Rural economy

“ The substitution in rural economy of the coöperative for the competitive principle, which I have so far advocated as a matter of business prudence, will be seen to have a wider import. This course will be shown to have an important bearing upon the application of the new knowledge to the oldest industry and also upon the building of a new rural civilisation we must provide for the dwellers of the open country a larger share of the intellectual and social pleasures for the want of which those most needed in the country are too often drawn to the town. ”

“ But the farmer's rural economy is the dawning of the world economy and the general store in the farming community becomes an economic institution requiring great ability and centering in itself the forces of general as well as local economics.
The general storekeeper of this type in the country is at once a business man, a money lender, an employer of labor and the manager of the social center. He sells goods at a price so low as to maintain his local trade against outside competition. He loans money on mortgages throughout the community, and sells goods on credit. ”

“ But this consideration does not lessen the need for a sternly practical treatment of the rural social economy under review. In this chapter, I propose to go right down to the roots of the rural problem, find what is wrong with the industry by which the country people live, and see how it can be righted. ”

“ His main conclusion is that the present disastrous state of our rural economy is due to our treating land as an object of property and not of industry. He advocates the cultivation of the land by syndicates holding farms of 20,000 acres and tilling them by the lavish application of modern machinery as the only way to meet American competition. ”

“ I have diligently perused all the different reports that have been published for the last five years upon the present state of the rural economy of the country, and they all concur in stating that there is a slight improvement in the value of land; that idle people are seldom found; and that there is sufficient work in which to employ the labouring population.— (p. 291.) ”

“ We may rather be entitled to infer that there has been a considerable change in rural economy. For the cultivation of his demesne land the lord begins to rely less and less on the labour of serfs whom he feeds, more and more upon the labour of tenants who have plots of their own and who feed themselves. ”

“ And in considering legislation relating to housing, education, health, and social security, special attention should be given to rural problems.
Our growing population and the expansion of our economy depend upon the wise management of our land, water, forest, and mineral wealth. In our present dynamic economy, the task of conservation is not to lockup our resources but to develop and improve them. Failure, today, to make the investments which are necessary to support our progress in the future would be false economy. ”

“ But the growth of relationships based on a cash nexus between individuals, which they both imply, has effected a very real alteration in rural conditions, an alteration which is in a small way like that occurring to-day when the discovery that a quiet village possesses mineral wealth or is a convenient holiday resort puts money into circulation there, causes farming lands to be cut up into plots which are bought by the savings of speculative tradesmen, and adds a new tangle of commercial relationships to the slowly moving economy of village life. ”

“ I hold, then, that the new economy will mean a more scientific mastery of the technical side of farming, for farmers will make a much larger use of the advice, instruction and help which the Nation and the States offer them through the Department of Agriculture and the Colleges. It is equally certain that there will arise a more human [Pg 136] social life in the rural districts, based upon the greater share of the products of the farmer's industry, which the new business organisation will enable him to retain ”

“ However, farmers and ranchers do not live or work in isolation; the labor of many people, both rural and urban Americans, helps provide the agricultural products so vital to our health, our prosperity, and our quality of life. What connects farms and ranches with urban stores and consumers is a network of farmers, ranchers, agribusiness industries, scientists, inspectors, shippers, retail distributors, and others who work together to grow, process, and share the bounty of our great land. ”

“ As the land tax forms the mainstay of the imperial revenue, so the ryot or cultivator constitutes the unit of the social system. The organized village community contains many other members besides the cultivators; but they all exist for his benefit, and all alike are directly maintained from the produce of the village fields. Even in considerable towns, the traders and handicraftsmen almost always possess plots of land of their own, on which they raise sufficient grain to supply their families with food. The operations of rural life are familiar to every class. ”

“ During this second period, another economic development produced upon the attitude of the urban mind towards the rural population an effect to which, I think, has not been given the consideration it deserves. Better and cheaper transportation, with the consequent establishment of what the economists call the world-market, completely changed the relationship between the townsman and the farmer. A sketch of their former mutual relations will make my meaning clear. Within the last century every town relied largely for its food supply on the produce of the fields around its walls. ”

“ It is impossible to acquire a keen and permanent interest in the rural problem unless one first of all is cognizant of its significance. And lack of knowledge at this point may in part account for the fact already alluded to that in America the farm problem has not been adequately studied. So stupendous has been the development of our manufacturing industries, so marvelous the growth of our urban population, so pressing the questions raised by modern city life, that the social and economic interests of the American farmer have, as a rule, received minor consideration. ”

“ The land owning farmers are now 35.2 per cent of the working rural population, the tenants are 15.1 per cent (occupying 30 per cent of all the farms) , and the farm hands, farmer's children, etc., equal 49.7 per cent of the tillers of the soil.
With the working population on the farms constituting but 13 per cent of the total population, we have arrived at the point where but little more than 4 1-2 per cent of that total are land owning farmers, a little less than 2 per cent are tenants, and the remainder (6.46 per cent) , are the children of farmers and wage hands. ”

“ And the importance of the effect of tenancy, or any other economic aspect of agriculture on the life of its people must be recognized as a fundamental consideration in determining rural policies. Well being on the land and not wealth from the land is the final goal of agriculture.
Community life is also affected by the type of farming which is prevalent among its people. Modern agriculture is becoming specialized, and the crops grown are determined both by soil and climate and by the markets available. ”

