388 AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



speaking, has included all persons living in incorporated places 

 of 2500 people or more ; the rural population includes all persons 

 living outside urban territory. The movements of the popula- 

 tion engaged in agriculture have not been a matter of plain 

 scientific disclosure by the census, but rather an estimate wrung 

 from the classifications " rural " and " urban." All the figures 

 on " rural decrease " of population and on the gradual but 

 strong migration of " rural " people toward cities fail to give 

 the exact facts about people living on the land as land workers. 

 It is futile to build up permanent theories upon the movement 

 of farm population until we have census data upon farm popu- 

 lation as clean-cut as we possess about the population living in 

 cities of 100,000 people. 



If the census could classify our population under three 

 heads, namely, city population (setting up a standard of 

 population for a city), village population (setting up a standard 

 of population for a village), farm population (population living 

 on farms), we would have the basis for a scientific calculation of 

 population movements, and we should begin to know exactly 

 about " decreases " and " increases " and direction of " migra- 

 tions " of our land dwellers. It would be a source of valuable 

 knowledge on farm problems, moreover, to be able to dis- 

 criminate village population from farm population. The 

 relationships between village and farm require this discrimina- 

 tion, rather than the merging which we have at present. 



Village problems on the human side are quite distinct from 

 farm problems. In fact, village psychology, village institutions, 

 village government, village abnormality, and the like, justify 

 separate research methods and separate treatment. 



The census should become the great basal source of research 

 in country life problems. And it will take its place and function 

 in this respect just as soon as the foregoing threefold classifica- 

 tion of population is standardized. Then a series of tabulations 

 on literacy, illiteracy, age groups, color, nationality, sex, marital 

 conditions, in respect to each of the three classifications, would 

 give the initial materials for further research. 1 



1 C. J. Galpin, "Rural Life," p. 359. 



