224 AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



manufacturing industries have been developing rapidly during 

 the same period, giving opportunity for a share of the increasing 

 farm population to find remunerative employment in the in- 

 dustries of the cities. To quote Dr. A. C. True, " Between 

 1870 and 1890, speaking relatively and in round numbers, two 

 million men gave up farming and went to join the great army of 

 toilers in our cities. Taking their families into account, six 

 million people from the farm were added to the population of the 

 town. . . . Men leave the farms because they are not needed 

 there. The introduction of labor-saving machinery and rapid 

 transportation has produced the same result in agriculture as in 

 manufactures. A smaller number of men working in our field 

 turns out a much greater product than the greater number of 

 laborers could possibly secure in olden times, and the producers 

 of all lands are easily carried where they are needed. . . . 

 Within the past twenty-five years, invention has gained the 

 mastery in agriculture as in other arts. The brain of man has 

 triumphed over his hand here as elsewhere." l 



If only the poor moved from country to city, the total wealth 

 of the country would be affected but little by this movement of 

 population. But the rich farmers are quite as apt to move to the 

 cities as are the poor ones, in fact they are perhaps more likely 

 to do so, for they are in a position to live from the rent of their 

 farms, as many retired farmers are doing in nearly every town 

 of the country. The sons of the well-to-do farmers are more 

 likely to receive an education and to be attracted to other 

 pursuits than are the sons of poor farmers ; on the other hand, it 

 may be true in many cases that the son of a poor farmer would 

 be more likely to seek employment in the city because his 

 chances of getting a start in the country are not so good as those 

 of the young man with a well-to-do father to aid him. 



This stream of population is carrying a vast amount of wealth 

 from country to city every year. This movement of wealth 

 from country to city has rightly been given as one cause of an 

 increase in the percentage of tenancy, for it transfers to the 

 city the owners of many farms, and these farms are cultivated 



A. C. True, "The Arena," Vol. XVII, pp. 538-539- 



