576 RURAL SOCIOLOGY 



14. The council should meet once in three months and plan 

 the carrying out of projects. 



15. Don't get the "town boosting" idea. This is a clean-cut 

 business proposition and it needs careful planning. This will 

 take time. 



DEFINITION OF A RURAL COMMUNITY 1 



C. W. THOMPSON 



A RURAL community may be defined as a localized group of 

 individuals having certain common interests, purposes and ac- 

 tivities, with the dominant economic interests in agriculture. 

 Before the people in a rural locality can be regarded as a com- 

 munity they must be conscious of some common interests. They 

 must also be led on by those interests to certain common pur- 

 poses, expressed in common action. 



A rural community, like an individual, may be very much 

 alive or it may not be alive at all. The measure of the life 

 of a community may be found in the number of interactions 

 between the community as such, and its own members or the out- 

 side world. 



A rural community may be static, with interests, purposes, 

 and activities, which do not change. For such a community, 

 the main problem is one of adaptation to fixed conditions. On 

 the other hand, a rural community may be dynamic or progres- 

 sive in its interests, purposes, and activities, enlarging its life 

 in the light of new experience. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



FARMERS' ORGANIZATIONS 



Atkeson, T. C. Semi-Centennial History of the Patrons of Husbandry. 



Judd, New York, 1916. 

 Barrett, C. S. The Mission, History and Times of the Farmers' 



Union, Marshall and Bruce, Nashville, Tenn., 1909. 

 Boyle, James E. The Agrarian Movement in the Northwest. Am. 

 * Econ. Rev., 8 : 505-521, Sept., 1918. 



i From an unpublished address given before the Graduate School of 

 Agriculture, Amherst, Mass., 1916. 



