THE SOCIAL SIDE OF FARM LIFE 387 



Health surveys are just starting with expert investigators 

 behind them. The units of measure are so well standardized 

 that rural health studies may be looked for in increasing 

 numbers. 



Many rural community surveys have been attempted, but 

 very few have been published. A community survey of tenancy 

 here and there has shown the way to specialization in the study 

 of farm life. 1 Interesting school district surveys have been 

 taken by country children and teachers. Several analyses of 

 counties into communities by a process of survey have dis- 

 played the close relation of farm life and village, town, and city 

 institutions. 2 Beginnings have also been made in tracing out 

 county government budgets to locate the effectiveness of 

 official service in the county form of government. 3 



A cooperative plan of national research. Country life has 

 justified itself by these initial studies as a field worthy of investi- 

 gation. These surveys, although made in limited areas of the 

 United States, and carried on without regard to concerted 

 action, have proved stimulating and have awakened the hope 

 that a national plan of research may soon be set in motion. 

 The pressing need now seems to be for a determination of the 

 most significant problems which are susceptible of study in the 

 life of our farm populations. These problems should be stated 

 in standardized form, and then more or less uniform methods 

 of study should be agreed upon for general use. 4 



A federal bureau of country life research would facilitate 

 the adoption of standard problems, methods, and a concerted 

 movement nation-wide. 



The United States census of population. To know the move- 

 ment of populations is a desideratum from many points of view. 

 Heretofore the census has given us two main classes of popula- 

 tion, the rural, the urban. The urban population, broadly 



1 Agricultural Experiment Station of University of Wisconsin, Research Bulletin 

 44, "Farm Tenancy." 



2 C. J. Galpin, "The Social Anatomy of an Agricultural Community." 



3 E. C. Branson, The University of North Carolina Record, September, 1017. 



4 Rural Sociology Committee, "Standardization of Research," American Journal 

 oj Sociology, November, 1918. 



