American Agriculturist 
THE FARM PAPER THAT PRINTS THE FARM NEWS 
“Agriculture is the Most Healthful, Most Useful and Most Noble Employment of Man .”—Washington 
Reg. U. S. Pat. Off. Established 1842 
Volume 114 For the Week Ending November 22, 1924 Number 21 
Developing the Rural Community 
By Clarence Poe, Editor of the Progressive Farmer 
ALL of us, whether fanners or agricultural 
f\ workers, who want to make American 
fjL country life a little better for our having 
lived and labored—what are the most 
important facts for us to keep constantly in mind? 
The fundamental fact about the rural problem, 
as I see it, is that farm life must be made both 
financially satisfying and socially satisfying. 
Neither larger profits alone nor a richer commu¬ 
nity life alone will avail. We must have both. 
Edwin Markham, the famous author of “The 
Man with the Hoe,” once 
remarked to me that “Man’s 
supreme needs are represented 
by three B’s—Bread, Beauty, 
and Brotherhood” — a pro¬ 
found truth. By bread he 
meant the material satisfac¬ 
tions of life which we must 
all have. But equally essen¬ 
tial to any well-rounded life 
is the satisfaction of our innate 
craving for human comrade¬ 
ship and for brotherhood. Consider this remark¬ 
able statement by one famous American student 
of agricultural conditions, Dr. Thomas N. Carver: 
“Paradoxical as it may seem, it is a matter of actual 
observation that the sections of the country where the 
land is richest, where crops have been most abundant, 
where land has reached the highest price and the farm 
owners attain to the highest degree of prosperity, are 
the very sections from which the farm owners are re¬ 
tiring from the farms most rapidly and leaving them 
to tenants.” 
Country Life Not Organized 
Why are they leaving? Why does Iowa, the 
richest agricultural state, yet show a steadily 
declining agricultural population? As I see it, 
there can be but one answer. The country life 
of America has not yet been adequately organized 
in recognition of the fact that man is “a 
social animal.” 
“In all his politics, in all his economics, 
in all his movements,” says a distinguished 
thinker, “man is feeling his way to his inevit¬ 
able destiny of harmonious life.” There you 
have, in my opinion, a phrase which largely 
explains the continuous drift to the cities. 
It is not for larger profits only that farmers 
go to town. “Man, instinctively a social 
animal,” is indeed ever “feeling his way to 
his inevitable destiny of harmonious life,” 
that is to say, toward a life which fully im¬ 
proves upon all the rich possibilities of com¬ 
radeship and of cooperative action with his 
fellows, industrial, civic, and social; and he 
goes to the city largely because he feels we 
have not yet provided for the development 
of these relations in our country districts. 
So it is that the chief task of the rural 
reformer today is the creation of the Rural 
Community—involving, of course, the three 
essentials of (1) scientific farming, (2) busi¬ 
ness cooperation, and (3) an adequate social 
life. The first two necessary to make it 
financially satisfying, the second two to 
make it socially satisfying. 
Mr. George W. Russell of Ireland (whom 
1 am tempted to call the greatest of rural 
sociologists), reminds us of our elemental 
weakness when he says that while we have had 
people living here and there in rural sections 
heretofore, we have not had rural “communities,” 
the word “community” signifying a group of 
people with common interests organized to work 
together as one body in their aspirations, hopes, 
ideals, ambitions. 
Too Few Country Communities 
Just to have a number of dwelling-houses 
scattered here and there over a farming area 
does not make a community; it becomes a real 
community only when it passes through the 
experience of Kipling’s “Ship That Found Itself” 
and there develops among the people a common 
feeling of loyalty, pride, and identity of interest. 
This is what the organization of the towm quickly 
develops, and what the lack of organization of 
the country has prevented from developing there. 
In the town there are ample agencies and organiza¬ 
tions through which the townsman may work for 
better streets and better lights and better schools, 
and for parks and playgrounds and public build¬ 
ings and country clubs and pretty suburbs, and to 
get more progressive people to come for neighbors 
with him, and so on, and so on. But it is a sad 
fact that while we have had people living here 
and there in country sections, we have not had 
country “communities.” We have not had this 
unity of interest, this community consciousness. 
And why have we not had them? Partly, of 
course, because of the individual character of 
farm life—a characteristic which cooperation 
in buying and selling, and in farm work, will 
steadily overcome. But in an even larger measure 
I believe the failure to develop the Rural Commu¬ 
nity has been due to a failure to provide the 
machinery for its development and expression. 
