58 CHAPTERS IN RURAL PROGRESS 



stand the conditions under which he works 

 the industrial and social environment. Much 

 less can you explain a class of people by de- 

 scribing their personal characteristics. You 

 must reach out into the great current of life that 

 is about them, and discern the direction and 

 power of that current. 



Now, the conditions that tend to make the 

 new farmer possible may be grouped in an old- 

 fashioned way under two heads. In the old 

 scientific phrases the two forces that make the 

 new farmer are the "struggle for life" and "en- 

 vironment," or, to use other words, competition 

 and opportunity. 



Competition has pressed severely upon the 

 farmer, competition at home and competition 

 from other countries. At one time the heart of 

 the wheat-growing industry of this country was 

 near Rochester, N. Y., in the Genesee Valley; 

 but the canal and the railway soon made possible 

 the occupation of the great granary of the west. 

 A multitude of ambitious young men soon took 

 possession of that granary, and the flour-mills 

 were moved from Rochester to Minneapolis. 

 This is an old story, but the same forces are still 

 at work. There has been developed a world- 

 market. The sheep of the Australian bush have 



