Cook: City and Country 



III 



by labor-gangs or factory organization, 

 in order to apply "modern business 

 principles." The urban investor is 

 convinced by arguments drawn from 

 one-crop systems of agriculture where 

 factory methods are approximated. 

 On many tropical sugar plantations the 

 workers are crowded into little slums as 

 abject as any in towns. Countries that 

 have an abundance of low-priced labor 

 are more attractive to urban capital 

 than farm projects in the United States. 

 One-crop systems of agriculture ac- 

 cord with the doctrine of producing in 

 the cheapest place, and involve a maxi- 

 mum of commercial activity and urban 

 profit, through the various operations of 

 assembling, transporting and distribut- 

 ing. Selling farm produce to farmers 

 who could grow the same things for 

 their own use is much like carrying 

 coals to Newcastle, but such business 

 has developed to an enormous extent. 

 Instead of the primitive commercial 

 relations of farmers who planted mainly 

 to supply their own needs, and carried 

 only their surplus to market, some 

 branches of agriculture are as complete- 

 ly commercialized as any urban indus- 

 try. Before the boll-weevil came there 

 were many farmers who grew nothing 

 but cotton and bought all their supplies 

 from the merchant. Whan necessity 

 compelled such cotton-growers to pro- 

 duce their own food, and the change 

 proved advantageous, they condemned 

 the former one-crop system as an 

 agency of oppression and a drag on 

 rural progress, even to the extent of 

 declaring the boll-weevil "a blessing in 

 disguise." 



AGRICULTURE IMPROVED BY SCIENCE 

 AND CO-OPERATIVE EFFORT 



Endless improvements of agriculture, 

 not even suspected in the past, are 

 being made possible through applica- 

 tions of science, not only in breeding 

 better varieties of animals and plants, 

 and devising superior cultural methods, 

 but through social adjustments. In 

 the cotton industry, for example, so 

 simple an expedient as adherence of the 

 farmers of a community to a single 

 superior v^ariaty makes it possible to 



reach a much higher plane of produc- 

 tive efficiency and market advantage. 

 One- variety communities can maintain 

 and utilize well-selected, uniform types 

 of cotton, instead of the irregular, 

 mongrel stocks that result from mixture 

 of seed at public gins and cross- 

 pollination in the fields. One-variety 

 cotton communities in irrigated valleys 

 of the Southwest have altered in a few 

 years the agricultural status and pros- 

 pects of development of this quarter of 

 the United States. 



Much may be hoped from new forms 

 of co-operation that are being devised 

 in agricultural communities, which 

 urban interests would do well to recog- 

 nize and promote, if possible, instead 

 of opposing. Undoubtedly the farmers 

 must study marketing and other prob- 

 lems of rural welfare for themselves, if 

 satisfactory solutions are to be ex- 

 pected. The conspicuous success of 

 co-operative enterprises among the 

 farmers of Denmark has encouraged 

 similar efforts in many countries. Cali- 

 fornia has 93 agricultural organizations, 

 and it is claimed that more than half 

 the farmers now sell their products 

 through co-operative marketing asso- 

 ciations, which are extending rapidly. 

 It is not to be expected that urban 

 policies of exploitation can be changed 

 at once from courses followed so long, 

 and from traditions so firmly estab- 

 lished, but the general need of better 

 relations of urban and rural interests 

 must be appreciated, as a basis of 

 constructive co-operation. A spirit of 

 good will and fair play is necessary to 

 see the many sides of practical ques- 

 tions, as well as unlimited patience in 

 considering and testing alternative 

 plans. 



FARM LIFE IS VARIED AND COMPLEX 



Urban reformers of agriculture need 

 first of all to understand that normally 

 diversified farming is much more com- 

 plex and harder to learn than any 

 specialized trade or occupation of the 

 city. The work of the farm is a com- 

 bination of many different arts and 

 operations that require endless fitting 

 and readjustment to meet continually 



