Report of Missouri Farmers' Week. 101 



about ten miles from me on an eighty-acre farm who refused $425 

 an acre for his farm, and some neighbors went on to say how 

 foohsh he was. But those people could not see that there are still 

 men in the world that have something above the dollar mark, that 

 still have that old idea of home, the sacred memories and all the 

 blessed relationships that center around that home that cannot be 

 touched by the glitter and glint of gold, and that that one man is 

 only a representative of many other men who prize their home 

 above money, and that when the farm was sold the home would 

 be gone, his dearest place on earth. We honor such a man as that. 

 But in Illinois we are facing a condition that you will come to in 

 Missouri later. Notice (referring to chart) how our population 

 has changed in the last forty years. This little figure represents 

 the tenantry in 1880. But notice how it has increased for the four 

 decades until this last season 52 per cent of the farms of this rich 

 corn belt were in the hands of tenants. Notice how this has changed 

 the country church. There is coming in every rural community a 

 class which is moving, which has no constant home, which is always 

 looking for a farm, and getting out of the farm all that they can ; 

 so that between the owner of the land and the tenant who rents 

 only one year and of necessity must raise one-year crops in order 

 that he may get out of the soil what he has put in it, in the form of 

 work, between the upper and nether millstone of these (which T 

 say is the tenantry problem that we have here in America), the 

 soil has suffered by the depleting of fertility. In this chart the 

 large circle represents the entire population of the communities I 

 visited. Notice that the black comprises a large part of that circle. 

 That represents the proportion of the people who are not members 

 of churches in that country so rich and where there are churches 

 in such abundance. This chart represents the four classes of 

 churches and the present condition of the churches, 225 churches 

 in number, which I visited in person. I found out the facts about 

 all denominations. Of the churches in that splendid part of our 

 country I found that 34 per cent have grown in the past ten years ; 

 10 per cent are standing still ; 25 per cent of the churches are dying, 

 and 21 per cent of the churches are dead. When I say dead I do 

 not mean those churches that have given up so completely so that 

 the building has been moved away or transformed into a tool house. 

 I heard about an old abandoned church near Decatur which had 

 been sold and made into a hog pen, and the farmer who 

 bought it was the son of the old man who back yonder in the pioneer 



