THE PROBLEM OF AGRICULTURAL % ECONOMICS 69 



He raised apples for eating and for cider, not for market there was 

 no apple market. He had very little ready money; he bought and 

 sold few products. Even his grain, which afterward became the 

 farmer's great cash crop, was raised in small quantities and ground 

 at the nearest mill not for export, but for a return migration to the 

 family flour-barrel. 



The new farmer has kept pace with our industrial evolution. 

 When the regime of barter passed away, he ceased to barter. When 

 the world's market became a fact, he raised wheat for the world's 

 market. As agriculture became a business, he became a business 

 man. As agricultural science began to contribute to the art of 

 farming, he studied applied science. As alertness and enterprise 

 began to be indispensable in commercial activity, he grew alert and 

 enterprising. 



But it is not sufficient to picture the new farmer. You must 

 explain him. What is it that makes the new farmer ? Who is he ? 

 What are his tools ? Of course, you must observe the individual 

 traits that characterize the new farmer, such as keenness, business 

 instinct, readiness to adopt new methods, and, in fact, all the qualities 

 that make a man a success today in any calling. For the new farmer, 

 in respect to his personal qualities, is not a sport, a phenomenon. He 

 does not stand out as a distinct and peculiar specimen. He is a 

 successful American citizen who grows corn instead of making steel 

 rails. 



But you have not yet explained the new farmer. These personal 

 traits do not explain him. It may be possible to explain an individual 

 and his success by calling attention to his characterisitics, and yet you 

 cannot completely analyze him and his career unless you understand 

 the conditions under which he works the industrial and social envi- 

 ronment. Much less can you explain a class of people by describing 

 their personal characteristics. You must reach out into the great 

 current of life that is about them and discern the direction and power 

 of that current. 



Now, the conditions that tend to make the new farmer possible 

 may be grouped in an old-fashioned way under two heads. In the 

 old scientific phrases the two forces that make the new farmer are the 

 "struggle for life" and "environment," or, to use other words, com- 

 petition and opportunity. 



Competition has pressed severely upon the farmer competition 

 at home and competition from other countries. At one time the 



