put a more confident

fight with stubborn climate and fickle weather, because he knows the

scientific points of the game.

II. Some Special Aspects of Scientific Agriculture.

_Intensive Farming and Conservation of Fertility_

The opening of the rich prairie lands to cultivation, with the marvels of

extensive agriculture, is a wonderful story. Our last chapter suggested it

in outline. But _intensive_ farming has its own triumphs, though they may

be less spectacular. There is something that wins our respect in the

careful, thorough methods of European agriculture, by which whole nations

are able to make a living on tiny farms by intensive farming. Tilling

every little scrap of ground, even roadside and dooryard, and guarding the

soil fertility as the precious business capital of the family, it is

wonderful how few square rods can be made to sustain a large family.

Frugality is not attractive to Americans, especially the European type

which often means peasant farming, and a low scale of living. We are

discovering, however, the vast possibilities of farm economy and intensive

cultivation. Professor Carver says, "Where land is cheap and labor dear,

wasteful and extensive farming is natural, and it is useless to preach

against it.... We always tend to waste that which is cheap and economize

that which is dear. The condition of this country in all the preceding

periods dictated the wasteful use of land and the economic use of labor,

as shown by the unprecedented development of agricultural machinery. But

as land becomes dearer, relatively to labor, as it inevitably will, the

tendency will be equally inevitable toward more intensive agriculture,

that is, toward a system which produces more per acre. This will follow

through the normal working of economic laws, as surely as water will flow

down hill."

[Illustration: _The Stockman-Farmer Pub. Co._

A modern Fruit and Truck Farm in high state of fertility.]

It is wonderful what can be accomplished by intensive cultivation. If the

old New England orchards were given as thorough care and treatment as the

scientifically tended and doctored apple trees of Oregon, the results

would surprise the oldest citizen! Conserving moisture and keeping the

soil clean from weeds is worth all the painstaking care it requires. The

renovation of the soil by regular fertilizing is a lesson the wasteful

West is slowly learning, coupled with scientific schemes of crop rotation

to conserve the soil's quality. Farmers are astonishingly slow to adopt

these methods, however, thinking that they know best the needs of their

own soil. The North Dakota experiment station is inducing farmers to adopt

their advice as to seed selection and crop rotation with the promise to

set aside five acres for experimentation in accordance with the advice

given. This is extremely wise policy. Doubtless, if directions are

faithfully followed, the contrast with the rest of the farm will be highly

favorable to the five-acre lot and agricultural progress will win out.

_Achievements in Scientific Breeding_

In the earlier pages of this chapter we have already alluded to this

fascinating subject as an illustration of modern efficiency in country

life. Four years ago Assistant Secretary Hays of the Department of

Agriculture asserted that scientific breeding of better stock and plant

life was netting this country a billion dollars a year, of the total

agricultural production of seven and a half billions in 1907.[22] In 1910

the total reached about nine billions and it is probable that scientific

agriculture was the main cause of the great increase rather than

additional acreage.

One of the wonders of modern science is this story of the development of

new plant species and improvement in the best of the old, by the skillful

processes of plant breeding. Notable also has been the improvement in

American horses, cattle, swine and poultry, developed by the same

scientific principles. Projected efficiency, or breeding power to beget

valuable progeny, is the central idea. Simple selection is the method. Out

of a large number of animals the phenomenal individual is selected for his

notable capacity for reproducing in his offspring his own desirable

characteristics. Thus the best blood is multiplied and the less desirable

is discarded. Sometimes by close inbreeding the eugenic process has been

hastened. In this way scientific stock raisers have been able practically

to make to order animals with any desired quality. For instance, the great

demand for bacon in England has been met by a masterly bit of

agricultural statesmanship, for which Mr. John Dryden, chief of the

Canadian Agricultural Department, is responsible. After careful study and

experiment, the Yorkshire and Tamworth breeds of hogs were crossed and a

special breed developed especially valuable for bacon with exceptionally

long sides of uniform thickness and with alternating layers of fat and

lean. Selected bacon made to order!

New breeds of sheep have been developed which have combined phenomenal

wool-producing power with superior meat production; similarly short-horn

cattle with great milk-giving capacity and beef production; and more

remarkable still have been the results in horse breeding. In spite of all

the motor-cycles and automobiles, the horse is becoming more and more

useful, because more highly civilized and specialized. The breeders know

how to build up horse-flesh to suit your special needs for draft horse,

family horse, trotter or pacer, with any desired form, proportions or

talent, almost as accurately as a druggist compounds prescriptions! The

wonderful possibilities involved challenge our imagination. Among the

results of this stock-raising strategy we ought to expect not only happier

and richer farmers, but better and cheaper food and clothing for all

classes of people. The very fact that the business is now on a scientific

basis has appealed to students and is attracting men of large abilities

who see the opportunity to better rapidly, year by year, the live-stock

quality of the whole country.

_Marvels in Plant Production_

In the field of plant breeding these marvelous results are more rapid and

startling because of the wider range of selection. Hybridization, the

crossing of different species, has accomplished much more than simple

selection. Dr. William Saunders of Canada succeeded in crossing the Ladoga

and Fife varieties of wheat and secured a wheat which was earlier than

Fife and yielded better than Ladoga. Likewise, Luther Burbank was able to

produce a hybrid walnut by crossing the English and Black walnuts; and

Webber and Swingle developed the new fruits called tangerines and

citranges by crossing sweet oranges with carefully selected specimens of

the wild fruit. Experiments last year in blueberry culture developed

luscious berries a half inch in diameter. Possibilities in berry

development are almost unlimited, especially by crossing with hardy wild

varieties.

Peach raisers have two great obstacles to sure success: drought in the

Southwest and frost toward the North. Science is helping them to compete

successfully with the severities of nature. A hardy wild peach has been

found in Northern China and grafting on this stock has produced (this last

year) the hardiest peach in Iowa; while another strain bids fair to meet

the drought-resisting needs of the Southwest fruit grower.

Our agricultural explorers are searching the world for new varieties which

can be used in hybridizing to perfect the American species. For instance,

a wild wheat has been found in Palestine which requires very little

water. So a specialist in acclimatization was sent directly to the slopes

of Mount Hermon to discover its possibilities for American dry farming. If

the plant doctors succeed in developing wheat which can be raised in our

arid wilderness, it would repay a thousand fold the expense of a

round-the-world trip. The possible profits in skillful plant breeding are

almost unlimited. Burbank is quoted as asserting: "The right man under

favorable conditions can make one dollar yield a million dollars in plant

breeding." In 1908 the Minnesota Experiment Station had spent $40,000 in

breeding the cereal grains. The agricultural department is authority for

the opinion that "the increased production is estimated at a thousand

fold, or $40,000,000."[23]

The justly famous navel oranges of California can all be traced to two

scions sent from the U. S. Department of Agriculture some years ago. The

Wealthy apple, which thrives in the cold north better than any other good

variety, goes back to the early struggles of Peter Gideon at Lake

Minnetonka, who faced the Minnesota winter almost penniless, coatless and

with a family dependent upon him; but had faith enough to invest his

hard-earned dollars in selected apple-seed from his far off home in Maine.

