150 RURAL SOCIOLOGY 



has only his hands. The farm laborers of to-day, like the work- 

 men in the factories, are being more and more separated from 

 the proprietors whom they serve. These classes understand 

 each other less and tend more and more to become as lords and 

 proletariat. The larger farms, moreover, are passing out of the 

 hands of resident owners and, like factories, are being run by 

 managers whose primary duty is to return profits. 



The more intelligent of the farm laborers, those who must 

 be depended upon to operate the machines, fare very well; but 

 the ignorant and the unskilled are probably as ill-conditioned now 

 as before the introduction of machinery. 



The decadence, or disintegration of the agricultural popula- 

 tion due to the use of machinery, is evident even in the pro- 

 prietor class itself. The group (of states) showing the highest 

 percentage of decrease (from farm ownership to tenancy) is 

 composed of those states in which large farms and costly ma- 

 chinery are plainly the characteristic feature. It contains, in 

 fact, the seven leading cereal-producing states of the country. 

 The rate of decline from ownership to tenancy is nearly four 

 times as rapid in the states where much machinery is used as 

 in the states where comparatively little machinery is used. 



THE AGRICULTURAL ELEMENT IN THE POPULATION * 



EUGENE MERRITT 



IN practically all countries where the number dependent upon 

 agriculture is known, they form -a decreasing proportion of the 

 total population. Wherever a comparison of the male agri- 

 cultural workers with the total males gainfully employed is 

 available, the agricultural workers form a decreasing proportion 

 of the total. Thus is released to engage in other occupations 

 a corresponding percentage of the total workers. Apparently 

 the principal reasons for this decreasing percentage are that the 

 agricultural element in the population is becoming more efficient 

 and that in the readjustment or changes in the methods of pro- 



i Adapted from Publications of the American Statistical Association, 

 March, 1916, pp. 50-65. 



