222 CHAPTERS IN RURAL PROGRESS 



scientific agriculture as a vestibule to their work 

 may well be used in urging a study of rural social 

 science, especially at a time when social and 

 economic problems are pressing upon the farmer. 

 As for the country papers, the work of purveying 

 local gossip and stirring the party kettle too often 

 obscures the tremendous possibilities for a high- 

 class service to the rural community which such 

 papers may render. No men, in the agricultural 

 states at least, have more real influence in their 

 community than the trained, clean, manly, 

 country editors — and there is a multitude of 

 such men. If as a class they possessed also a 

 wider appreciation of the farmer's industrial 

 difficulties and needs, hardly anyone could give 

 better service to the solution of the farm problem 

 than could they. (6) Everybody else! That is 

 to say, the agricultural question is big enough 

 and important enough to be understood by 

 educated people. The farmers are half our 

 people. Farming is our largest single indus- 

 trial interest. The capital invested in agri- 

 culture is four-fifths the capital invested in 

 manufacturing and railway transportation com- 

 bined. Whether an individual has a special 

 interest in business, in economics, in education, 

 or in religious institutions, he ought to know the 