The largest single contributor to the wealth produced by scientific

breeding is said to be the Burbank potato. The van-guard of American

experimenters are ranging the world and bringing home large-fruited

jujubes (as good as dates) from the dry fields of Central Asia; seedless

Chinese persimmons which have just been successfully fruited in North

Carolina; a Japanese salad plant and a vegetable called _udo_ which is

similar to asparagus; edible roots called _aroids_ which thrive in swampy

land where the potato rots; hardy alfalfa from central Asia successfully

crossed with our own varieties for our cold northwest; drought-resisting

cherries, apricots with sweet kernels, Caucasian peaches, olives hardy in

zero temperatures, mangoes from Porto Rico, the Paradise apple which grows

wild in the Caucasus, the Slew Abrikose, an apricot as smooth as the

nectarine, and wild strawberries fruiting in February on the dry cliffs of

western Asia which, through cross-breeding may help to carry our native

strawberry many miles still farther to the north.

The story is endless; but these items suggest to us the thoroughly

statesmanlike way in which our agricultural leaders are increasing year by

year the possibilities of our soil in spite of all drawbacks of condition

and climate. No wonder they are already prophesying that our annual

agricultural production will before long reach twenty billions. When it

comes, a large part of the credit must be given to the skillful

agricultural scientists who are furnishing all progressive farmers these

newer species of plants and animals which are superseding the inferior

varieties.

_Irrigation and the Problem of the Desert_

When it is the problem of sterility, it is hopeless. But usually it is

merely the problem of aridity; which is only a challenge to enterprise.

Much of our "Great American Desert," as the old geography used to

describe it, is in reality the most fertile of all soils; no wonder it can

easily be made to "blossom as the rose."

Dr. W. E. Smythe in his fascinating book "The Conquest of Arid America"

calls attention to the fact that the real dividing line between the east

and the west is the 97th meridian which divides in twain the Dakotas,

Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. East of this line is the region of

fairly assured rainfall. To the westward stretches the vast area of arid

land with a rainfall insufficient to sustain agriculture; and with only

three or four people to the square mile, though with resources enough to

support a hundred million people. With a climate matchless for health and

a varied and beautiful scenery, coupled with untold mineral deposits and a

soil fertility that is remarkable, this great section is slowly coming to

its own, through the method of irrigation, from the mountains and the

streams.

With characteristic western spirit the above author remarks, "Even in

humid regions nothing is so uncertain as the time and amount of the

rainfall. In the whole range of modern industry nothing is so crude,

uncalculating and unscientific as the childlike dependence on the mood of

the clouds for the moisture essential to the production of the staple

necessities of life." The superiority of irrigation as a certain means of

water supply which can be regulated at will is a thesis easy to maintain.

The results make a marvelous story. "The canal is an insurance policy

against loss of crops by drought, while aridity is a substantial guarantee

against injury by flood. The rich soils of the arid region produce from

four to ten times as largely with irrigation, as the soil of the humid

region without it. Twenty acres in the irrigated West should equal 100

acres elsewhere. Certainty, abundance, variety--all this upon an area so

small as to be within the control of a single family through its own area,

are the elements which compose industrial independence under irrigation."

The small farm unit, usually from five to twenty-five acres, brings

neighbors close together, abolishing loneliness and most of the social

ills of farm life in the East. Beautiful irrigated villages are springing

up which rival in comfort and privilege most places on earth, and combine

both city and country privileges, where rural and urban meet. The spirit

of cooperation is strong in irrigated communities, enforced by the common

dependence upon the common enterprise and water supply. This is well

illustrated by the Mormon commonwealth, the pioneer irrigators of the

West.

The enthusiastic irrigating farmer asserts that irrigation is "the

foundation of truly scientific agriculture." "The western farmer who has

learned to irrigate thinks it would be quite as illogical for him to leave

the watering of his potato patch to the caprice of the clouds as for the

housewife to defer her wash-day until she could catch rainwater in her

tubs." Irrigation certainly furnishes the ideal method for raising a

varied crop, giving each crop individual treatment, serving each of thirty

varieties of plants and trees with just the amount of daily moisture they

individually need, so as to produce maximum products. No wonder three

crops in a year sometimes result, and sometimes five crops of alfalfa in

the Southwest. Here we come to the highest development of intensive

farming where the utmost value of agricultural science has free play and

rivals the results of research and skill in any other line of human

effort.

_Dry Farming Possibilities_

Wonderful as these irrigation projects are, we must not fail to notice

that this method of reclaiming arid lands can only be used where there are

mountains, rivers or water courses which can be tapped. Ultimately an area

as large as New England and New York State will probably be blessed by

irrigation. But this is only a small fraction of the arid West. How shall

the rest be reclaimed from the desert? Obviously by some method of dry

farming, depending on and conserving the meager rain-fall.

A few simple principles have been discovered, and some specialized

machinery developed, by which successful dry farming is now conducted on

an extensive scale along the arid plains between the Missouri river basin

and the Sierra Nevada mountains. In brief these principles are: deep

plowing, sub-soil packing, intensive cultivation, maintaining a fine dust

mulch on the surface, the use of drought-resisting grains, especially

certain varieties of wheat, allowing the land to lie fallow every other

year to store moisture, and keeping a good per cent. of humus (vegetable

matter) in the soil to resist evaporation. In every possible way the dry

farmer conserves moisture. The dry mulch is particularly effective. Only a

few years ago it was discovered that by capillary attraction much of the

water absorbed by the spongy soil during a rain is lost by rapid

evaporation, coming to the surface, just as oil runs up a wick. But by

stirring the surface the "capillary ducts" are broken up and the moisture

tends to stay down in the sub soil; for the two inches of dust mulch on

the surface acts like a blanket, protecting the precious moisture from the

dry winds.

III. Some Results of Scientific Farming.

_Agriculture Now a Profession_

In such a brief treatment it is not to be expected that the writer could

do justice to the subject of modern agriculture. In fact there has been

little reference to the topic of general farming in this chapter. In its

main outline it is a familiar topic and requires little attention here.

The descriptions of certain varieties of specialized agriculture have been

given as illustrations of the more remarkable phases of the application of

scientific methods to country life. We hope two results have thus been

attained, that the dignity and efficiency and scientific possibilities of

modern agriculture as a profession have been brought to the attention both

of our readers in the city and of the discontented farm boys in the

country. Both need a higher appreciation of country life. It should be

evident to all that agriculture to-day is thoroughly scientific when

rightly practiced, which is simply saying that the practice of the new

agriculture is a _profession_. It is among the most difficult and highly

technical of all professions. No profession, with the possible exception

of medicine, has a broader scientific basis or is at present deriving a

greater benefit from vast inductive work in world-wide experimentation at

both public and private expense. This profession has made wonderful gains

in recent years in both extensive and intensive efficiency, and has

written among its triumphs many of the most romantic stories of modern

mechanical skill, inventive genius, economic profit and scientific

achievement.

[Illustration: Pennsylvania Farm Land.]

