426 RURAL SOCIOLOGY 



timber lands more satisfying than that which can be found any- 

 where else on earth. 



RURAL ECONOMY AS A FACTOR IN THE 



SUCCESS OF THE CHURCH 1 



THOMAS N. CARVER 



IT may be laid down as a general law of rural economy that 

 the productive land in any farming community will tend to pass 

 more and more into the hands of those who can cultivate it most 

 efficiently, that is, into the hands of the most efficient farmers, 

 unless it is prevented from doing so by some kind of military 

 force exercised by an aristocratic ruling class. In a democratic 

 country, like the United States, where there are so few impedi- 

 ments in the way of the free transfer of land, we need look for 

 nothing else. The men who can make the land produce the most 

 will be able to pay the most for it, and in the end they will get it 

 and hold it. This looks simple enough, no doubt, and may not at 

 first seem to signify much, but it is weighted with consequences 

 of the most stupendous and far-reaching character, conse- 

 quences which it would be suicidal for the church to ignore. 



It means simply and literally that the rural districts are never 

 to be thoroughly Christianized until Christians become, as a rule, 

 better farmers than non-Christians. If it should happen that 

 Christians should become really better farmers than non-Chris- 

 tians, the land will pass more and more into the possession of 

 Christians, and this will become a Christian country, at least so 

 far as the rural districts are concerned. The first result would 

 probably be to paganize the cities, since the non-Christians dis- 

 placed from the rural districts by their superior competitors 

 would take refuge in the towns. But since nature has a way of 

 exterminating town populations in three or four generations, and 

 the towns have therefore to be continuously recruited from the 

 country, the Christianizing of the rural districts would eventually 

 mean the Christianizing of the towns also. But, vice versa, if 

 non-Christians should become the better farmers, by reason of 



i Adapted from American Unitarian Association, Social Service Bul- 

 letin No. 8., 25 Beacon St., Boston. 



