576 RURAL SOCIOLOGY 



14. The council should meet once in three months and plan 

 the carrying out of projects. 



15. Don't get the "town boosting" idea. This is a clean-cut 

 'business proposition and it needs careful planning. This will 

 take time. 



DEFINITION OF A RURAL COMMUNITY 1 



C. W. THOMPSON 



A RURAL community may be defined as a localized group of 

 individuals having certain common interests, purposes and ac- 

 tivities, with the dominant economic interests in agriculture. 

 Before the people in a rural locality can be regarded as a com- 

 munity they must be conscious of some common interests. They 

 must also be led on by those interests to certain common pur- 

 poses, expressed in common action. 



A rural community, like an individual, may be very mucli 

 alive or it may not be alive at all. The measure of the life 

 of a community may be found in the number of interactions 

 between the community as such, and its own members or the out- 

 side world. 



A rural community may be static, with interests, purposes 

 and activities, which do not change. For such a community 

 the main problem is one of adaptation to fixed conditions. Or 

 the other hand, a rural community may be dynamic or progres 

 sive in its interests, purposes, and activities, enlarging its lift 

 in the light of new experience. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



FARMERS' ORGANIZATIONS 



Atkeson, T. C. Semi-Centennial History of the Patrons of Husbandry 



Judd, New York, 1916. 

 Barrett, C. S. The Mission, History and Times of the Farmers 



Union, Marshall and Bruce, Nashville, Tenn., 1909. 

 Boyle, James E. The Agrarian Movement in the Northwest. Air 



Econ. Rev., 8:505-521, Sept., 1918. 



i From an unpublished address given before the Graduate School o 

 Agriculture, Amherst, Mass., 1916. 