This honorable profession is not only worthy of the finest and ablest of

our American young manhood, but its opportunity and present need is a

distinct challenge to their attention. Mr. James J. Hill recently stated

as his opinion that not more than one per cent. of American farmers in the

middle West were keeping in touch with the agricultural institutions;

which is the same as saying they are not keeping up to date. This suggests

the need of more intelligent modern farmers tilling the soil as a

profession and thus pointing the way to progress for all their neighbors.

_Conservation: A New Appeal to Patriotism_

This word conservation has but recently won its place of honor in our

popular speech; but it is a word of mighty import. The battle for

conservation of our national resources is on, and it challenges the

attention of our young collegians.

It is encouraging to see results already. By a happy combination of

progressiveness with true conservatism, we are conserving our national

assets from Niagara to the mighty forests of Washington and California

and from the arid lands of the mighty empire of Montana to the swamps of

Florida. The nation is repenting of its prodigal wastefulness and is now

guarding jealously its forest reserves, its vast water-power privileges,

its coal and mineral deposits and its soil fertility, for upon these

stores of fundamental wealth depends the prosperity of endless

generations. Many alluring chances will come to men now in college to

share in this great task of the nation, this fascinating enterprise of

conservation.

_Permanency of Rural Christendom Now Possible_

Any reader must be quite lacking in vision who has been able to read this

chapter on the remarkable progress of modern agricultural science without

discerning the deep religious significance of it all. Civilization

unquestionably is based on economics. Rural prosperity is a primary

condition of rural permanence. Farming must be profitable enough to

maintain a self-respecting rural folk; or the open country would be

speedily abandoned to a race of peasants and rural heathenism would be

imminent.

Progress in agriculture, developing rural prosperity, means the survival

of the best rural homes and the finest rural ideals,--otherwise these

would go to the city. Retaining in the country a genuine Christian

constituency and rural leadership means the survival of the country

church. The Christian forces in the country have a vast stake in rural

prosperity. You cannot hope to build a prosperous country church on poor

soil or maintain it on bad farming. This is not a mere matter of scarcity

of contributions. It is a result of the poverty of personality among

people who are poor Christians because they are poor farmers.

Christian leaders should therefore rejoice in the advance of modern

agriculture not only because it all signifies a richer and broader rural

prosperity, but also because it makes possible the permanence of rural

Christendom and the survival of successful country churches. The more

profitable modern farming is made, the richer becomes the opportunity of

country life, the larger proportion of the brightest sons and daughters of

the farm will resist the lure of the city. Nothing is so vital to the

country church, humanly speaking, as to keep in the country parishes a

fair share of the country boys and girls of the finest type. With them it

lives and serves its community. Without them it will die and its community

will become decadent.

It is no selfish Christian spirit that rejoices in the broadening

opportunities of country life. The church is but a means to an end. The

great objective is the coming of the Kingdom of God for which Jesus

prayed. As fast as the very soil of a country is recognized as "holy

land," and preserving its fertility is felt to be a patriotic duty; as

fast as better live stock, better plant species and a better breed of men

are sought as a working ideal; as fast as the conservation of all natural

resources becomes a national life purpose; so rapidly and inevitably the

Kingdom of Heaven will come. The Country Life Movement is fundamentally

religious.

TEST QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER IV

1.--Mention a few evidences of modern industrial efficiency.

2.--What can you say of the efficiency of modern agriculture?

3.--In what ways have you noticed country people to be especially

conservative?

4.--Compare the wasteful farm methods of a half century ago with the

careful intensive cultivation of to-day.

5.--How has the government helped progressive agriculture?

6.--What are the experiment stations accomplishing?

7.--What do you think of the evil of soil-piracy?

8.--Mention some of the remarkable achievements of scientific breeding of

farm animals.

9.--What should be the results of all this improvement in our live stock?

What stands in the way?

10.--What has especially interested you among the marvels of plant

production by cross-cultivation?

11.--Why are representatives of our Agricultural Department searching the

world for new species of plants?

12.--Locate the desert sections of America where the rainfall is

insufficient to sustain agriculture.

13.--What do you think of the advantages and possibilities of irrigation?

14.--Explain the methods of dry farming, especially the principle involved

in the "dust mulch."

15.--To what extent is it true that scientific agriculture has now become

a profession?

16.--Explain the real patriotism in the modern policy of conservation of

natural resources.

17.--To what extent do you think the government ought to own or control

the great forests, the water power and the coal deposits? Why?

18.--How does this whole subject of progressive agriculture affect the

religious life of the country?

19.--Upon what economic basis does the permanence of religious

institutions in the country quite largely depend?

20.--What do you think is the great religious objective in all rural

progress?

CHAPTER V

RURAL OPPORTUNITIES FOR SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION

CHAPTER V

RURAL OPPORTUNITIES FOR SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION

A. Country Life Deficiencies

I. _Social Diagnosis_

Rural individualism.

The weakness in rural institutions.

The difficulty of organizing farmers.

II. _Failures in Rural Cooperation_

Lack of political effectiveness.

Lack of cooperation in business.

Lack of religious cooperation.

III. _Rural Morals and the Recreation Problem_

Lack of wholesome social life for young people.

Lack of recreation and organized play.

Morality and the play spirit.

B. The New Cooperation in Country Communities

I. _Social Cooperation_

The problem of community socialization.

Who shall take the initiative?

A community plan for socialization.

The gospel of organized play.

The school a social center.

The social influence of the Grange.

II. _Business Cooperation_

Modern rural cooperative movements.

Cooperation among fruit growers.

Some elements of success and failure.

Our debt to immigrants.

Cooperative success in Denmark.

[_Cooperation of religious forces will be treated in Chap. VII._]

CHAPTER V

RURAL OPPORTUNITIES FOR SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION

A. COUNTRY LIFE DEFICIENCIES

I. Social Diagnosis: Rural Individualism.

The preceding chapters have emphasized the riches of country life

sufficiently to save the author from the charge of pessimism. Let us hold

fast to our rural optimism. We shall need it all. But let it not blind us

to the unfortunate facts in rural life, for diagnosis is the first step

toward recovery. We are to notice now some of the fundamental social

deficiencies which are almost universal in our American rural society.

Dr. Butterfield calls the American farmer "a rampant individualist!"

Independence has been his national boast and his personal glory. Pioneer

life developing heroic virtues in his personality has made him as a class

perhaps the most self-reliant in history. The ownership of land always

gives a man the feeling of independence. Let the world spin,--his broad

acres will support him and his family. If one crop fail, another will

succeed, though the weather act its worst. American farms average perhaps

the largest in the world, nearly one-fourth of a square mile. Hence the

distance between farm homes, and the habit of social independence which is

bred by isolation.

"Every man for himself; look out for number one" is the natural philosophy

of life under such conditions. Self-protection and aggrandizement,

jealousy of personal rights, slowness to accept advice, proneness to law

suits over property, thrifty frugality to a fault, indifference to public

opinion, disregard of even the opinions of experts,--all are very

characteristic of people of such independence of life. They seldom yield

to argument. They do not easily respond to leadership. They are likely to

view strangers with suspicion. Self-reliance overdeveloped leads them to

distrust any initiative but their own. Hence they do not readily work with

other people. They refuse to recognize superiority in others of their own

class. All of which results in a most serious social weakness; _failure in

cooperation_, a fatal failure in any society. Positively, this explains

the jealousies and feuds so common in rural neighborhoods. Negatively, it

accounts for the lack of effective social organization.

