376 PRINCIPLES OF RURAL ECONOMICS 



agriculture is not a large field of human endeavor, or else there 

 are no markedly successful farmers. Choosing those states in 

 which agriculture is commonly supposed to be a large field of 

 endeavor, we find in the edition of 1908-1909 almost no farm- 

 ers. The number of distinguished persons connected with agri- 

 culture and allied fields of work is as follows : 



Maine, I farmer-manufacturer, i horticulturist (at the State University) 



Ohio, i agricultural educator, i agriculturist 



Indiana, I arboriculturist 



Illinois, i farmer 



Iowa, i forester, i horticulturist (both in the State College at Ames), 



i breeder, i farmer 

 Kansas, i stockman, i fruit grower 

 Nebraska, I agricultural educator, i forester, i farmer 



This lack of recognition of the farmer is not, of course, the 

 fault of the editors of " Who 's Who." They include in their 

 publication only the names which are widely known or talked 

 about. The fact that an eminently successful farmer is not 

 widely known or talked about is due to the fact that our peo- 

 ple have no interest in that kind of achievement. 



Another proof of the same thing is the fact that almost no 

 farmer has secured, in recent years, any political recognition. 

 Even Mr. Roosevelt, with all his enthusiasm for rural uplift, con- 

 sistently preferred the man who talked about farming to the 

 man who did the work of farming. His Rural Life Commis- 

 sion, for example, was an excellent commission, but it was not 

 made up of farmers, but of eminent men who had talked a great 

 deal and very wisely about agriculture and the problems con- 

 nected with it. This helps to explain why farmers were gen- 

 erally so skeptical as to the results of the commission's work. 



So long as men are so constituted as to crave distinction and 

 wide public esteem, so long will they tend to avoid an occupation 

 which seems to furnish no opportunities in that direction. Until 





