AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 755 



walks of life. In addition to the economic and social forces favor- 

 ing the accumulation of urban rather than rural wealth that were 

 considered in Part II of this essay, certain further disadvantages 

 of the farmer deserve attention. 



Again, the farmer is at a disadvantage in the fact that " he 

 deals altogether with a raw material." In explanation of this 

 statement, President James H. Canfield writes : 



It seems to me that as civilization advances, and as invention and ingenuity 

 carry the final product, in a certain sense, further from the initial point at 

 which the work of transmutation is taken up, the greater part of the returns 

 will go to reward the ingenuity and intelligence of the latter processes ; and 

 a much less proportionate part will be returned to the one who practically 

 handles the raw material. I cannot believe that the man who mines iron and 

 coal will ever be as well paid as the man who makes watch springs. Perhaps 

 a better illustration would be that the men who construct the different portions 

 of a fine carriage and assemble these into one finished product will always be 

 better paid than the men who cut the timber and hauled it to mill. 



The farmer is at a further disadvantage in that the products 

 of his labor are especially subject to instability of price. This 

 is due to the fact that he is largely engaged in the production 

 of commodities which have in general no utility save in satis- 

 fying the demand for food ; and for such products the demand 

 is relatively inelastic. Hence, a sudden increase or decrease in 

 the supply of farm products causes a relatively great fluctuation 

 in price. 



As an offset to the disadvantages under which the farmer 

 labors as compared with those who are engaged in urban indus- 

 tries, there are certain particulars in which his condition is better 

 than theirs. In the first place, he has more generally succeeded 

 in securing for himself a home and a small capital than the 

 men of other industrial classes. Of farm proprietors under 

 twenty-five years of age, 32 per cent are owners, and the per- 

 centage increases with age up to 83 per cent for owners of 

 sixty years of age and over. Of home proprietors less than 

 twenty-five years of age, only 13 per cent own their homes, 

 and the percentage increases without interruption to 57 per cent 

 for owners of sixty years of age and over. Of all farm families, 



