146 THE LURE OF THE LAND 



of consumers of food products is constantly growing 

 greater, the number of producers smaller. This is not 

 necessarily a cause for alarm. Fortunately there have 

 been established in this country a number of agricul- 

 tural colleges and experiment-stations in which the prin- 

 ciples of scientific agriculture are taught. Methods of 

 checking the depletion of the soil and of recovering 

 exhausted fields have now been well developed and 

 are practically enforced. Moreover, improvements in 

 farm machinery have rendered the labor of the farmer 

 more productive. I believe it may be said with a fair 

 degree of accuracy that a day's skilled labor on the 

 farm at the present time produces twice as much food 

 as it did fifty years ago, and although the country dis- 

 tricts have been to a certain extent depopulated and the 

 cities overpopulated, the supply of the products of the 

 soil in the way of food and clothing has more than kept 

 pace with the increase in population. Yet the curious 

 condition has arisen that while the consumer in the city 

 pays a great deal more for what he eats and wears than 

 he did a few decades ago, the farmer in the country 

 gets little, if any, more for his products. 



The result of this condition of affairs is that while 

 in many respects the cost of living on the farm has been 

 increased through the desire of the farmer to give a 

 better education to his children and to be the possessor 

 of more of the luxuries of life, he has not been secur- 

 ing a corresponding increase in his income. More- 

 over, the price of farm labor has greatly increased. In 

 the old days a good hand would work on the farm by 

 the year for twelve or thirteen dollars a month and his 

 board. This, too, meant real work; for the farm-hand 

 was expected to be up early in the morning, to help feed 

 and care for the stock, and perhaps help with the milk- 



