32 FARM MANAGEMENT 



crease in efficiency of farmers. The people of Iowa have 

 not died. The sturdy sons, who have learned how tc 

 use human labor to such good advantage, have moved to 

 Texas, Washington, Canada, and all the country between, 

 and wherever they have gone they have been efficient. 



With the spread of the improved methods that are used 

 by our better farmers, it is probable that the time may soon 

 come when one farmer will raise enough to feed five or 

 six families. When this time comes, only 15 to 20 per cent 

 of the population will be farmers. These farmers will pur- 

 chase many things not yet invented, and all civilization 

 will have taken a long step forward. 



This means that we shall have a constant movement to 

 cities, but there will always be a small number going 

 from the city to the farm because they prefer farm life. 

 The balance of the movement must always be cityward, 

 so long as farmers continue to become more efficient. 



All these fundamental principles are lost sight of by 

 the enthusiast who would have everybody (except him- 

 self) go back to the farm. If any further evidence is 

 needed of the futility of striving against an economic law 

 that is as firmly established as the law of gravitation, this 

 evidence is furnished by the few persons who have really 

 gone from city to country, as a result of all the agitation 

 and yards of writing on the subject. 



25. Why the farm boy went to town. The Civil 

 War removed so many persons from production that 

 prices were very abnormal. With the war over, the 

 soldiers and others rushed to the great fertile prairies of 

 the Central West, hoping to raise crops and secure these 

 big prices. Just as they became well established, new 

 machinery began to be introduced : binders, drills, 

 gang plows, check row corn planters, and big threshing 



