by their membership agreement, even at a small loss at first. 

 (6) Cooperation fails unless it makes provision for the man- 

 agement of the business by a good executive. 



(3) Better Living. 



The well-to-do farmer of today can provide in his home 

 almost all of the comforts and conveniences enjoyed in the best 

 city homes. The furnace, running water and bath room con- 

 veniences, gas and electric lighting, the telephone, the daily 

 delivery of mail, the automobile are all tending to soften the 

 harsh conditions of earlier days. One of the most striking 

 facts is that farmers who have acquired a competence leave 

 their farms, which they rent to tenants, and move to small 

 villages where they build more comfortable homes than they 

 had in the country. Sometimes the reason for their leaving 

 is the superior educational advantage offered by the town 

 school; sometimes, the better church, more easily attended; 

 more generally, their moving is due to the fact that when they 

 retire and rent there is no other place to live, for the tenant is 

 not pleased with the idea of a resident landlord. 



To increase the productive power of the farm by improv- 

 ing the crops in quality and quantity, to bring about more 

 equitable methods and means of marketing in order that the 

 consumer may pay less and the producer receive more, is not 

 all of the country life problem. With these must go ideas of 

 better and broader living so that the wealth of the rural com- 

 munities may find expression in good homes, good schools, 

 powerful churches, in roads and bridges, in the improvement 

 of rural landscape. The method of farming which robbed the 

 soil, practiced in an earlier day was bad, but the practice of 

 taking out of a community the wealth which should build 

 homes, schools, and churches, to spend it in villages and cities 

 will be far more disastrous, for it robs the people of opportu- 

 nities which life should offer. 



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