Modern Economic Problems Part 31

-- 3. #Lack of a social agricultural policy in America.# It is a common remark that the farmer lives an independent life. This develops in him a self-reliant spirit. He readily gives and takes simple neighborly help in informal ways, but he does not readily turn to government for aid. While every influential urban group, organized or unorganized--manufacturers, merchants, wage-earners--has sought and obtained special protective social legislation, the farmer has, from choice or necessity, usually had to work out his economic problems unaided. The exceptions are few and of small importance. For example, the prodigal land-policy of the state and national governments encouraging the settlement of the frontiers was not a farmers'

policy. It was originally inspired by the larger political purpose of extending the bounds of the nation; later it was advocated and fostered by a land-speculating element, linked with bad politics, in the frontier states, and not by farmers as such. It in time greatly injured the farmers of the eastern states. The "Granger legislation,"

to regulate railroad rates, was so called by the East in a spirit of derision because it began in the distinctively agricultural states of the Northwest; but it had neither the aim, nor the result, of obtaining especially for farmers any rates that were not open to every one on the same terms. The tariff rates on American agricultural products, placed in the acts as a matter of form, have, with minute exceptions, been ineffective to favor farmers, as the shipments were all outward and none inward, while heavy and effective rates were placed on most things that the farmers had to buy.[2]

In part the explanation of the lack of legislation favoring farmers is to be found in their small part and influence, as a cla.s.s, in political affairs, outside of minor executive offices in township and county governments. In the state legislatures farmers are few relative to their numbers in the community, and still fewer in either House in Washington. Among the real exceptions to the otherwise fair record of the farming cla.s.s in this respect is the tax on oleomargarine and the special favor accorded to farmers' a.s.sociations in the Clayton Act. It might be cynically said that the farmer has not been "sharp" enough to get his share of the "good" things" that the business cla.s.ses were pa.s.sing around in protective legislation. But farmers have, as has every economic group, interests which may legitimately be the subject of social legislation; whereas they have limited their attention to their private affairs at home and have been p.r.o.ne to vote patiently and proudly the "straight ticket" to elect business men and lawyers to office.

-- 4. #Period of decaying agricultural prosperity#. Despite the facts just stated, every campaign orator admits that there is no other occupational cla.s.s of the nation of greater importance to the nation than the farmers, or more deserving of prosperity. Every other part of the industrial organization of a nation is interrelated with its agriculture. Great changes, in respect to growth of population, immigration, exhaustion of natural resources, mechanical inventions, scientific discovery, and many things more, have been occurring, which have altered and, in some communities, have destroyed the very foundations of agricultural enterprise in America since the close of the Civil War in 1865. But the farmers have been left to struggle individually with their individual difficulties, tho the outcome was of the gravest portent to the whole social economy. Such was the case in the period of agricultural depression from 1873 to about 1896.[3]

Mult.i.tudes of ancestral homesteads were then left behind by the last farmer-descendant of the old line. No longer able to make a living on the soil, he took up an urban occupation.

-- 5. #Sociological effects of agricultural decay#. Such changes caused a relative decline in the birthrate of the old American stock. The places of many of these long-settled families remained unfilled as thousands of abandoned farm houses testified. The places of others were taken by a tenantry, white or black, lacking the thrift of ownership; the lands of others pa.s.sed to new owners of alien races. The populations of many rural neighborhoods thus became heterogeneous, with results calamitous to the social life. Once prosperous schools declined, once thronging country churches were deserted, and much of the old neighborhood democracy disappeared. When, about the year 1900, prosperity began slowly to return to the American countrysides in the form of rising prices of farm produce, it was in large part too late to remedy the evil, except as it may be done by generations of effort under more favoring conditions. There are merely suggested here some of the complex sociological effects of past economic changes in American agriculture. It is certain that in the future also the economic changes in this field will be related closely to social and political changes of a fundamental character.

-- 6. #Fewer, relatively, occupied in agriculture; use of machinery.# Probably ever since the first census in 1790, the relative number of agriculturists in this country has been decreasing. Beginning in 1880, the numbers of those occupied in agriculture for gain have been reported at the census dates in a form that makes them fairly comparable.[4]

The explanation of this decrease in the proportion of the population that is engaged in agriculture is twofold; the first is the real increase in the productive output per person in agricultural industry.

