The Leading of the False God "Production" 45 



About the physical aspect of the cityward movement, 

 Dr. Binder had this to say : 



"Time was when the city seemed a regular graveyard 

 for her beings. But hygiene and sanitation have been 

 introduced ; statistics of the recent war proved that 

 our city boys are equal to the country product in 

 vitality, while surpassing them in mentality." 



With his statement concerning the physical and men- 

 tal results of urban life I am, of course, in perfect 

 accord; it is precisely what we found in the preceding 

 chapter. But, with the rest of his statement both as 

 to spirit and as to facts, but especially as to spirit 

 I profoundly disagree. 



First, the facts: Machinery is relied upon to make 

 good the deficiency of man-power on the farm. America 

 has long had the advantage of superior agricultural 

 implements and machinery ; and, as a consequence, leads 

 the world in production per man. But she lags far 

 behind in production per acre, possibly because the 

 machine can not quite take the place of the man in 

 getting the soil to do its best. In other words, we may 

 be dying on the land economically, as well as socially 

 and spiritually, because of an overdose of machinery. 

 At any rate, until labor-saving devices bring our per- 

 acre production much nearer the European standard 

 than it is now, we cannot safely disregard the constant 

 loss of man-power on the land and rely on machinery 

 to take its place in the vital matter of food production. 



We saw that Michigan lost 46,000 men from her 

 farms in two recent years ; that she now has an average 

 of only eleven men and boys for each ten farms. Is 

 it certain is it even conceivable that machinery has 



