AMERICA 



reduced to such an extent that the land can be restored to 

 agricultural health only after a long and costly period of 

 convalescence. Furthermore, the loss of fertility is general 

 in the nation. And what is saddest of all, the nation has been 

 speeding along under the hypnotic influence of a great de- 

 lusion. The wonderful reports of yields have lulled almost 

 all the people into the belief that American agriculture is 

 enjoying fundamental progress. The great mania of the 

 American people has been to sacrifice everything on the altar 

 of present gain. The magnificent forests of a few years ago 

 are almost all gone, mines are being exhausted, and worst of 

 aJl, the fertility of the soil is decreasing, and all this is taking 

 place coincidentally with a rapidly increasing population. The 

 Banker-Farmer says, America must " create a soil as well as 

 a bank reserve." 



(2) Absence of Team-work. Someone has said the present 

 age is the age of the apotheosis of the middle man, and this 

 is certainly true. Somewhere between the producer of the 

 nation and the ultimate consumer, there is lost a sum of 

 money so immense that it staggers the most fertile imagina- 

 tion. It is known with absolute certainty that the producer 

 receives only a pittance of what the consumer is obliged to 

 pay, and the consumer pays an infinitely greater sum than the 

 producer is able to get. Where does this tremendous sum 

 go? Ask the middle man. The farmer is an individualist; 

 his very occupation contributes to an individualistic develop- 

 ment; he has scarcely got beyond the first stage in the cultiva- 

 tion of the cooperative spirit. And yet the only possibility on 

 earth of bringing the producer and the consumer closer to- 

 gether is by means of a more perfect cooperation in the field 

 of the producer. In the fall of 1915 a certain Ohio farmer 

 received thirty cents a bushel for his apple crop delivered at 

 the station four miles distant. At the same time there was 

 possibly not a large city in the country where good apples 

 could be bought for less than seventy-five cents a bushel. 

 This typical case represents the problem that Rural America 

 must solve if she is to enjoy further economic progress. 



15 