In larger part this is due to the increasing use of machinery in place of simple hand tools, and the subst.i.tution of horse-, hydraulic-, windmill-, steam-, and gasoline-power for human labor. This change has been made readily in the regions of level fields, but of late has been made possible to a greater extent in hilly country, by rearranging and combining the old irregular fields into regular fairly level rectangular fields easily tillable, while turning the rougher lands and hillsides into wood lots and pastures.[5] One man, thus, driving three or four or more horses, can do the work formerly done by two or more men and do it just as well. The farmers' incomes in different parts of the country vary pretty nearly with the amount of horse-power used per man. Economies equally great are made in the work done in the barnyards and barns. In most parts of the country only a beginning has been made in these ways, and in future the census will continue to reflect the progress in these directions.

-- 7. #Transfer of work from farm to factory#. The other part of the explanation of the decrease in the proportion of the population that is engaged in agriculture is that many operations are, step by step, being transferred from the farm to the factory. "Agriculture," we have observed, is a great complex of industries, in which many different products are taken from the first simplest extractive stage, and then put through successive processes to make them more nearly fitted for their final uses. Not so long ago grain cut in the field was threshed, winnowed, sh.e.l.led, made into flour, and baked on the farm, as it still is in many places. Logs were cut into boards, planed, and made into houses or furniture by the farmer. The old-time farmer made by hand a large number of his farm implements--rakes, ax handles, pumps, carts, and even wagons. Until a generation ago all b.u.t.ter, cheese, and other dairy products were made on the farm. Now these things are being done in steadily increasing proportion by workers cla.s.sified as in the manufacturing industries, and agriculture contains fewer separate industries and processes. Of course there is economy of labor in nearly all of these changes, but the number occupied in agriculture is greatly reduced. Many farmers and more farmers' sons are moving from agriculture into occupations of manufacturing, trade, transportation, and the professions, and are becoming more narrow specialists.

-- 8. #The rural exodus#. The percentage of persons in the rural population changes at about the same rate as does that of the persons occupied in agriculture. In 1890 it was 64, in 1900 it was 60, and in 1910 it was 54 per cent. The percentage of the population in cities of 8000 or more has steadily increased. This phenomenon has been marked in all of the countries that have been developing along industrial lines. It has been variously described as "the rural exodus," "the abandonment-of-the-farm-movement," and "the city-ward drift."[6] It is only in part explained by the change from agriculture to other occupations; perhaps even in greater part it is due to the decline and disappearance in many rural places of small manufacturing and mercantile businesses before the compet.i.tion of large business in the cities. In much of the long-settled area of the country every hillside stream once turned a little mill to saw timber, grind corn, forge iron, or weave cloth. Most of these mills are now deserted. In countless villages the old blacksmith shop, once a center of business, is abandoned. Here and there a patriarchal smith still serves a dwindling group of customers and speaks with mingled pride and pathos of his sons, now in the automobile business in the city.

The movement away from the countryside has been but little counteracted as yet, but may be more in future, by the growing enjoyment of rural life, by the back-to-the-land movement, by interurban railways, by improved roads, and by automobiles.

-- 9. #The farmer's income in monetary terms#. Census figures and some additional investigations have led to the estimate of the average real income of the farmers of the United States in 1909, expressed in monetary terms, as $724. The estimated value of all products, whether sold or used by the farmer, plus the value of his house rent and fuel consumed by family, was $1236, from which expenditures of $512 are deducted for outside labor, and for materials used for operating and maintaining the farm. Of the $724 the sum of $402 is estimated to be the labor-income of the family and $322 is estimated to be the wealth-income (at 5 per cent of the capitalization of the farm). This was in a period of rising values in farm lands, averaging about $323 per farm annually, and this to most farmers was equivalent to so much monetary savings. The main items of net income, therefore, are as follows:

Rent $125 Food from the farm 261 Fuel 35 Cash 303

Total $724 Increase in value of farm 323

Total estimated monetary income $1047

Of the total, $422 is a labor-income, and $645 is a wealth income.[7]

It would be difficult, even if the available statistics were much more exact than they are, to compare exactly the farmer's income with those of urban cla.s.ses. Averages of such large numbers and over such a wide area have a limited significance in the specific case; and living conditions and the purchasing power of money are so different in country and city and in different parts of the country.[8]

