46 City Homes on Country Lanes 



been invented to perform all the varied farm tasks 

 formerly done by those vanished hands? Even if so, 

 are there men and boys enough left to run the machines I s 

 May not Michigan, like Massachusetts, soon have less 

 rural people than England, with the 8 per cent that 

 Dr. Binder regards as the hall-mark of her civilization ? 

 And, by the way, England would soon starve with- 

 out the food that flows from her overseas dominions — 

 the flow of which Germany nearly stopped with her 

 submarines. The cost of her enormous Navy is part 

 of the price England pays for the glorious privilege 

 of agricultural isolation. 



We saw that in one short year Ohio lost 30 per cent 

 of her men and boys from the farm, while the number 

 of habitable farmhouses increased 61 per cent. At 

 that rate, another two years would leave her farms 

 practically bare. Who will buy and operate the ma- 

 chinery when there is literally "nobody home"? 



In three of the six years from 1914 to 1920, despite 

 the enormous stimulation of war prices and wages, 

 per-capita production fell below the pre-war period ; 

 and we had more and better farm machinery in use 

 than ever before. The area of land in cultivation in 

 the entire country in 1921 is 5 per cent less than in 

 1920; ;i rate of decrease which would wipe out Ameri- 

 can agriculture in 20 years. 



The average annual increase in population is 2 

 per cent; our total area of cultivated lands (1920 

 Census), 478,451,750 acres. On the basis of present 

 production per acre it would be necessary to increase 

 the area of cultivated lands (),.*JG9,40;U7 acres every 

 year; or, 17,450.41 acres every day, in order to main- 



