AGRICULTURE 



99 



AGRICULTURE 



CHLess IHan 40 acres 



to 60 acres 

 O60 to 80 acres 

 B3 80 to 100 acres 



100 to 1 30 acres 



120 to 100 acres 



160 to 200 acres 



200 acres and over 



AVERAGE ACREAGE OF IMPROVED LAND IN EACH FARM IN THE UNITED STATES 



5. There is less financial risk in working on 

 a salary than in running a farm, and there may 

 be more ready money in other businesses. 



6. Both the boy and the girl expect to find 

 more diversion and entertainment in the city. 



7. The trend of the education of both the 

 boy and the girl has been away from the 

 farm. 



These conditions are being rapidly overcome 

 by the following agencies: 



Communication. The telephone and the 

 automobile, both of which are now considered 

 to be necessities in 'many farming communi- 

 ties, are doing much towards overcoming the 

 old conditions and ways of country life. With 

 the automobile the city twenty miles distant 

 is nearer in point of time than the town five 

 miles away without it, and the telephone brings 

 the city and all his neighbors almost in : 

 to the farmer's door. 



With the automobile has come a country- 

 wide demand for better roads, and both nation- 

 ally and locally there is response to this de- 

 mand. Concrete and macadamized roads are 

 i mi: rapidly extended throughout the coun- 

 try. Numerous electric r.uhvuy systems have 

 also joined country towns to each other and to 

 cities. Farmers may now : nly papers 



from the L" M, left at their doors by 



rural fn rI.-liv.M-y; the great stores of ntirs 

 can supply their more important needs 



through parcel post. If families in the country 

 now lead isolated lives it is largely their own 

 fault, for means of transportation are such 

 that all families of a community are able to 

 visit each other at their pleasure. 



Education. Formerly the teaching of the 

 schools, with scarcely an exception, led away 

 from the farm. Now, in addition to agricul- 

 tural colleges and high schools, the public 

 schools are required by law to place agri- 

 culture in their courses of study, and some 

 communities employ teachers skilled in agri- 

 culture, who, during the summer vacation, go 

 from farm to farm and give instruction in the 

 practical application of the principles taught 

 in the schoolroom. 



Agricultural periodicals of a high order, with 

 departments suited to the various members 

 of th< family, are so inexpensive that one or 

 more are easily within the means of every 

 i home. This is equally true of journals on 

 household economics, which are as helpful to 

 tin- housewife as the agricultural journal is to 



thi- fanner. 



Several states and provinces have a system 



ling libraries, by which every rural 



community is supplied with good reading 



t hrounhout the year. The boys and girls of the 



(oiintry now have excellent opportunities for 



iion. 

 The. Community Center. In many locali- 