-- 10. #Compensations of the farmer's life#. In bare monetary terms the average farmer's family gets a labor-income less than that of the ordinary wage-earner in a factory, and it is only by the aid of the wealth-income that it appears to fare as well or better. Even the few largest incomes made in farming are small in comparison with many of those made in commerce, transportation, and manufacturing. The great ma.s.s of farmers of the nation are hard-laboring men, poor in the eyes of the city dwellers.[9]

But this much is certain: the farmer's income in monetary terms has on the average much larger power to purchase the main goods of life (material and psychic goods) than it would have in town. Equally good house usance would cost more in nearly all towns, and much more in larger cities. Retail prices of the same food and fuel even in small towns would be much greater. The necessary outlay for clothes to maintain the cla.s.s standard is much less for farmers than for city dwellers. Moreover, in the use of horses and carriages, and now of automobiles, and in the free control of his own time--in many elements of psychic income--the farmer is on a parity with men in other occupations of double or quadruple his income expressed in monetary terms.

Tho the farmer's working day in the busiest season of summer is very long compared with that of factory or office workers, his working day at other seasons is usually much shorter than the average urban worker's day. The farmer's life is nearly always free from the excessive pressure, haste, and compet.i.tion of city life, and the value, to many a man, of the more natural and wholesome conditions of outdoor life and outdoor work are hardly to be measured in terms of even the most untainted dollars.

-- 11. #Ownership and tenancy.# Since 1880, when the first figures on farm tenures were collected, the proportion of farms operated by owners has steadily decreased.

Percentage of farms operated by Owners Cash tenants Share tenants

1880 ............ 74.5 8.0 17.5 1890 ............ 71.6 10.0 18.4 1900 ............ 64.7 13.1 22.2 1910 ............ 63.0 13.0 24.0

These statistics arouse fears that the cla.s.s of independent farmers operating their own farms is gradually giving way to a tenantry in America. But in some respects the figures are misleading unless carefully interpreted. The increasing proportion of tenants is due not so much to owners falling into the cla.s.s of tenants as to the hired laborers rising into the cla.s.s of tenants. The number of male operating owners compared with all male workers (not merely with all farms) has remained almost constant at about 42 per cent; while the per cent of hired workers has decreased from 43.3 (in 1880) to 41.4 (in 1890) and to 34.6 (in 1900). Most hired men on farms are farmers'

sons; the city boy does not adapt himself readily to farm work. Most hired men of native stock become tenants, and finally owners. Only 11 per cent of the hired workers in agriculture (in 1900) were over 35 years of age.

The landlord of a farm let to a tenant, especially to a share tenant, is still to a large extent the general manager, controlling in a large measure through the renting contract and by his oversight, the operations of the farm. Older men find that letting the farm to a share tenant is easier for them and gives better results than continuing to operate the farm with hired labor. And it evidently gives a man a somewhat higher status to become a tenant than to continue to be a hired laborer. In the South this movement has taken on large proportions in the breaking up of large plantations once operated by the owner with hired labor, and now let in smaller lots to operating tenants. Yet such a change appears, statistically, as a decrease in the proportion of farms operated by owners. Despite these somewhat rea.s.suring facts, the problem of maintaining and increasing operating ownership of farms in America is one deserving of the most earnest thought and efforts. The best form of farm tenure is not necessarily that giving the best immediate economic results.

Politically in a democratic nation, and sociologically in its effects upon the size of families and the raising of healthy children, the preservation of an independent American yeomanry is of fundamental importance to the nation.

The problem is as difficult as it is important, and becomes more difficult with the rise in the acreage value of lands and with the economical size of farms, both calling for a larger investment to become an owner. Changes in the system of taxation should be made with reference to this object; the system of agricultural credit should be developed and administered to a.s.sist; special efforts in agricultural education should be made and active administrative efforts should be directed, toward this important end.

[Footnote 1: See above, ch. 1, secs. 7 and 8.]

[Footnote 2: See ch. 14, sec. 5.]

[Footnote 3: See Vol. I, p. 437.]

[Footnote 4: It must be observed in studying these figures, that farmers' wives and children, working at home, are not reported as gainfully occupied. But a widow or a spinster owner, if herself acting as the enterpriser, is reported as "occupied" in agriculture. The increasing number of such cases in the past generation in part explains the growing number and percentage of females in agriculture.

