THE EVOLUTION OF THE FARMER. 19 



occur more rapidly than man has been able to adapt himself to 

 them. Within the trifling space of a half century there have 

 been greater changes in the conditions of life than had before 

 occurred in any five hundred years of the world's history. 

 With all his marvelous power to adapt himself to natural 

 conditions, man has not been able to modify Ins own nature as 

 rapidly as he lias modified his environment. The result is 

 the distress which we see in the classes and the individuals 

 whose habits and impulses are most fixed. It is found in all 

 ranks of society, but we are now concerned with it only as the 

 farmer is afl'ected. 



In com[)aring the classes of men with respect to their 

 material jirosperity, it is convenient to divide them roughly 

 into capitalists and non-capitalists. By the former I mean at 

 this time all wlio live by the application of their labor to 

 property owned or controlled by themselves, as opposed to 

 those who live by the sale of their labor only. Under this 

 classification tlie farmer would, of course, be placed in the 

 capitalistic class. The farmer is at a disadvantage in his 

 material conditions as compared with other property-owning 

 classes, because he knows less about his business than they 

 know about theirs. This was not always the case, his relative 

 retrogression being due to the fact that in his isolated life he. 

 has not been so well able as others to keep pace with modern 

 progress. The tendency and inevitable result of this condi- 

 tion is to deprive farmers, beginning with the weakest, of their 

 property, and reduce them to the condition of dependents; and 

 nothing can change that tendency or prevent that consumma- 

 tion except the general diffusion among farmers of such 

 business education as will prevent them from engaging in 

 unprofitable enterprises. The annual cost of the information 

 necessary for the profitable conduct of a farm under modern 

 conditions, however, is more than the revenue from the farm will 

 pay after supporting its owner in reasonable comfort; and the 

 alternative confronting the small farmer is combination with his 

 fellows for educational and other purposes, or gradual extinction. 



In order to make this clear, let us consider for a moment 

 what must befall the farmer if he does not educate himself; 



