RURAL CONDITIONS. 



By Edith Ellicott Smith, 

 President, Pennsylvania Rural Progress Association, Pennsdale, Pa. 



The conference which is now beginning in this city is only another 

 indication of the awakening of the business men of the United States to 

 the need of concerted action on their part for -the improvement of country 

 life and agriculture, because of the close interdependence of city and 

 country. To those who are in close touch with the rural districts the 

 constantly growing unrest among the agricultural classes has been fully 

 apparent. By city men, except as they are farm owners, this has only 

 been faintly realized. The unrest which has been growing in the country 

 has been brought about by many causes, both economic and social. A 

 belief on the part of young people and women on the farms that country 

 life is dull drudgery and that a brighter happier life lies in the city seems 

 to prevail. 



Farm labor has become more and more discontented. We have a 

 man farming for us who has four sons; two of them as soon as they reached 

 the age of eighteen left for the city to become mechanics; the other two 

 have not a good word to say for farm life and arie panting to get away. 

 They will go as soon as they are eighteen. Nearly every day some farm 

 hand appears at the office with complaints about his work, his wages, 

 his hours. Adjustments in and out of reason are made, days off are 

 given, a horse for going visiting, every concession to induce them to 

 remain. Extra labor for pressing seasonal occupations, such as harvest- 

 ing, filling silos, etc., is almost impossible to find. To solve this problem 

 every rural community will have to co-operate in establishing some winter 

 industry to hold the labor supply. The interchange of labor between 

 farms has been tried and found to be wholly unsatisfactory, because a 

 farmer must always return the favor at the time convenient for his neigh- 

 bor and most inconvenient for himself. 



The Farmer as a Seller. 



The need for a closer relationship between the food producer and the 

 food consumer and the elimination of the class which preys on both, is 

 the talk of the hour, and will only cease when full knowledge regarding 

 the market situation is in the hands of })oth producer and consumer. At 

 present the farmer knows not to whom his product goes any more than 

 the city man knows from whom his food comes. Neither does the farmer 

 in a vast majority of cases know how to prepare his product for market. 



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