Where a progressive rural community has readjusted itself to the social

ideals of the new century, these weaknesses are quietly disappearing.

Elsewhere you still find them.

_The Weakness in Rural Institutions_

This unsocial streak of distrust and poor social cooperation runs through

every sort of institution in rural life. Schools are usually run on the

old school-district plan with over-thrifty supervisors, no continuous

policy, and with each pupil buying his own text books; roads are repaired

by township districts, with individuals "working out their taxes;"

churches are maintained on the retail plan, the minister being hired by

the year or even by the week; the churches themselves are numerous and

small, because of the selfish insistence upon individual views; even

cooperative agreements in business have been repudiated by farmers under

stress of temptation to personal gain; while rural distrust of banks and

organized business is proverbial.

All of these unsocial tendencies are probably less due to selfishness than

to lack of practice in cooperation. City people however have had constant

practice in cooperation; hence they work together readily and

successfully. They are organized for every conceivable purpose good or

bad. In fact they are so intoxicated with the joy of social effort, they

are apt to carry all sorts of social life to an extreme. The social fabric

is as complex and confusing in the city as it is simple and bare in the

country. The problem for the country is to develop a wholesome social life

and an efficient institutional life which shall avoid the extremes of the

city and yet shall get country people to working together harmoniously and

happily. Only thus can life in the open country maintain itself in a

social age for successful business, church, home, school or social life.

Only thus can country character develop its capacity for those social

satisfactions which are the crowning joys of a complete and harmonious

civilization. But those who have faith in the fundamental vitality and

adaptability of rural life believe that even this serious weakness in

cooperation can be gradually overcome and country life be made as

effective for its own purposes as life in the city. This faith is

justified by large success already thus attained in progressive rural

sections with the modern spirit.

_The Difficulty of Organizing Farmers_

Five reasons are mentioned by President Butterfield to account for this

difficulty: Ingrained habits of individual initiative; Financial

considerations; Economic and political delusions which have wrecked

previous organizations of farmers; Lack of leadership; and Lack of unity.

Under lack of leadership, he says: "The farm has been prolific of

reformers, fruitful in developing organizers, but scanty in its supply of

administrators. It has had a leadership that could agitate a reform,

project a remedial scheme, but not much of that leadership that could hold

together diverse elements, administer large enterprises, steer to great

ends petty ambitions."[24] Yet country-bred leaders have been wonderfully

successful in the city under different social conditions.

Failures in leadership are often due to failure to get support for the

project in hand. This in turn is due to lack of common purposes and

ideals. A successful leader personifies the ideals of his following.

Unless there is unity in ideals the following disintegrates. Here again

the rural unsocial streak shows plainly. Individual notions, ideas and

remedies for social ills have been so various, it has taken the stress of

some great common cause, the impulse of some powerful sentiment, or the

heat of some mighty moral conflict to fuse together the independent

fragments. This was done when Lincoln sounded the appeal to patriotism in

'61; when Bryan's stirring eloquence aroused particularly the debtor

farmer class in '96; and when the projectors of the Farmers' Alliance, the

Grange and the Populist Party succeeded in their appeals to class

consciousness and convinced the farmers of their need of union. Rural

movements however have usually been short-lived.

II. Failures in Rural Cooperation.

_Lack of Political Effectiveness_

Farmers usually do their duty serving on juries and in minor civil

offices. They are usually fairly well represented in state legislatures.

But few farmers go to Congress or gain real leadership in politics. In

proportion to their numbers, the rural people have marvelously little

influence in the affairs of government. We have in this country no

Agrarian party. The farmers are divided among the different political

camps and seldom do they exert any great influence as a class in the

making of the laws. There are about seventy times as many agriculturists

as lawyers in the United States,--yet the lawyers exert vastly greater

civic influence and greatly outnumber farmers in most law-making bodies.

Yet there are about fifty million rural people in the country, largely in

farm households. The average farmer in 1910 paid taxes on 138 acres

besides other property. Why should he not have more political influence?

Why has he not demanded and secured a dominating influence in the state?

There is probably no reason except lack of cooperation, and adequate

leadership to accomplish it.

_Lack of Cooperation in Business_

Successful farming is essentially cooperative. The most successful classes

of farmers in the country, according to Professor Carver, are the

Pennsylvania Dutch, the Mormons and the Quakers. All of these cooperate in

their farming operations to a high degree, as well as in their social and

church life. They occupy their farms permanently as family homes. Their

land is not for sale, in spite of the rising values. To a large extent

they buy and sell, and work their farms together, to their great mutual

advantage.

The old-fashioned farm management however, which still generally persists,

is competitive, and therefore wasteful and unsocial. With rapid

transportation and the lengthening distance between producer and consumer,

the function of the middleman has grown and his power vastly increased.

Consequently on many products the rise in selling price is due to the

series of middlemen through whose hands the article has passed on the way

to market. Investigations at Decatur, Ill., revealed the fact that

head-lettuce sold there was raised within five miles of Chicago, shipped

into the city, repacked and shipped by freight to Decatur, a five-hour

trip; then stored in the latter city over night; and finally displayed,

wilted in the sun, in a store window, and sold to a housewife who buys it

for fresh goods! If raised in a suburb of Decatur, it might have been sold

at half the price, and been really fresh enough to eat. The same story of

flagrant waste through poor management might be told of butter, cream, and

practically all farm products which are not sold in a public market near

the producer's home.

Not only are both the farmer and his ultimate customer suffering a

considerable loss from this competitive system of marketing, the process

itself is bad socially, for this reason. It cuts off the farmer from his

normal market, the nearest village, and isolates him and his family so

that they have virtually no interests there. If the farmer should sell his

product in the village stores or through a public market, or a cooperative

commission house, he would have more at stake in that town. He would

probably trade and go to church there, his wife would do her buying there,

they would be persons of importance to the townspeople and would form

friendships and social relationships there. As it is, a wall of mutual

suspicion and disregard separates this family from the people of the town.

It is doubtful whether farming can be sufficiently profitable to-day, or

the life of the open country be really satisfying, without some degree of

cooperation in business. More and more men are realizing this; are

overcoming their natural weakness for independence and are discovering

numerous modern ways to cooperate with other farmers; to their great

mutual advantage both financially and socially, as will be indicated

later.

_Lack of Religious Cooperation_

The old self-sufficing and competitive methods of farming have been

closely paralleled by the selfish ideals in religion; the great aim being

to save one's own soul and enjoy the religious privileges of one's

favorite type of church, whatever happened meanwhile to the community. In

most country places religion is still strongly individualistic. Rural folk

have seen little of the social vision or felt the power of the social

gospel of Jesus, which aims not only to convert the individual, but to

redeem his environment and reorganize the community life by Christian

standards. Consequently rural churches are depending too exclusively on

preaching and periodic revivals rather than on organized brotherliness,

systematic religious education and broad unselfish service. All of these

are essential.

