SECURITY VERSUS INSECURITY 125 



shifted his productive activities from production for 

 his own use to production for sale, he subjected him- 

 self to economic insecurities of a type roughly com- 

 parable in nature to the insecurities to which the 

 wage-worker and the office-worker are now sub- 

 jected. The farmer at one time was self-sufficient. 

 He not only produced his own foodstuffs; he pro- 

 duced his own fabrics and clothing. Weaving and 

 knitting were as much the activities of the home- 

 stead as farming. Sheep furnished him wool; the cat- 

 tle he slaughtered furnished him leather; a wood lot 

 furnished him fuel for heat and cooking. The farmer 

 of the past, in most instances, spent the part of the 

 year when farming operations could not be performed 

 because of the season, operating grist-mills or lumber- 

 mills, or working at some craft or trade. Such a life 

 had only the insecurities which nature itself seems to 

 impose upon human activities, and the possible dam- 

 age from storm and drought, from locusts and hail, 

 was reduced by storage of supplies and diversification 

 of production. The threat of dispossession and unem- 

 ployment which the dependence of the farmer upon 

 the cash market has brought into farming was then 

 unknown. Today farmers have abandoned not only 

 the production of fabrics and clothing, but on about 

 20 per cent of the farms in this country there is not 

 even a cow or a chicken; on 30 per cent there is not 

 a single hog, and on approximately 90 per cent not 

 even one sheep. What is more, on many of the farms 

 in our banner agricultural states no gardens are kept 



