INFLUENCE OF A SINGLE FARM COMMUNITY. 3 



When agriculture, weighed in the balance over against city indus- 

 try, is found wanting, as has sometimes happened in the history of 

 older nations, it will be discovered that the seed beds of human life 

 back in the country have begun to break up. Strong families, it will 

 be found, have well-nigh disappeared by migration from farm com- 

 munity after farm community; and what is termed "folk depletion," 

 an actual loss in the social stamina and morale of the rural community, 

 is sure to be the penalty upon the Nation. It is incumbent upon the 

 Nation, therefore, to be concerned about the upkeep of rural com- 

 munity life, and to try to maintain the balance, as far as possible, by 

 legitimate checks upon the movement of capital and population away 

 from the farms. 



FAMILY LIFE ON THE FARM. 



Family life on the farm is peculiar, in that farming is practically a 

 partnership of the husband, the wife, and the child. This partner- 

 ship, moreover, frequently reaches its maturity only when title to 

 the farm passes from the father and mother to the child, who by that 

 time will have reached manhood and have a family of his own. From 

 this point of view the farm family, therefore, constitutes a social cycle 

 a little larger than the group usually considered as a farm home. 



The farm owned by the father and mother is likely to pass from 

 management by the father through several stages, such as (1) man- 

 agement by the son, (2) tenancy by the son, (3) possibly part owner- 

 ship by the son, and (4) complete ownership by the son, all within the 

 father's lifetime. This close weaving of threads of family with those 

 of land tenure has helped to constitute the family as the outstanding 

 rural institution, and has naturally made domesticity the cardinal 

 trait in country life. The sentiment of home, in all likelihood, 

 gathers much of its meaning and sweet enchantment in the minds of 

 men from the experience of youth in the farm household. And this 

 sentiment is carried over into the pathetic makeshifts and substitutes 

 for family life and home which city conditions often impose upon city 

 people as a tax on city residence. 



The Nation is largely dependent, therefore, upon farm life for the 

 maintenance of the family as a national institution and a bulwark 

 of national life. 



UNANSWERED QUESTIONS ABOUT MIGRATION FROM THE FARMS. 



Migration is essentially a transplanting of youth. — The transplant- 

 ing of youth from farm life to city life appears to be not only a process 

 highly essential to national virility, but an inevitable process. 

 Migration from the farm is, therefore, a natural process in the Nation's 

 organism, like many a necessary biological function, which must be 

 guarded from overaction. For this reason it becomes important to 

 make a beginning in the analysis and study of migration from the 

 farms in order to answer some of the questions still unanswered. 



