EIGHTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART X. 513 



economic standpoints; and the federal and state department of agriculture 

 should co-operate at every point. 



The farm grows the raw material for the food and clothing of all our 

 citizens; it supports directly almost half of them; and nearly half the 

 children of the United States are born and brought up on farms. How 

 can the life of the farm family be made less solitary, fuller of oppor- 

 tunity, freer from drudgery, more comfortable, happier and more attract- 

 ive? Such a result is most earnestly to be desired. How can life on the 

 farm be kept on the highest level, and where it is not already on that 

 level, be so improved, dignified and brightened as to awaken and keep 

 alive the pride and loyalty of the farmer's boys and girls, of the farmer's 

 wife, and of the farmer himself? How can a compelling desire to live 

 on the farm be aroused in the children that are born on the farm. All 

 these questions are of vital importance not only to the farmer, but to the 

 whole nation; and the department of agriculture must do its share in 

 answering them. 



The drift toward the city is largely determined by the superior social 

 opportunities to be enjoyed there, by the greater vividness and move- 

 ment of city life. Considered from the point of view of national effi- 

 ciency, the problem of the farm is as much a problem of attractiveness 

 as it is a problem of prosperity. It has ceased to be merely a problem 

 of growing wheat and corn and cattle. The problem of production has 

 not ceased to be fundamental, but it is no longer final; just as learning 

 to read and write and cipher are fundamental, but are no longer the 

 final ends of education. We hope ultimately to double the average 

 yield of wheat and corn per acre; it will be a great achievement; but it is 

 even more important to double the desirability, comfort and standing of 

 the farmer's life. • 



We must consider, then, not merely how to produce, but also how 

 production affects the producer. In the past we have given but scant 

 attention to the social side of farm life. We should study much more 

 closely than has yet been done the social organization of the country, 

 and inquire whether its institutions are now really as useful to the 

 farmer as they should be, or whether they should not be given a new 

 direction and a new impulse, for no farmer's life should lie merely 

 within the boundary of his farm. This study must be of the east and 

 the west, the north and the south; for the needs vary from place to place. 



First in importance, of course, comes the effort to secure the mastery 

 of production. Great strides toward this end have already been taken over 

 the larger part of the United States; much remains to be done, but 

 much has been done; and the debt of the nation to the various agencies 

 of agricultural improvement for so great an advance is not to be over- 

 stated. But we can not halt here. The benefits of high social organiza- 

 tion include such advantages as ease of communication, better educational 

 facilities, increased comfort of living, and those opportunities for social 

 and intellectual life and intercourse, of special value to the young people 

 and to the women, which are as yet chiefly to be had in centers of popu- 

 lation. All this must be brought within the reach of the farmers who 



33 



