34 FARM MANAGEMENT 



situation is given by the agricultural college students. A 

 few years ago, practically none of these returned to farms 

 for the very good reason that they could not afford to 

 do so. To-day the great majority of these students are 

 planning to farm at once, or as soon as they can get the 

 necessary capital. 



There may be some danger that we shall keep too many 

 boys on farms and again have an overproduction of 

 farm produce ten or twenty years from now, when all 

 these boys become farmers. Both city and country will 

 be best off if the adjustment of population takes place 

 without such violent shifts as the past generation ex- 

 perienced. 



27. Movement to cities must continue. It is not 

 necessary, or desirable, that all farmers' sons remain 

 on the farms. Much less is any large movement back to 

 the farm desirable. There will always be some persons 

 born in cities who are country-minded. These should go 

 to the farm. But so long as farmers become more efficient, 

 we will need a smaller and smaller per cent of the popula- 

 tion engaged in farming. Farming paid so poorly that 

 the flood to cities continued a little too long. It has 

 already been stopped. It cannot be reversed. We will 

 now expect a gradual current from farm to city, and a 

 limited number of persons will always be going from the 

 city to the farm. 



28. How then may the city secure cheaper food? 

 A considerable part of the agitation on this subject is a 

 desire of those who live in cities to get more persons to go 

 to the farms in the hope that food prices will go down. We 

 are not likely to again see such cheap food. Prices were 

 so ruinously low that, even with virgin soil, the farmers 

 could not make wages. During this period of cheap food, 



