256 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



In the State of Missouri there are about 300,000 farm homes. Of 

 this number 63,800, or 21.1 per cent., are rented. In more than half 

 the counties in Missouri there has been a decline in the rural popula- 

 tion averaging several per cent, in the past ten years, and this decline 

 is not because of the lack of prosperity. Perhaps some of it may be 

 due to the inconveniences of the farm home. The State Board of Agri- 

 culture says that the average advance in the price of Missouri farm 

 land, taking the State as a whole, since 1900, is 77 per cent., which 

 statement goes to prove that the retired or well-to-do farmer has made 

 most of his money from the advance in the price of his real estate. 

 But this increase in value has little to do with changing methods in 

 the home as long as the farmer owns the land himself and lives on it. 



If we confine ourselves to reading what the city papers have to 

 say about the farmers, we will soon conclude that the average farmer 

 has a modern home with electric light, Avater works, Avith all the house- 

 hold and farm machinery operated by simply pushing the button. 

 That is the pipe dream of the city man, and not true to life at all. 



Occasionally you meet a farmer who will tell you with much pride, 

 and justly so, too, that he has a five or ten-room home down on the 

 farm that has all the modern conveniences. We understand by that 

 that he is equipped with hot and cold water, furnace, light, adequate 

 sewerage, and so on. This farmer is not the average farmer. It's a 

 pity he is so much in the minority. The chances are that the average 

 farmer's wife has to carry the water in a pail from the barnyard well 

 to do the family washing. The house she lives in its often built with 

 not much thought in view, except keeping off the rain. It is not, as 

 a rule, well ventilated or conveniently furnished. The family have 

 few luxuries and not all of the necessities that they are entitled to. 

 Mr. Dooley says that "the farm is where all the good things come 

 from, and the city is where they go." Perhaps he is partly rights. 

 The average farm home has not kept pace in modern methods with the 

 farm on the outside. We criticise the average farm woman for being 

 a poor housekeeper, or for not being neat in her personal appearance, 

 or that she doesn't know how to cook well, or that she doesn't cook 

 as well as she knows, or many other things. The criticisms are un- 

 just. She puts in so many hours a day at hard, physical labor that 

 she is so tired she lacks interest in these other things, and so would 

 you if so situated. The pity is that she has so few of the labor saving 

 devices, such as running water, a gas or oil stove to take the place of 

 the big coal or wood stove in the middle of the summer heat when the 

 canning season is on. The tireless cooker has hardly been heard of in 

 the average farmer's home. The bread mixer is unknown. The sepa- 



