THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM 127 



famines of 1877 to 1878, and those from 1897 to I 9 

 were severe. 



Another misapprehension is that our retired farmers 

 left the farms because they wished more fully to enjoy 

 their accumulated wealth. Not so, but because the 

 intelligent boy and girl will not continue unremunera- 

 tive labor on the farm, while lucrative vocations are 

 open to them, and laborers cannot be hired to take 

 their places. These children have been told of luxury 

 that they might enjoy " after the mortgage is lifted." 

 But instead of being paid, they have seen the mort- 

 gage increase from year to year, and the hope of better 

 things on the farm has died within them they have 

 gone to the cities the cities and the sea are the only 

 places left. " The boundless plains and the mountain 

 places " are occupied. 



The condition of the retired farmer is best illus- 

 trated by the remarks of a merchant in a Southern 

 California town, where a large number of retired 

 farmers had settled : viz. " These retired farmers are 

 no benefit to a town. One motorman on an interurban 

 trolley buys more groceries than three or four of them. 

 At first, I thought them a stingy lot of misers, but 

 since becoming a director in the bank down street, I 

 have watched their accounts, and when I see their 

 meager incomes coming in in driblets from month to 

 month, and observe that a large proportion of them 

 about the first of March each year buys a good-sized 

 draft, payable to some Eastern loan concern, to meet 

 interest due on his farm mortgage, I changed my mind, 

 and I can now understand why they are saving. Why 



