Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1913-01-04
PASSING OF THE FARMER.
Tillers Of the Soil Moving to Town
Farms Being Run by Tenants.

Roy Human Holiness in Atlantic Monthly.
These are days of unprecedented social
change. The eyes Of the world, however
are SO attentively fixed upon the develop
ing American city that the greatest
change of all in Americas social life is
going forward well-nigh UNDECIDED. The
farmer class. which we have grown ac-
customed to consider the permanent
foundation of our society, is showing de-
cided signs Of impermanence. The farmer
is moving to town. 1t is not simply
farmer here and a farmer there, each be-
cause of reasons of his own, who are
leaving the land and entering other oc-
equations. The movement, instead, is
general in extent. In Il comparatively
short time the typical farmer of today,
who tills the land that he owns. with the
national memory.
Though he is the most conservative of
men, the farmer cannot forever cling to
the past. In his attempt to modernize his
occupation, the individual owner must
fail, and rather than rest in failure he
very naturally turns from the land to
seek success elsewhere. The new and
better conditions which are to prevail
instead of coming as the result of a
gradual development within itself of the
old system. will come rather from with
out, as an extension over the country
districts of those modern systems of pro-
duction which are operating successfully
i'm the cities. Being myself a descendant
of a long line of farmer ancestors, and
having titled for some years small
farm of my own in the middle west, l. as
one of those who are within, am able to
feel this approaching change, instead of
being forced to depend entirely upon
what may be seen from without.
1t is upon her great areas OF fertile
land that Americas increasing millions
must depend for their food supply. Agri-
cultural production. however, as carried
on upon the farms. is failing to keep pace
with the growing demand, in spite of the
fact that the experts point the way to a
yield per acre many times greater than
the average yield of today. The cry of
agricultural science is for more inten-
sive cultivation of the soil. This more
intensive cultivation demands an increas-
ing number of laborers on the land. The
labOrerS, however, instead of increasing
In numbers are continually becominS
fewer; farms. instead of becoming small
er, as the theorists of the last generation
predicted, are steadily becoming larger;
the trend is necessarily away from crops
that demand intensive culture. The pro-
duction of agricultural supplies in this
country is losing in it's race to keep in
advance of consumption. Not alone are
the farms becoming larger, but the pro-
portion of them operated by renters is
rapidly increasing. The increase of the
renting system can be viewed as nothing,
short of alarming. unless one believes it
to be but Il necessary transitional stage
leading to something more satisfactory.
There appears 70 he quite a DISPOSE
ton, in some quarters, to blame the
farmers as class for their failure to
measure up to certain standards which
1t is believed should govern them. Often
the class is referred to condescend:ngly
by some townsman, who asks. How
shall we upltft the farmer 1t is felt,
apparently, that those now upon the ma
tion's farms should in some way be held
responsible for u more complete utiliza-
ton OF the possibilities of the soil 1t is
considered by many good people of the
cities that the farmer boy. in leaving his
fathers acres for the shop or the office
of the town, is in some way upsetting a
balance that should be maintained. Often
it is charged that the rural schools of to-
day are educating away from the farm
and 1t is urged that their influence should
be thrown against the, cityward drift of
the young,