Number occupied in agriculture Per cent of all persons occupied Males Females Both s.e.xes Males Females Both s.e.xes

1880... 7,068,658 594,385 7,663,043 47.9 22.5 44.1 1890... 7,787,539 678,824 8,466,363 41.4 17.3 37.2 1900... 9,272,315 977,336 10,249,651 39.0 18.4 35.3 1910...10,582,039 1,806,584 12,388,623 35.2 22.4 32.5 ]

[Footnote 5: See further, ch. 26, secs. 1 and 2 on the size of farms as an economic factor.]

[Footnote 6: See above, sec. 2, on the distinction between rural and agricultural. In part the change here noted results from increases in the population of towns and incorporated places from a little below 2500 to something about 2500. For example, if there were 2499 persons in a town in 1900 they would all be cla.s.sified as rural; if in 1910 there were 2500 or more they would all be cla.s.sified as urban.]

[Footnote 7: Sec Vol. I, p. 225, and note 11.]

[Footnote 8: See Vol. I, p. 206.]

[Footnote 9: See Vol. I, p. 227, note, for figures on owners and farm laborers.]

CHAPTER 26

PROBLEMS OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS

-- 1. Size of farms, and total farming area. -- 2. Influences acting upon the size of farms. -- 3. Self-sufficing versus commercial farming.

-- 4. Farming viewed as a capitalistic enterprise. -- 5. Diversified versus specialized farming. -- 6. Conditions favoring diversified farming. -- 7.

Intensive farming in Europe and America. -- 8. Prospect of more intensive cultivation of land in America. -- 9. The new agriculture. -- 10.

Difficulty of cooperation among farmers. -- 11. Rapid growth of farmers'

selling cooperation. -- 12. Some economic features of farmers' selling cooperation. -- 13. Cooperation in buying. -- 14. Need of agricultural credit. -- 15. Recent provisions for farm loans.

-- 1. #Size of farms, and total farming area#. The average area of farms has varied from a maximum of 203 acres, in 1850 (the first figures), to a minimum of 134 acres in 1880, being 138 acres in 1910.

A better index, perhaps, is the average improved area per farm, which has been more nearly stationary, varying from a maximum of 80 acres in 1860 to a minimum of 71 acres in 1870 and 1880, being 75 acres in 1910. Here again the statistics require interpretation, for in the spread of the frontier the addition of large farms in the arid and semi-arid regions may raise the average, or the breaking up of large plantations in the South may decrease the average, without this indicating any essential change in the technical conditions of farming in the country generally. Since about 1900 the total area in farms has increased very slowly. Between 1900 and 1910 the increase was only 4.8 per cent; whereas a larger increase occurred in the area of improved land, 15.4 per cent, and the unimproved area in farms decreased 5.6. Future changes of farm areas may be expected to be of this same nature, mainly in the improvement of rough pastures, swamps, partly cleared woodlands, and desert lands awaiting irrigation. An increasing population will have to be provided with food and other products of agriculture on a farming area that henceforth will be increasing less rapidly than it has in the past and than the population increases.

-- 2. #Influences acting upon the size of farms#. In these averages for the whole country many conflicting influences unite and neutralize each other. Making for smaller farms is the breaking up of large grazing areas in the West into smaller general purpose farms or irrigated fruit districts, and of larger general farms in the North and East into small poultry, flower, and fruit farms. Opposed to this is a movement toward the merging of farms of 50 to 100 acres into larger farms of 300 acres, more or less. The economic cause of this movement is interesting and important. The typical and economic size of farms when the Atlantic states were settled, was determined by the use of hand tools, which permitted a man and his family to operate a farm of about 75 acres of which about half was tilled and the rest was in permanent pasture and woodland. The fields were small and were laid out irregularly, which was no disadvantage for hand cultivation. But for the most economic use of land in field crops and under more modern conditions it is necessary to have pretty level fields, of regular rectangular shape. The farm unit should be of such extent as to permit of the proper use of the soil by rotation of crops, and to employ fully the best modern labor-saving machinery for each purpose.

Numerous recent agricultural surveys point to the conclusion that for general farming this unit is a comparatively large area of about 300 acres.

These conditions offer a reward to those agricultural enterprisers who can purchase lands at a price based upon the high costs and lower yields of the older methods and cultivate them at the lower costs and with the larger yields of the newer methods. This movement, therefore, toward the consolidation of smaller into larger farms is likely to continue in many communities for several decades. This is likewise an advantage to the community in increasing the production with less labor. But the net effect upon the social life of the countryside is more doubtful, and calls for careful consideration.