AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



haps more likely to do so, for they are in a posi- 

 tion to live from the rent of their farms as many 

 retired farmers are doing in nearly every town 

 of the country. The sons of the well-to-do farm- 

 ers are more likely to receive an education and to 

 be attracted to other pursuits than are the sons 

 of poor farmers; on the other hand, it may be 

 true in many cases that the son of a poor farmer 

 would be more likely to seek employment in the 

 city because his chances of getting a start in the 

 country are not so good as those of the young man 

 with a well-to-do father to aid him. 



This stream of population is carrying a vast 

 amount of wealth from country to city every year. 

 This movement of wealth from country to city 

 has rightly been given as one cause of an increase 

 in the percentage of tenancy, for it transfers to the 

 city the owners of many farms, and these farms 

 are cultivated by tenants until some farmer is 

 able to acquire its ownership by transferring to 

 the city-owner an equivalent amount of wealth. 



Thus while gift and inheritance are economic 

 conditions of great importance in determining the 

 status of farmers with respect to landownership, 

 and make any rapid change in their status in this 

 regard impossible, some other means of accumu- 

 lating wealth must be available if the present per- 

 centage of landowning farmers is to be main- 

 tained. This leads to the investigation of savings 

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