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. 