This lack of cooperation is very widely in evidence in the division of

country communities into petty little churches, so small and ineffective

as to be objects of pity instead of respect and enthusiastic loyalty. In

the older sections of the country, rural communities often have twice as

many churches as are needed; but in the middle West and the still newer

sections further westward the problem of divided Christian forces is even

more serious. Many a small township has five churches where one or two

would be quite sufficient, and all are struggling for existence. The

problem is less serious in the South, where denominations are fewer and

where union services are exceedingly common.

In a sparsely settled section in Center County, Pennsylvania, there are 24

churches within a radius of four miles. This fact was vouched for in 1911

by the Presbyterian Department of the Church and Country Life. The same

authority suggests the following:

In Marshall County, Indiana, with a total population of but 24,175, there

are twenty-nine varieties of churches, separating Christian people. The

situation is typical and the names are so suggestive as to be worth

recording: Amish Mennonite, Baptist, Primitive Baptist, Brethren,

Catholic, Christian, Church of Christ Scientist, Church of God

(Adventists), Church of God (Saints), Come-Outers, Congregational,

Disciple, Episcopalian, Evangelical Association, German Evangelical,

Holiness, Lutheran (Synod of Chicago), Lutheran (Synod of Missouri),

Swedish Lutheran, Methodist Episcopal, Methodist Protestant, Pentecostal

Holiness, Presbyterian, Progressive Brethren, Reformed, Seventh Day

Adventist, United Brethren, United Brethren (Old Constitution), and

Wesleyan Methodist.

The village of Lapaz in this county has only 252 inhabitants, but there

are three churches. They have 20 members all told! There are 68 persons in

the village who claim to be church members, but 48 belong to churches of

12 denominations elsewhere. There are 93 people affiliated with no church

whatever; and no boy or young man in the village belongs to any church. No

wonder!

III. Rural Morals and the Recreation Problem.

_Lack of Wholesome Social Life for Young People_

In three adjoining townships in Indiana there are 21 country churches, all

but four of which are dead or dying. The average membership is 52. One of

the local leaders significantly said, "We don't believe in any social life

in our church. Socialism never saved anybody." Exactly. Such churches

ought to die and certainly will.

The perfectly natural craving in all healthy young people for social life

is a fact the rural districts fail to appreciate. By years of drudgery the

farmers and their wives may starve to death this social craving in

themselves. The work-slave forgets how to play and outlives his social

hungers. But his children are not born that way. They have natural human

instincts and appetites and these imperiously demand opportunity for

expression. The religion that imagines that these things are born of Satan

and must be repressed, is a religion of death not life.

It is worse than useless for the church to discourage the social life

among its young people. If it tries to starve their social hungers and

furnishes no chance in the church for young people to meet freely in

friendly intercourse, those young people will meet elsewhere, as surely as

the moon shines. To put the ban of the church on dancing and all other

popular amusements, and then offer no substitute whatever, is not only

unreasoning cruelty, it is pure foolishness.

You cannot hope to dam a stream and make no other outlet. Undoubtedly the

country dance is usually a bad social enterprise; but the only way to

fight it successfully is with social competition, not opposition. The

loyalty of young people to the church often begins when they discover the

church people really understand their social cravings and are doing

something sensible to meet them. Happy the village where the young people

have all their best times under Christian leadership.

But unfortunately rural life is seriously lacking, both in and out of the

church, in social opportunities; and the condition is far worse than in

generations past. To begin with, farmers' families are perhaps only

two-thirds as large as they used to be.[25] There are fewer children in

the home and in the school. Farm machinery has displaced three-fourths of

the hired men. Fewer older boys are really needed on the father's farm; so

they are free to go to the city where the social life strongly attracts

them. The same is all too true of the farm daughters.

The incoming of urban standards has helped to displace the old-fashioned

rural recreations which were natural to country life, and the taste for

vaudeville, the public dance, amusement parks and picture shows has

developed instead. The husking-bees and the apple-cuttings and the

sugaring-offs, the quilting bees and the singing schools and spelling

matches, wholesome, home-made neighborhood pastimes, which meant enjoyment

from within instead of mere amusement from without, have silently

disappeared. Little remains in many rural places but unmitigated toil,

relieved by an occasional social spasm in the nearest village. In short,

recreation has become commercialized. Instead of the normal expression of

the social instinct in cooperative and wholesome pleasures which were

natural to country life, social stimulus is bought for a nickel or a

quarter; and an electric age furnishes forthwith the desired nerve

excitement.

_Lack of Recreation and Organized Play_

This modern sort of recreation is not as good as the old for two reasons.

It is really a sort of intoxication instead of a mild stimulant; and it is

often solitary instead of social. Solitary pleasure is subtle selfishness.

Even the rural sports are apt to be solitary, such as hunting and fishing.

If the country is ever to be socialized and a spirit of cooperation

developed which will make possible strong team-work in business, politics

and religion, then we must begin with the laboratory practice of organized

play. As a successful country minister says, "The reason why farmers

cannot seem to cooperate when they are grown up is in the fact that _they

did not learn team-play when they were boys_." Faithfulness to the daily

work is a great character builder, but Dr. Luther H. Gulick rightly

insists that play, because of its highly voluntary character, trains men

in a better morality than work does.

Especially is this true of wage-earners, students in school, and all those

who work for others. As Dr. Wilson in his fine chapter on Rural Morality

and Recreation, so well says, "What we do for hire, or under the orders of

other people, or in the routine of life is done because we have to. We do

not choose the minor acts of study in school, of work in the factory, of

labor in the house, of composition in writing a book. All these little

acts are part of a routine which is imposed upon us and we call them

work. But play is entirely voluntary. Every action is chosen, and

expresses will and preference. Therefore play is highly moral. It is the

bursting up of our own individuality and it expresses especially in the

lesser things, the preferences of life. The great school for training men

in the little things that make up the bulk of character is team-work and

cooperation in play. Here is the school of obedience to others, of

self-sacrifice for a company and for a common end, of honor and

truthfulness, of the subordination of one to another, of courage, of

persistent devotion to a purpose, and of cooperation."[26]

_Morality and the Play Spirit_

The undeniable fact that rural morality is so closely dependent upon

wholesome recreation makes this subject a most vital one. Life in the

country ought to be sweeter, purer and morally stronger than life in the

city. The very fact that _incognito_ life is impossible in the country is

a great moral restraint. But the moral stamina of country people will

surely give way, under stress of constant toil, unless relieved by play

and its wholesome reactions. Investigate the sad stories of sexual

immorality so common among country young people and you will find one of

the ultimate causes to be the serious lack of wholesome recreation and

organized play. The recreation problem is fundamental in this matter of

rural morality and the sooner we face the facts the sooner we shall see a

cleaner village life.

It is not enough to encourage occasional socials and picnics, track

athletics and baseball games under church auspices, as a sort of _social

bait_, to attract and attach people to the church. The Y. M. C. A. has

taught us that these social and physical things are _essential in and of

themselves_. They cannot be neglected safely. In a sense they are moral

safety-valves, for releasing animal spirits which might be dangerous to

the community under pressure. Certainly some measure of play is needed to

keep the balance of sanity and efficiency in all human lives. Rural life,

made solitary and mechanical by modern farm machinery, is seriously

lacking in the play spirit and team-play practice. Here is its most

serious failure in cooperative living. Here its socialization must begin.

