3 AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



description were doing very well. The prices farm products commanded 

 were high, and the unearned increment that came from the increase in 

 value of farm lands added a substantial quota to rural wealth. There were 

 problems to worry about the increase in tenancy, the shortage of labor, 

 the drift to the city but they were for the most part problems of pros- 

 perity, not of adversity. How could the farmers raise enough to feed the 

 city dwellers ? This was an opportunity and a challenge, not a reason for 

 despair. Middle western agriculture was sound, or so, at least, many people 

 believed. Farm mortgages were universally acclaimed as gilt-edged securi- 

 ties, and they commanded low interest rates. Even the federal govern- 

 ment was hard at work to keep the farmer prosperous. It provided for 

 agriculture free of charge extensive investigational services that non- 

 agricultural industries had to provide for themselves, and it aided the 

 cause of agricultural education generously. 57 Agricultural discontent was 

 chronic and endemic, but for the moment, at least in the western Middle 

 West, it had less than the normal reason for existence. 



57. Nourse, Government in Relation to Agriculture, pp. 873-74. 



