SOME PRESENT PROBLEMS 733 



All this enforces the economic and social questions relating to 

 agriculture. The greatest problems of American agriculture are not 

 the narrower technical ones, but the relations of the industry to eco- 

 nomic and social life in general. Agriculture has not as yet been able 

 to call to its aid in any marked degree those forces and tendencies 

 which have culminated and been of such economic value in the 

 general business world, in the great productive and distributive 

 aggregations. The complete solution of the economic ills of American 

 agriculture may not be in cooperation, and yet in both the productive 

 and distributive phases this is perhaps the most apparent remedy. 

 Cooperation in distribution has made a beginning, but cooperation in 

 production is still almost unknown. Are Kropotkin's ideals attain- 

 able? 



The problem of the supply of capital in agriculture has never been 

 solved in this country other than in the most expensive way. Capital 

 must return to the land. Two factors enter into the problem: (1) to 

 demonstrate that capital can be made remunerative in farmed land, 

 (2) to insure that land will not bear an unjust burden of taxation. 



Closely associated with the economic side is the sociological phase. 

 In the days when all were interested in agriculture, both school and 

 church flourished, but in these later days both have lost their mold- 

 ing influence in the country, though the former shows signs of renewed 

 activity vital to the community. 



The specific economic and social questions -that even now press for 

 study are so numerous that they cannot be catalogued in an address 

 of this character. Is there still an active exodus from the country? 

 If so, is the movement caused by purely economic conditions, or is it 

 in part the social attractiveness of the city? In other words, does 

 the education of the farmer fit him for the appreciation of the 

 esthetical and philosophical values of his environment? In what 

 relations do the labor-saving devices stand to the rural exodus? Can 

 it in any way be due to super-population of the rural communities? 

 Are the final rewards of labor greater in the city than in the 

 country? Is the arrested development of country church and school 

 in any way responsible? 



What are the tendencies as to size of farms? Is the American, 

 starting with small individual ownership, tending towards consolida- 

 tion into larger units? Is the European, starting with large land- 

 lorded ownership, tending towards small individual units? Are the 

 small farms decreasing in number? In what way does the develop- 

 ment of the railroads and electric roads affect the size of farm pro- 

 perties? In what way do the labor-saving devices influence the size of 

 farms? Could cooperation of farmers remedy any tendency towards 

 large farms? Or, are larger farm units to be desired? 



What can cooperation do for the farmer? Must it be economic, 