B. THE NEW COOPERATION IN COUNTRY COMMUNITIES

I. Social Cooperation.

_The Problem of Community Socialization_

The seriousness of the problem as described in the previous pages has not

been overstated, though dwellers in progressive and comfortable country

communities may think so. Let them be duly thankful if their social

environment is better than the average here described. Speaking from broad

experience of the tragic results of rural individualism, Mr. John R.

Boardman says, "There is a great social impulse in the country but its

force is centrifugal. It tends to split up the community into jealous,

suspicious groups, and we therefore find sects and parties disintegrating

and multiplying often by division. This is nothing short of _a social

crime_. Strong measures must be taken not only to prevent further social

stratification of a prejudicial character, but to compel a practical

organic federation which will unite the personal forces, combine available

resources and focus on mutual interests."

Country folks must learn to cooperate; to live harmoniously together in

rural neighborhoods, to find real recreation in organized play, to work

effectively at mutual tasks and to utilize more successfully all social

organizations and means for community welfare. Interdependence must be

made to take the place of boasted independence. Selfish individualism must

yield to social cooperation. Only thus can life in the open country be

made to survive. Otherwise tenant farming will continue to increase and a

rural peasantry finally develop on the land, with absentee landlords

living in comfort in the more normal social conditions of the villages and

towns. Already 37% of farm owners do not live on their farms; and the farm

renter is cursing the soil.

This acute social problem is a great challenge to true lovers of the

country. We believe rural life will survive the test. In most respects it

has made great progress in recent years, and in many quarters it is

rapidly learning the practical value of cooperation. Given adequate,

intelligent leadership, country life will surely grow in social efficiency

and happiness, and thus be better able to hold its best people loyal to

the open country.

The problem, then, of socializing the community so that it will cooperate

successfully, is to unite all the personal and social resources, federate

all worth-while institutions for concerted action for mutual welfare; then

"focus on mutual interests" and work together on the common tasks.

Fellowship in work or play is a great uniter of hearts. It irresistibly

develops a community spirit.

_Who Shall Take the Initiative?_

Woe to the man who starts anything in the country! He must have a good

cause and an obvious reason. The success of any rural enterprise usually

depends overwhelmingly upon its leader. In a "Get Together Campaign" for

community betterment, the strongest local personality or institution would

better issue the call. If there is a strong Farmers' Club, or Cooperative

Association, or Community Library Board, or a Village Board of Trade with

community ideals, they may well assume the right to take the first step

toward an ultimate union of all the community interests. If there is only

a single church in the place and it commands the respect and loyalty of

the people, it may well be the federating agency. Or the strongest church

can invite in the others and together they can make this movement a

community welfare proposition with a definitely religious stamp; working

through committees of a church federation in the interests of all the

people. Often this is best done by the Rural Young Men's Christian

Association, working in behalf of all the churches.

In short, whatever institution controls the greatest local influence, and

is most representative of the people, has the best right to take the lead

in socializing the community. Perhaps it may not be a religious body at

all. It may be a social club, or a village improvement society, or a civic

league, or a Rural Progress Association embodying modern rural ideals. If

it has the backing of the people, it is responsible for using its social

influence in the most effective way. For instance, in the prosperous

little rural community of Evergreen, Iowa, the popular and effective

socializing agency is "The Evergreen Sporting Association"! It unites all

the young people in the neighborhood, both married and unmarried, and for

some fifteen years has had a fine record for social efficiency. By its

elaborate and varied annual program of popular interests it has made life

in Evergreen wholesome, happy and worth while. The young people as a rule

are loyal to the place and stay on their prosperous farms instead of

losing themselves in the city.

_A Community Plan for Socialization_

Rural social life is simple and should be kept so. Elaborate organization

is never necessary. What we need is that "touch of human nature which

makes the whole world kin." We do not need another institution, but

possibly a social center and a working plan which can express and develop

the common humanhood. The place may be an up to date "Neighborhood House"

with rest room and reading room with its chimney corner; a place for tired

mothers and babies, and a meeting place for men of business; or it may be

just a room at the church or the school house or the public library,

easily accessible to all. Or the social spirit can be developed wholly

without any special equipment. The main point is the growth of community

ideals and a willingness to work together to attain them.

The plan should be the result of careful study of community needs by the

social survey method, and a more or less definite program of constructive

propositions to work out as conditions allow. It may be a thorough-going

plan from the start, or a gradual growth as the vision enlarges; in any

case it should embody and stimulate the community desire for progress. The

first result of such a community effort will be a natural reaction on the

local institutions, tending to encourage them and help them to function

normally; bringing a finer spirit of cooperation into the church, new

efficiency into the school and a revival of responsibility in many homes.

The beautifying of public and private grounds, the establishing of play

grounds and possibly a lecture or entertainment course, the stimulating of

the local social life in an infinite variety of ways, will be suggested in

detail by the local needs.

_The Gospel of Organized Play_

"A new gospel of the recreative life needs to be proclaimed in the

country," says J. R. Boardman. "Rural America must be compelled to play.

It has, to a degree, toiled itself into deformity, disease, depravity and

depression. Its long hours of drudgery, its jealousy of every moment of

daylight, its scorn of leisure and of pleasure, must give way to shorter

hours of labor, occasional periods of complete relaxation and

wholehearted participation in wholesome plays, picnics, festivals, games

and other recreative amusements. Better health, greater satisfaction and a

richer life wait on the wise development of this recreative ideal."[27]

[Illustration: A game of stone hustle at a one-room school two miles from

railroad; the teacher and boys and girls of all ages participating.]

[Illustration: One of the leaders' corps at work during recess time.]

[Illustration: London Bridge and graded games. Home-made bean-bags and

balls help give expression to the spirit of cooperation.]

[Illustration: The county committee of the Orange County, N. Y.,

Associations is cooperating with the public schools for play on the school

grounds. Bullying, fist fights and bad manners have given way to the

spirit of courage, endurance, chivalry and helpfulness.]

Very slowly people in the country are coming to believe that play is a

necessity, not merely a luxury, for children and that it is a law of the

child's growth. But it is not merely a matter of health nor of child life.

It is a matter of social welfare and the development of community spirit.

It affects every individual, old as well as young.

Consequently we find in the past six years, since the organization of the

Playground Association of America at Washington under President

Roosevelt's patronage, great attention has been given to the subject.

Country children, whose repertory of games was found to be very limited,

have been taught to play a great variety of new and interesting games; and

this has given them a new zest in life. Country school athletic contests

have been organized and inter-community meets held, sometimes on the

county basis. Great field days have been held, rural picnics have been

developed which have been marvelously successful in interesting adults as

well as children; out-of-door folk-dancing has been revived; play

festivals have interested whole townships, with hundreds of visitors, many

of whom have tested their strength and skill at the various games and

contests. It has not been a commercialized or professional performance by

paid experts, but a day of play, of, for, and by the people.

