10 THE HIGH COST OF LIVING 



saving of potato-skins has been urged upon the 

 workers by advertisements appearing in the met- 

 ropolitan press. The farmer is being indignantly 

 prodded to increase the acreage under cultivation, 

 to labor a little harder, while the consumers are ap- 

 pealed to to limit their consumption, already re- 

 duced far below the American standard of living by 

 famine prices. 



Yet with all these appeals, with the chambers of 

 commerce and countless other organizations bending 

 their efforts in these directions, little organized, in- 

 telligent thought is being given to the real problem. 

 Why do boys and girls leave the farms for the cities ? 

 Why do the farmers desert their holdings to become 

 motor-men or workers in the city? Why is our 

 agricultural population relatively decreasing and the 

 acreage under cultivation increasing but slightly in 

 amount? Why, with all the aids of science and 

 countless agricultural experiment stations, is agri- 

 culture less attractive than it was to oiu* fathers, 

 and why does the per-capita wealth produced fail 

 to respond to all of the improvements in agricultural 

 production? Why have so many of the advances 

 in civiKzation passed by the farmer? Why is agri- 

 culture a neglected if not a despised profession, and 

 why among other industrial classes does the farmer 

 feel that he- is of least concern to the state ? Why 

 do agricultural organizations like the Greenback 

 movement, the Grange, the Equity, and more re- 



