122 AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



Coincident with this bad housing there was found one township 

 where there were twenty-two deaths from tuberculosis in a population 

 of 500 in ten years: a death-rate of 44 per 10,000. These investiga- 

 tors in Minnesota also found that "contributing causes, as overwork 

 and poor food, which play such an important part among the inhab- 

 itants of the crowded tenement districts, do not usually count for 

 much in the country. Bad housing and unrestricted exposure to 

 contagion seem to be the great factors." Of course, in certain well- 

 to-do farming districts, such as' were under investigation in Minne- 

 sota, this would hold good, but in. many other places, especially in 

 parts of Pennsylvania known to the author, poor food and lack of 

 food are a vast contributing cause of this disease. A poor constitu- 

 tion to start with and insufficient food soon engender a condition 

 which quickly yields to the inroads of the bacillus. 



31. LEARNING HOW TO SPEND 1 

 BY JOHN M. GILLETTE 



The rural problem is not, for the nation as a whole, a problem of 

 improving production chiefly, although there are sections, such as 

 much of the South, where improved agriculture must take place before 

 other essential things may be added unto them. Increased produc- 

 tion should mean an increased profit and this in turn should mean 

 higher standards of living, better education of children, and improve- 

 ment in the methods of living. The very center and essence of the 

 rural problem is the necessity of securing the establishment of a new 

 . point of view, a wider and more vital outlook on the part of the resi- 

 dents of the rural regions. In the matter of living, a new outlook on 

 life, its meaning its possibilities of enjoyment and satisfaction, and 

 the means which are fit to secure those ends is intensely needed. 

 Life to the average farmer is devoid of the larger and more attractive 

 elements. His life is a round of eating, working, sleeping, saving, 

 economizing, living meagerly, recognizing only the bare necessaries, 

 skimping along with inconveniences, especially in the home, which is 

 uncalled for considering his wealth. The wealthy farmer is one of 

 the most helpless of men in the matter of finding satisfaction. This 

 appears whenever he moves into the city to live. He still practices 

 the stern economies, lives in houses without modern conveniences, 

 keeps the old rag carpets, attends no theaters, goes to no lectures 



1 Adapted from The Annals, XL (March, 1912, on "Country Life"), 21-25. 



