52 THE FARMER AND THE NEW DAY 



have a real democracy. How are we to do it? There 

 is the question of grades or strata of farmers. In al- 

 most any farm community we find a group of very 

 prosperous and successful farmers, men who we say 

 can " take care of themselves." Near the other end of 

 the scale we find the " submerged tenth," men not very 

 efficient. At the extreme end we find the hundredth 

 man the abandoned farmer. Between these ex- 

 tremes, the great group of average farmers. So we 

 have farmers small and farmers large; farmers wise 

 and farmers foolish; farmers educated and farmers 

 illiterate; and we find the need of adjusting our ideas 

 and our methods of living together so that as far as 

 possible these walls of separation may be broken down. 

 The problem becomes a very interesting and acute one 

 in any farm community when we note the prejudices in 

 church or in secret societies, and how certain groups 

 are inevitably excluded. We also find farmers with 

 special difficulties; the man with the tiny farm, the land- 

 less farmer, the laborless farmer, the farmer without 

 capital, the farmer in the depleted rural community who 

 would like to see a better day but is not hopeful that it 

 can be brought about, and finally the farm laborer. 

 Sometimes these matters do not seem like " problems " ; 

 but are rather taken for granted. They are important 

 questions, nevertheless. 



ADJUSTMENTS BETWEEN THE FARMER AND OTHER 

 INTERESTS 



The Balance between Producers and Consumers. 

 We have had a great outcry because in some prosperous 

 agricultural regions as well as in those less prosperous, 

 the farm population has actually declined. At the bot- 

 tom this change of population was simply an effort to 