The social effect of these play festivals is far reaching. "Acquaintances

formed on these occasions," says Prof. M. T. Scudder, "may be followed up

by profitable correspondence, by exchanging visits, and thus lead to the

establishment of life-long friendships. The names of those who excel in

one sport or another become household words throughout the county. How

this stimulates self-respect and ambition! The real leaders in each

community become known, be they boys or girls, men or women, and these may

be brought together thereafter for organized efforts in worthy enterprises

for the common good. And all the time the isolation of country life is

being lessened."[28]

More and more at these festivals the products of manual training,

industrial and domestic arts are being exhibited. There are competitions

in bread making, sewing, gardening, carving, basketry, corn and vegetable

raising, with every opportunity for varied interest. The dramatic instinct

is developed by the revival of pageantry, in connection usually with the

Fourth of July or other holidays, often with special local historical

significance. "The Pageant of Thetford" is an interesting pamphlet

describing a successful program of this order in Vermont. It may be

obtained of the Playground Association.

In summarizing the value of such efforts, Dr. Scudder claims, "Perhaps it

is not too much to say that through a series of properly conceived and

well-conducted festivals the civic and institutional life of an entire

country or district, and the lives of many individuals of all ages, may

be permanently quickened and inspired; the play movement thus making

surely for greater contentment, cleaner morals, and more intense

patriotism and righteousness on the farm lands and in the village

populations of our country. Such indeed are the socializing effects of

organized and supervised play."[29]

_The School a Social Center_

Under the modern system the centralized school has become sometimes the

chief social center of the township. The mere fact of the gathering of

numbers gives it initial prestige. Often a fine school spirit is developed

by the inter-community contests and teachers of the modern type are not

slow to see their opportunity to cooperate with the pupils out of school

hours in wholesome games. The school building is often in the winter the

meeting place of the young people for social purposes and its central

location, its large capacity, its neutral and public character make it

often the most desirable social center in the township. This topic will

receive fuller treatment in our next chapter on rural education.

_The Social Influence of the Grange_

The ordinary fraternal orders are seldom found in the rural districts

except in villages of some size. They are essentially a town institution,

and are of little assistance in the rural situation. But an organization

of great influence and social value is the Grange, the Patrons of

Husbandry, which is frankly endeavoring to serve the economic,

intellectual and social needs of the working farmer and his family.

Founded in 1867, the Grange had a quiet growth for six years, then

suddenly developed surprising strength in the panic year of '73 because of

the popularity of its economic program for the relief of farmers, just

when their grievances were most pressing. On the crest of this mighty wave

of discontent 20,000 local granges were organized within two years; but

decline soon followed and by 1880 the movement had utterly collapsed, as

suddenly as it had developed. It had disappointed those who had expected

too much of it. It could not make good its promises of panacea legislation

which would cure all the troubles of the farm; and many of its academic

schemes for business cooperation failed ignominiously, after arousing the

steadfast faith of thousands.

The order was not dead however. It never declined in New England, and from

that quarter has renewed its strength in the East and middle West, so that

it is now more prosperous than ever in its history. It has little hold yet

in the South or far West; but is easily the most influential farmers'

organization in the country.

The Grange has done a splendid service in thousands of communities by

uniting the people of all ages on a broad platform of mutual benefit and

community welfare. Often where rival churches tend to divide the

neighborhood unpleasantly, the Grange unifies with its broad fellowship

and constructive program. Its greatest service has been social, but it has

rendered also large educational and economic service and has taught the

people the simple fundamentals of cooperation. Out of the wreck of its

earlier experiments, its mutual fire insurance and cooperative purchasing

have survived and developed successfully.

Unique among fraternal orders, the Grange has emphasized in a most helpful

way the instruction of the people in all matters of popular interest,

particularly on subjects relating to farming and the farm home. It has

immeasurably broadened the horizons of countless farm women and has thus

raised the whole level of rural life in many places. In promoting social

fellowship in countless ways it has relieved the bareness of a life of

toil and its plans for wholesome recreation have greatly enriched the

community life. After years of meager opportunity, country folks are apt

to go to social extremes, and the Grange's greatest danger in some places

seems to be to yield to the pleasure-loving spirit rather than to serve

all the vital needs of rural people.

II. Business Cooperation.

_Modern Rural Cooperative Movements_

The rather reckless plunge of the Grange, in its earlier years, into the

untried schemes of business cooperation expressed the very general belief

of farmers that somehow their common interests demand cooperative

enterprise to gain real success. It is a mighty truth. They blundered only

in details of method. In an age of trust consolidation, in which

manufacturing and commercial interests have attained wonderful

development and success by merging their resources and their operations

under united management, the spirit of cooperation has slowly but

inevitably made its way in rural life. But "rampant individualism" dies

hard; and most farm communities are still competitive rather than

cooperative.

In recent years however there has been a most encouraging increase of

cooperation in all important rural interests, which indicates that the old

individualism is doomed. In 1907 there were over 85,000 agricultural

cooperative societies with a membership of three million different farmers

(excluding duplicates); a large proportion of the total farm operators of

the country, and doubtless the most progressive of them all. This number

included 1,000 cooperative selling agencies; 2,400 cooperative creameries

and cheese factories; 1,800 community grain elevators; 4,000 purchasing

societies; 15,000 telephone companies on cooperative lines; 15,650

cooperative insurance companies and some 30,000 cooperative irrigation

projects.

Not only has this vast development of cooperation served to unite farmers

and develop common initiative and community spirit; it has greatly reduced

the expense of farm business and the cost of living. Professor Valgren

estimates that mutual fire insurance saves the Minnesota farmers annually

$750,000. Cooperative telephones save often one-half the cost of the

service. Cooperation reduced the price of reapers from $275 to $175; of

sewing machines from $75 to $40; of wagons from $150 to $90; and of

threshers from $300 to $200. The Pepin County Cooperative Company of

Wisconsin did about a quarter of a million business in the year 1909 in

its nine retail stores. A far greater cooperative plan is the Right

Relationship League which has a hundred successful stores in Minnesota and

Wisconsin, though incorporated but six years ago.

_Cooperation Among Fruit Growers_

It is safe to say that the great success of fruit growing on the Pacific

slope would have been impossible without cooperation. Individual growers

were at the mercy of the railroads and the middlemen; but unitedly they

have mastered the situation and control the New York market. The fruit is

inspected, sorted and packed by the company, not by the individual

growers, and thus the standard is maintained and all trickery eliminated.

The organization is able to get all possible advantages in the way of low

rates for large shipments, to secure ideal accommodations in refrigerated

fast freights and storage warehouses; and to keep in touch, by telegraph,

with the market conditions in all eastern centers, thus preventing

over-supply.

These associations often purchase for their members all supplies needed in

the business and keep their laborers busy in the slack seasons making

boxes, crates, etc., so that they are able to develop and retain a

permanent force of skilled labor instead of depending on the precarious

supply of seasonal help. The Grand Junction Fruit Growers' Union of

Colorado bought, in 1906, 224 carloads of supplies for its members, both

for business and household use.

For fifteen years past, three-fourths of the citrus growers of California

have been cooperating successfully and are most efficiently organized.

