359] The Condition of the Western Farmer. 81 



demand for land is made greater by one of the characteristics 

 of investment in farming operations, which may be specially 

 mentioned; this is the slowness with which the true rate of 

 agricultural profits can be estimated, owing to the great var- 

 iations from year to year in the size of the crops and in the 

 prices at which farm products will sell. 



A special case of this migration of home-seekers to the 

 newer western states is exemplified on a considerable scale 

 by the large parties of farmers who at the present time 

 (March, 1893) are leaving Illinois for Nebraska, the Dacotas, 

 and neighboring states. As the value of land in such 

 states as Illinois increases, the younger generation finds it 

 constantly growing harder to acquire farm homes of their 

 own. Consequently it often happens that the owner of a 

 small farm sells it, perhaps to a non-resident landowner, and 

 moves with his sons further west, where the proceeds from 

 the old farm will purchase enough land for both father and 

 sons. 



But again, a cause for the increased demand for farming 

 lands may be sought* in the deeper relations underlying all 

 industrial society. Farming may be an uncertain means of 

 getting a living, and yet it, or the ideas of it current in the 

 eastern states, may seem to many a laborer so much better 

 than his existing lot, or may actually be such an improvement 

 upon it, that he is only too glad to seek to better himself by 

 means of it; and thus he helps to swell the already over- 

 crowded ranks of agriculturalists, and so raises the price of 

 their primary necessity the land. 



Though the special peculiarities in the character of the 

 income derived from farming operations should by no means 

 be left out of account in considering the status of the farmers, 

 yet a brief mention of these peculiarities must suffice here. 

 In the first place, the irregularity in the amount of the 

 income from year to year has very important effects. Though 

 even the tenant farmer may almost always feel confident that 

 a sufficient supply of food is assured him, no matter how poor 

 the crop, still every farmer is liable to have his year's profits 