Not Purely Economic 
It is an indictment, and a true indictment, of 
the leaders of our race which Mr. Russell draws 
up when he says that great minds from Aristotle 
in Ancient Greece to Alexander Hamilton in our 
own country have given much thought to the or¬ 
ganization of cities and States, to the problems 
of municipalities and commonwealths, but have 
“treated the rural problem as purely economic— 
as if agriculture were a business only and not a 
life.” The result he finds exemplified in the con¬ 
trast between facilities for progress in his own city 
of Dublin and the absence of such facilities in the 
surrounding rural regions: 
“If Dublin or any other city wants an art gallery or 
public baths, or recreation grounds, there is a ma¬ 
chinery which can be set in motion, there are corpora¬ 
tions and urban councils which can be approached. If 
public opinion is evident—and it is easy to organize 
public opinion in a town—the city representatives will 
consider the scheme, and if they approve and it is 
within their power as a corporation or council, they 
are able to levy taxes to finance the art gallery, public 
bath-houses, recreation grounds, public gardens, or 
whatever else. Now let us go to a country district 
where there is no organization. It may be obvious to 
one or two people that the place is decaying, lacking 
some center of life. They want a village hall (a com¬ 
munity meeting-place), but how is it to be obtained? 
They begin talking about it to this person and that. 
They ask these people to talk to their friends, and the 
ripples go out weakening and widening for months, 
perhaps years.” 
And so nothing is done. In other words, the 
civic impulse, the social instinct, can find machin¬ 
ery for expression in the city, but cannot in the 
country; and so, as Mr. Russell says: “The diffi¬ 
culty of moving the countryman, wffiich has be¬ 
come traditional, is not due to the fact that he 
lives in the country, but to the fact that he lives 
in an unorganized society.” 
There, as I see it, is the wdiole situation in 
a nutshell. Country people are in heart and 
mind just as progressive as city people, but 
haven’t the facilities for expressing the 
spirit of progress. The power-belt of organi¬ 
zation has not been attached to the throb¬ 
bing dynamo of rural aspirations. 
Consider this fact, that the country com¬ 
munity is the only social unit known to our 
civilization without definite boundaries 
and without machinery for self-expression 
and development—“ without form and void, ” 
as was chaos before creation. 
There is the Nation, with its government 
and its flag and its definite boundaries—and 
we are all ready to fight for it, sing of it, die 
for it! 
There is the State, too, with its government, 
its history, its flag—and each of us is pas¬ 
sionately devoted to his State. 
There likewise is the county, with its 
definite boundaries, its history, its govern¬ 
ment by means of which its people can 
express themselves—and there is all over the 
country a more or less definite feeling of 
county pride among all classes. 
And then for the townsmen, there is the 
town or city with its definite boundaries, 
its local government, its varied local organi¬ 
zations, its ample machinery for proper 
self-expression. 
(i Continued, on page 357) 
Standard Farm Paper Editorial Service 
This is the second of a series of special articles by mem¬ 
bers of the Standard Farm Paper Editorial Board. The 
members of this Editorial Board are as follows: 
C. V. Gregory . Prairie Farmer, Chicago, 111. 
D. A. Wallace . The Farmer, St. Paul, Minn. 
H. A. Wallace . Wallace’s Farmer, Des Moines, Iowa 
Clarence Poe . Progressive Farmer, Birmingham, Ala. 
Donald Keefer . Pacific^Zural Press, San Francisco, Cal. 
E. R. Eastman . American Agriculturist, New York City 
T. A. Leadley . Nebraska Farmer, Lincoln, Neb. 
John Cunningham . Wisconsin Agriculturist, Racine, Wis. 
A. J. Glover . Hoard's Dairyman, Ft. Atkinson, Wis. 
DeWitt C. Wing . Breeder’s Gazette, Chicago, 111. 
Clarence Poe, author of this article, has been identified 
with the development and progress of Southern agricul¬ 
ture for a generation. He is one of the outstanding leaders 
of the South. Mr. Poe has always been deeply interested 
in people and in their relationship to one another in the 
social life of the community. You will find his article full 
of interest and inspiration. 
The next article in this series will be by DeWitt C. Wing, 
editor of the “Breeder’s Gazette,” entitled “Pitfalls of the 
Young Breeder.” It will appear in our December 20 issue. 
MR. POE 
