ANNUAL MEETING OHIO STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 7 



Soldier and statesman, though he was, George Washington was first of 

 all a farmer. Founder and builder of the nation he, taught that agriculture 

 was to be its chief support through all the ages. He says : "In proportion as 

 nations advance in population and other circumstances of maturity, the primary 

 importance of agriculture becomes apparent and renders the cultivation of the 

 soil more and more an object of public patronage." 



Believing this, what would the "Father of his Country" think if he came 

 back to us today and learned the ratio of our agricultural population to our other 

 populations? What would he think if he found that the agricultural population 

 of the country, which was 96 in 100 in his day, had dwindled to 52 in 100 in 

 qualities the case is quite different. 



our day? Even in this great agricultural state of Ohio, the rural population, 

 which in 1890 amounted to 50 per cent of the total population of the entire 

 state, decreased in 1900 to 42 per cent, and in 1910 to 35 per cent. To put it 

 another way, whereas the total population of Ohio increased about 15 per cent 

 and the urban population increased 30 per cent for each decade above, the rural 

 population actually decreased 4 per cent the first decade and 6 per cent the 

 second decade. The census brings us the same story from all the older portions 

 of the country. Everywhere the urban population is increasing ahead of the 

 rural, and in most of the old states the total rural population, just as in Ohio, 

 is steadily decreasing. More ominous than the trust menace, the currency ques- 

 tion,, or the labor problem, is this drift of the people away from the farm; for, 

 as Mr. James J. Hill puts it, "Land -without population is a wilderness, and 

 population without land is a mob." 



The resources of our soil and climate are limitless and unsurpassed by 

 those of any other country in the world, yet, for some reason, the young people 

 in all the older states are escaping from the farm Why? because the attrac- 

 tions of the town are greater than those of the country. How to change this 

 condition is the question of the hour. Even if there are still enough people in 

 the country to produce all the food needed, and although the relative size of 

 the two classes of population does not as yet disturb our national life very 

 seriously, still we must be deeply concerned to ascertain the causes which have 

 thus upset the economic and social co-ordination of these two important parts 

 of our civilization. 



Daniel Webster once said, "Farmers are the founders of civilization and 

 prosperity" ; and it has been the proud boast of America that the farmer occupied 

 the highest position of independence. Is the farmer now to become submerged 

 in the social order and form only an underlying stratum? He must always be 

 the foundation, but is he to be rammed down below the surface and become a 

 mere mud-sill? This, and not the matter of his relative numbers, is the crux 

 of this question. 



It has always been true that one type of men gathers in the cities, while 

 another grows up in the country. There have always been two classes in human 

 society : one the collective and the oth.er the individualistic. Heretofore, in our 

 civilization, the farmer, the representative of the individualistic class, has steadily 

 developed the greatest power, and has, therefore, maintained his own in the 

 republic. Have the city men, the representatives of the collective class, now com- 

 bined to put him down? What's the matter with the farmer? 



If the city lives on the country, the country should logically be able to con- 

 trol; but, as our life is organized today, our cities, like cuttlefish with their great 

 tentacles spread out in every direction, are sucking the life out of the regions 

 around them. The weakness of our civilization lies in the fact that the city and 

 the country seem to be, temporarily at least, opposed in their economic interests. 



