URBAN AND RURAL LIFE 259 



rapid suburban transit, the revival of village industry in the skilled 

 trades and education which tends to raise the standard of living, are 

 the real panaceas for the evils of the crowded city. Our statesmen can 

 aid in hastening the solution of the problem by directing their atten- 

 tion toward the regulation of steam and electric railroads. 



Agriculture also is undergoing a transformation; it is changing, 

 in this country, from extensive to intensive methods. Our greatest 

 industry does not readily lend itself to consolidation and combination. 

 The small and medium sized farm triumphs, in the long run, over the 

 bonanza farm, except perhaps in the cultivation of such crops as cotton, 

 sugar-cane and tobacco, where the plantation system seems destined to 

 continue. As the population increases the big farm breaks up and 

 disappears, leaving several smaller ones in its place. Farming must, 

 therefore, be classed with those occupations which do not readily sub- 

 mit to minute division of labor, or extreme specialization of industry. 

 Scientific agriculture must be classed among those industries or trades 

 which require skilful and artistic individual work. Its possibilities 

 are not generally realized. The era of free public land is practically 

 over. Men can no longer go west and take up new, unbroken ground. 

 A few decades ago the competition of the newly opened western lands 

 injured temporarily the farming regions of the eastern and north central 

 states. To-day the situation is changing, many western farms have been 

 robbed of their virgin fertility by uneconomical and short-sighted farm- 

 ing, and the eastern farmer is daily finding new opportunities for profit- 

 able agriculture. Dairy farming, stock raising, horticulture and market 

 gardening are more and more attracting his attention. Scientific 

 methods are being adopted; renewal of soil fertility is the first care. 

 The ' good ' farmer is one who makes a profit at the end of the season, 

 and who also preserves unimpaired the fertility of the soil. To be 

 a successful farmer in this country it will be necessary to have definite 

 ideas regarding farm management, and the proper methods of crop 

 rotation and fertilization must be understood. Business methods 

 must be adopted, and the cost of each crop must be accurately deter- 

 mined. The farmer will be obliged to keep in close touch with the 

 industrial and commercial life of the nation. Agriculture will be a 

 business, and business principles will be applied. The era of the 

 unscientific, haphazard, go-as-you-please style of farming is rapidly 

 becoming obsolete. The rise of the agricultural college and secondary 

 school, and the potent influence of the United States Department of 

 Agriculture, together with the general introduction of the trolley, the 

 telephone and rural mail delivery, mark a new and promising epoch 

 in the history of American agriculture. The agricultural transforma- 

 tion will diminish the drain of ambitious young men from the farm 

 to the factory, the store and the bank. 