“ Whenever in a town a great manufactory is opened and gives employment to several hundred hands, at the same time increasing the production of a valuable material, the profit—the outside profit, so to say—is as great to others as to the proprietors. But these half-cultivated lands, these tons upon tons of wasted manure, these broad hedges and weed-grown fields, represent upon the other hand an equal loss. The labouring classes in the rural districts are eager for more work. ”

“ Our urban way of looking at things has made us assume that this city system must be suitable to rural conditions. The contrary is the fact. When farmers combine, it is a combination not of money only, but of personal effort in relation to the entire business. ”

“ We will continue to improve rural infrastructure, including power grids, postal service, and telecommunications, and intensify development of rural social programs.
Fourth, we will increase rural incomes in a variety of ways. We will vigorously develop modern agriculture with distinctive local features, support intensive processing and sale of agricultural products, develop rural secondary and tertiary industries, accelerate the development of small towns, and strengthen county economies. ”

“ In fact, the great rural question for the twentieth century to determine, is whether there were not beneath the inconvenient and uneconomical methods of the common field system, a vital principle essential to true rural prosperity, which has to be re-discovered and re-established in forms suitable to the present environment. ”

“ Moreover, in a country where advanced farming is the rule, there is a remarkable, and, from the standpoint of national stability, most valuable, steadiness in employment. Good farming, by fixing the labourer on the soil, improves the general condition of rural life, by ridding the countryside of the worst of its present pests. ”

“ The lessened production of live-stock, of which we have recently heard so much, is probably not due to any great extent, if at all, to decreasing rural population. It is in part due to the shift in farming following the passing of the western ranges, and in part to the lack of a free market, and in part to a changing adjustment in farming practices. ”

“ But the fact that rural population has been [Pg 47] leaving the farms and that agricultural lands have been abandoned by thousands of acres, indicates that urban opportunities have far outbid the rural in financial returns, variety of openings, and in working conditions. The farmer's income must be increased as compared with other groups before there can be a well-balanced relatively stable American life. Until this is achieved those who are trying to build up rural institutions as strong as those in urban centers will be engaged in a hopeless task. ”

“ There is no market readily at hand offering fruit and vegetables for sale as in the city, and hence the farm table loses in attractiveness to the appetite and in hygienic excellence. It is probable that the prosperous city workman sits down to a better table than does the farmer, in spite of the great advantage possessed by the latter.
The population of rural communities is necessarily scattering. The nature of farming renders it impossible for people to herd together as is the case in many other industries. ”

“ And quite as important as these considerations is the effect which good or bad farming must have upon the cost of living to the whole population. Excessive middle profits between producer and consumer may largely account for the very serious rise in the price of staple articles of food. This is a fact of the utmost significance, but, as I shall show later, the remedy for too high a cost of production and distribution lies with the farmer, the improvement of whose business methods will be seen to be the chief factor in the reform which the Rural Life movement must attempt to introduce. ”

“ Taking the rural population as we find it, with added wants and new aspirations, and with a somewhat better understanding of the value of a more extended culture, it will be seen that a more rational system of agriculture, a more economic expenditure of energy, and a clearer comprehension of the highest and most economical use of money must be secured if the objects sought are attained. ”

“ Naturally, the questions arise, are these large structures necessary, and what changes in agriculture have taken place to create a need for such mammoth structures? They are necessarily expensive, and too often dwarf and belittle the house when placed near it.
Modern advanced farmers secure nearly or quite double the average yield of crops of their grandfathers. This is an indisputable fact, notwithstanding the hue and cry about the decadence of the rural population. The facts are that some are farming much better than the older generations and some much worse. ”

“ Instead of creating an era of small farms, the tendency is for the big farmer to finance further purchases of land through the credit banks, and these are a decided tendency towards concentration. The "Land Trust" is well upon the way.
The universal application of machinery to agriculture has definitely industrialized farming and created three distinct classes in the rural regions—the farmers, the tenants, and the laborers. ”

“ A small city of perhaps twenty thousand population will contain from four hundred to six hundred families per square mile, whereas a typical agricultural community in a prosperous agricultural state will hardly average more than ten families per square mile. The farming class is isolated from other classes. Farmers, of course, mingle considerably in a business and political way with the men of their trading town and county seat; but, broadly speaking, farmers do not associate freely with people living under urban conditions and possessing other than the rural point of view. ”

“ If we carefully study the significance of these things, we shall soon discover, that in reality those farms were practically, combined agricultural and manufacturing institutions, which were self-supporting and self-sustaining to such an extent, that farm people were the most independent on the face of the globe. As such, these small farm centers were potent factors, in swiftly advancing the permanent wealth and civilization of rural society. ”

“ That is, by no possibility can everyone who would like to own a farm have one, any more than can everyone who would like to own some other business obtain it. No better illustration could be taken than that of Ireland, when visited by the writer in 1913. There was not land enough to afford farms to all those who wanted farms. A selection had to be made. As we should have agencies to help select land, we should also make a wise selection of those who are to become our land owners and cultivators in our rural communities. ”