Their central agency markets an annual product worth fifteen millions and

keeps representatives in some seventy-five leading markets of America and

in London. They command the highest market price for their product and

distribute it at a saving of about one-half the expense.

_Some Elements of Success and Failure_

Cooperation is succeeding well not only among fruit growers, but producers

of tobacco, onions, potatoes, tomatoes, celery, and, to a limited extent,

cereals. Experience has proved that it pays for farmers of a whole section

to specialize on the same product; and the most uniform success has come

in societies that are purely cooperative, that is, not joint-stock

companies with voting power according to shares, but _one vote for each

member_, the profits being of course proportionate to the relative volume

of business each contributes.

Short-sighted selfishness resists this plan and yields slowly to pure

cooperation; but experience shows that, as Prof. E. K. Eyerly states, "in

the stock companies the large shareholders are tempted constantly to

increase the dividend rate on capital at the expense of the other patrons.

This may explain in part the difficulty of the cooperative creamery in New

England to hold its own, where only 20% are of the purely cooperative

type." Dr. Eyerly includes among the more common causes of failure

individualism, conservatism, jealousy, mercenary traits, poor business

management, a lack of knowledge of what other societies are doing, and

lack of restrictions on share voting and the number of shares owned.

In the local beginnings of cooperation, ingrained selfishness as well as

rural suspicion and ignorance, sometimes blocks progress. When the strong

California Fruit Growers' Exchange began twenty years ago, it had

difficulty holding some of its members to their agreements. After pledging

their crops to the company they would sometimes yield to the temptations

offered by outside buyers, for the sake of greater temporary profit; but

after a few lawsuits this tendency to break cooperative contracts was

entirely checked.

_Our Debt to Immigrants_

Unquestionably this great cooperative movement of the last two decades

means an entire redirection of rural life and the ultimate conquest of its

worst enemy, individualism. We must thank our adopted citizens for the

main impulse given to this movement. Cooperative principles and the

cooperative spirit have been imported from Denmark, Germany and Italy,

where they had already proved successful, and have taken deep root in our

middle-western and north-central states, gradually overcoming the native

Yankee individualism characteristic of the older settlers. Dr. Eyerly of

Amherst is authority for the statement that the only successful

cooperative stores organized in New England for a generation past have

been, with one or two exceptions, among foreigners.

In connection with the interesting fact that _interstate_ immigration

also stimulates cooperation, the same writer says: "In those parts of the

country into which there has recently been a considerable influx of

interstate immigrants, as in the Pacific coast states, in Texas and

certain other parts of the south and southwest, the cooperative movement

has rapidly developed. While this is due in part to the intensive and

specialized agriculture practiced and to the nature of the crops grown,

e. g., fruits and vegetables, it is due also in part to the _transplanting

of individuals into new social groups_ in which the 'cake of custom' is

likely to be broken up and new adjustments made under some intellectual

leadership."[30]

_The Cooperative Success of Denmark_

Sir Horace Plunkett in Ireland, Raiffeisen in Germany and Wollemborg in

Italy have led the cooperative movement in their respective countries to

remarkable success; but the classic illustration of the wonderful

possibilities for rural transformation through cooperation is the story of

modern Denmark. Space forbids adequate description here. Suffice it to say

that from a condition close to bankruptcy, following a devastating war in

1864, and with sadly depleted fertility, that enterprising little nation

of farmers has become the richest in Europe in per capita wealth and about

the most productive. An enlightened patriotism working through cooperation

accounts for the change.

The Central Cooperative Committee of Denmark controls the situation with

consummate skill, with subordinate societies for production of every

nature; for the manufacture of rural products such as butter and cheese;

for the protection of credit, insurance, health, savings, etc.; even for

the protection of the poor farmer against the loss of his single cow! The

movement has become closely identified with the religious and patriotic

sentiments and in fact springs from both.

It is evident that with this strong movement for cooperation developing in

America, two things must eventually follow. The unsocial, narrowly

sectarian church must go; and our excessive Anglo-Saxon individualism is

doomed,--that unsocial streak in rural life. There is surely a new spirit

of cooperation in our country communities east and west which will

ultimately overcome our country life deficiencies and make it the most

satisfying life in all the world. Meanwhile the struggle is far from won

and for men of vision, courage, social initiative and tact there is a

great opportunity for leadership in social reconstruction which will

challenge and reward the utmost consecration.

TEST QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER V

1.--How do you account for the extreme independence and individualism of

the American farmer?

2.--In what unsocial ways does this rural individualism express itself?

3.--What common weakness do you notice in every sort of rural

institution?

4.--Why do city people as a rule cooperate more readily than most country

people do?

5.--Why has it proven a rather difficult task to organize farmers?

6.--How do you account for the fact that farmers have less influence in

politics than lawyers, though the farmers are seventy times as numerous?

7.--In what ways do farmers need to cooperate in their business relations?

Illustrate.

8.--What shows the failure of country folks to cooperate in religious

activities?

9.--What old-fashioned forms of recreation are now seldom seen in the

country? What has taken their place?

10.--Why is a wholesome play spirit so essential to the morals of a

community?

11.--Suggest different ways to "socialize" a country community.

12.--What plans for rural betterment would you include in your community

program for the people to work out together?

13.--What specific plans would you suggest for organized play and

community recreation?

14.--What should be done about Sunday baseball in country villages?

15.--What is the special usefulness of the Grange in a rural community?

16.--In what lines of business has cooperation proved successful in the

country? Illustrate from the fruit growing industry.

17.--Why has cooperation proved more successful in the newer sections of

the country than in the East?

18.--What can you say about the success of cooperation in Denmark?

19.--What is the difference between a joint-stock creamery and a purely

cooperative creamery?

20.--In what ways can Christian people illustrate the principles of

brotherhood and cooperation so as to overcome the social deficiencies of

country life?

EDUCATION FOR COUNTRY LIFE

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VI

EDUCATION FOR COUNTRY LIFE

_How Efficient Rural Citizenship Is Developed_

I. _Weaknesses in Rural Education_

The urbanized country school.

Inferior school equipment and meager support.

Weakness of the district system.

Other problems of the country school.

II. _Modern Plans for School Improvement_

Arguments for and against consolidation.

Advantages of purely rural centralization.

A thoroughly modern country school.

A rural high school course of study.

Elementary agriculture and school gardens.

III. _Allies of the School in Rural Education_

School Improvement Leagues.

Rural libraries and literature.

Farmers' institutes and government cooperation.

Agricultural colleges and their extension work.

CHAPTER VI

EDUCATION FOR COUNTRY LIFE

HOW EFFICIENT RURAL CITIZENSHIP IS DEVELOPED

I. Weaknesses in Rural Education.

It is easy to blame the one-room schoolhouse for the failures of rural

life. It would be fairer to say the rural schools have not kept pace with

the rising standards of their own communities. There remains a deal of

sentiment about the "little red schoolhouse" of the olden time; yet,

discounted in cash, it fails even to keep the building painted. A recent

survey of social conditions in northern Missouri reports that in thirty

miles of travel on country roads not one unpainted barn or farmhouse was

observed, but every schoolhouse was out of repair.