MIDDLE WE8TEBN AGBIOULTURAL HISTORY 325 



cient cohesiveness to justify their being referred to an communi- 

 ties or neighborhoods. Sometimes the rural school was the focal 

 point; sometimes it was tlie churcli; then again it may have been 

 the local market. The advent of the automobile put the American 

 people on fast and far-moving wheels and shattered that cohe- 

 siveness, and here and there in the midst of the present social 

 and economic cliaos one encounters leaders groping, consciously 

 or unconsciously, for means of salvaging or redeveloping the 

 social values incident to a modicum of stability. The same force 

 has also outmoded the traditional forms of local government. 

 The introduction of swift mobility and its efTects on rural life 

 in all its phases challenges attention. Similar statements may be 

 made with reference to the space-destroying elTects of the radio. 



The rural population as consumers must also be considered. 

 That it is still important as such is indicated by the emphasis 

 placed by the New Deal on the view that the purchasing power 

 of the farmers must be restored and maintained if the nation as 

 a whole is to enjoy economic stability. What food has been raised 

 on the farm and how has it been prepared? What has been the 

 liistoF)' of the migration of industries from the fann to the pro- 

 cessing plant and factory? For this phase of the su])ject, there is 

 need for more studies like R. A. Clemen's American Livestock 

 and Meat Industry, C. B. Kuhlmann's Development of the Flour- 

 Milling Industry, and H. J. Thornton's History of the Quaker 

 Oats Company. There is also tlie role and evolution of the coun- 

 try store and the rise of the mail-order house to be considered. 

 Recently, a great deal has been heard about consumer coopera- 

 tives. A comprehensive history of the experiments in this field, 

 beginning, so far as the Middle West is concerned, with the 

 (i ranger movement, would be of pragmatic interest and value. 



The matter of financing farming operations is likewise im- 

 portant. Farm incomes and expenditures, banking methods, in- 

 terest rates, mortgages and foreclosures, taxation, insurance in 

 all its forms and monetary legislation are topics that have been 

 left mainly to the economists. Possibly this phase of the subject 

 will continue largely in their hands, but even so tlie historians 

 must give cognizance to these financial factors in any agricul- 

 tural historv research that thev mav undertake 



