68 THE BUSINESS OF FAEMING 



of affairs that we all overlook, and it is the great 

 American farm tragedy. If these farms had been 

 producing the wealth that prosperous farms 

 should produce, would all the younger generation 

 have deserted them? Surely some would have 

 remained behind to share and enjoy them. If we 

 but search to the bottom of the whole matter we 

 will find that these farms had been farmed for 

 years under a system of farm procedure that made 

 their fields sterile and barren. So long as they 

 produced large crops they prospered their owners. 

 Fine farm buildings were erected and homes with 

 the comforts of life abounded, but as these soils 

 became worn, crop production lessened, the spell 

 cast by worn and worn-out soil spread its blight- 

 ing influences throughout fields, valleys and home- 

 steads, and the inhabitants thereof, especially the 

 younger generations, fell easy victims to the lure 

 of the city or of the West. 



'Tis true that the lure of the city and of the 

 West have ever been some of the world's greatest 

 tragedies. Men and women have come under their 

 seeming benign influence ever since cities were 

 builded and the ' course of empires westward took 

 their way, ' and will continue as long as cities exist, 

 and until all the soils of the globe have been con- 

 quered and subdued to man's service. And the 

 world will never know the heart aches suffered 

 around the firesides of the homes they have 

 desolated of their young manhood and woman- 

 hood. 



But we do not believe the lure of the city and 

 of the West will cast so great a spell about our 

 people if conditions obtain that will dispel the 



