FARM MACHINERY 83 



was, respectively, $286.82, 1^287. 19, and $454.37, an increase 

 of 58.4 per cent for practically the same twenty-year period.^ 



It is self-evident that if the increase in the income of the 

 dependent class alone is represented by 34.9 per cent, while the 

 increase in the income of all agricultural workers dependent and 

 independent taken together is represented by 58.4 per cent, 

 then the increase in the income of the independent class alone 

 could be indicated only by a much higher number. How much 

 higher we cannot tell, probably not less than 75 or 80 per cent. 

 For the period from 1850 to 1900 the rate should, doubtless, be 

 more than doubled. 



The independent farmer of the present day, who has hired 

 workmen, does not find it needful to work always at the same 

 laborious tasks he sets for his employees. At harvest time it is 

 not the hired man but the farmer himself who tends the machines 

 and does the lighter work. Farm buildings are more substantial 

 and supplied with more conveniences than they were fifty, or 

 even twenty, years ago. Good roads abound, and probably not 

 less than one fourth of the farmers now have the advantages of 

 a free delivery of mail.^ Telephone service between farmhouses 

 and connecting with the neighboring towns or cities is by no 

 means uncommon. Railway and electric-car lines run through 

 the farming districts, and where formerly there was a back-country 

 farmhouse there is now, not infrequently, a suburban home. 

 These advantages enable the modern farmer to keep well abreast 

 of the times and to inform himself concerning measures and 

 events nearly, if not quite, as well as the average resident of 

 the towns.^ 



^ Excluding the Southern States, the corresponding showing for this twenty- 

 year period is, for dependent workers, an increase of 31.7 per cent; for all farm 

 workers, 71.2 per cent. 



2 The Superintendent of Free Delivery, in a letter dated January 27, 1903, 

 stated that on February i, 1903, there would "be 13,108 rural routes in operation " 

 and that each carrier "serves an average of 100 families." 



^ The social and ethical sides of farm life are also making progress through 

 the freer intercourse with the world, afforded by improved highways and by the 

 extension of trolley lines. The contact of the younger generation with the life of 

 the city is making new and more progressive methods of living almost a necessity. 

 To-day, on many farms, the ' best room ' is none too good for the family. Musical 



