THE FARMER'S MEANS OF ACQUIRING LAND 223 



The number of persons employed in the various other occupa- 

 tions has increased much more rapidly than has the number 

 engaged in agriculture. This is shown by the following table, 

 which gives the proportion, of those engaged in all gainful 

 occupations, which were employed in " agricultural pursuits." 1 



TABLE XIV 



Perhaps the most important explanation of this more rapid 

 increase in the percentage of those engaged in other occupations 

 than agriculture, is the transfer of a share of the agricultural 

 population to the other industries. This has often been spoken 

 of as the movement from the country to the city. Men who 

 have long been farmers sometimes move to the cities and enter 

 other occupations, but what is more significant than this is the 

 movement of the farm boys from country to city. A large 

 percentage of the boys who are brought up in the country are 

 educated and sent into the city, where they enter occupations of 

 every description. A large percentage of the men who control 

 the industries of cities to-day were one-time farm boys. 



This movement from country to city was especially rapid 

 during the seventies and eighties for two reasons : First, agri- 

 cultural methods were transformed by the introduction of labor- 

 saving machinery, until a much smaller percentage of the total 

 working population was required to produce the same supply 

 per capita of food stuffs and raw materials. Second, the 



1 Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900, Special Reports, Occupations, 

 pp. xxx, 1. 



