INTRODUCTION 5 



the conditions 'for the development of a socialist philosophy in the 

 open country, such as has never been furnished by slave and villein 

 and yeoman types of farming ? 



Assuredly the inner facts of Granger legislation, the rural attitude 

 toward Eastern mortgage-holders in the nineties, and the present 

 gospel of hate toward the produce middleman would all be worthy 

 of a careful search for the purpose of ascertaining whether here are 

 or are not the inductive materials out of which our country popula- 

 tions are building up a socialistic philosophy of their own. Certainly 

 the call for state aid wails loud in the land whenever the farmer believes 

 himself to be losing ground in his contest with other classes. Only 

 the form of the demand changes with the times; from internal 

 improvements to cheap money; from extensive bureaus of agriculture 

 to rural credits. Lassalle's theory of Konjunctur finds a very pretty 

 illustration when the farmer admits that the risks of modern com- 

 mercial agriculture are too much for him- to meet single-handed. To 

 only a very small extent has he underwritten them through private 

 agencies of equalization, such as hail-insurance companies. He seems 

 more keen by far to socialize them through state activities paid for 

 by taxes upon public-utility corporations or by customs duties. Some 

 of the proposals soberly propounded by cotton-planters after the 

 outbreak of the present war were calculated to take even a socialist's 

 breath. 



The writer has no desire to press this discussion for its own sake. 

 What has already been said is merely for the purpose of suggesting 

 that there are fundamental questions of theory underlying the practi- 

 cal programs whose discussion makes up so large a share of what we 

 know generally as agricultural economics, but which all too often fail 

 to touch bottom on any economic principle whatsoever. Agricul- 

 tural economics is, no doubt, an application of general economics to 

 the particular business of agriculture, rather than an independent set 

 of doctrines built up out of a specialized body of data. But this is not 

 to be an application entirely after the fact: economic laws are not 

 promulgated like edicts from some imperial capital imperfectly 

 informed concerning conditions within the province in which they are 

 to be applied. All voices must be heard in the establishing of truths, 

 not less than in the securing of political stability. If we are to avoid 

 the dangers of an industrial economics of capital or a socialist eco- 

 nomics of labor as well as an agricultural economics of land, the facts 



