Table 8. Percentage of Farm Operators Who Had Adopted No or One or More 



Improvements During the Previous Two Decades According to Whether 



They Had or Had Not Considered Leaving 



Improvements Adopted 



Had Considered 

 Leaving 



Had Not Considered 

 Leaving 







1 or more 



Average No. of improvements 



Percent 



14 

 86 



No. 



5 

 31 



2.1 



Percent 



23 



77 



No. 



50 

 167 



1.8 



E. Migration of Children 



Hypothesis No. 5 was that the children of farmers who had considered 

 leaving would be more likely to leave home than would children from farms 

 where the parents had expressed no intention of leaving. 



It was found, however, that the proportion of children over eighteen 

 years of age who had left home was similar for both groups. This was true 

 for male and females. 



Table 9. Proportion of Children 18 Years and Over Who Had Left Home to Live Elsewhere 



Operator Considered 

 Leaving 



Operator Had Not 

 Considered Leaving 



No. 



Males over 18 

 Have left home 

 Females over 18 

 Have left home 



Percent 



No. 



Percent 



A larger proportion of females had left the home farm than males, as to 

 be expected, but this decision to leave by males was apparently not influenced 

 significantly by the attitude of the head of the family towards leaving the 

 farm. 



The average number of children born to families was 2.4 for those who 

 had considered leaving and 2.6 for those who had not considered leaving. 



F. Community Ties 



A sixth hypothesis was that the desire to move is less when community ties, 

 as represented by participation in church and farm organizations, are strong. 

 In order to test this hypothesis farmers interviewed were asked about par- 



