CHAPTER XXV RURAL LIFE 145. Why young people leave the farm 1 A fundamental factor in the problem of rural life is the tendency of country people, and particularly of young country people, to remove to towns and cities. The causes for this cityward drift are complex, but in general they are grouped around the belief that the city offers more advantages and fewer dis advantages than does the country. Particularly where young people are concerned it is necessary to notice the influence of suggestion upon the cityward drift. This important influence, often overlooked, is described by Professor Groves in the following passage: Some causes of the city ward drift. deserves Suggestion and the ru ral child. The movement of population toward urban centers study in the light of the modern teaching of psychology. . . . Suggestions influence the child profoundly, and, of course, not less in the country than in the city. In many cases the life of the rural child is penetrated more deeply by significant suggestions, because his life, since it is spent in a less complex environment, offers a smaller quantity of suggestions, or a greater uniformity of such influence. In any case, the suggestions that enter the mind of the rural child provide a basis for explaining later actions. . . Every occupation provides reasons for discontent, but in the Significance country any dissatisfaction with the conditions of . . . farming is of disconlikely to develop into discontent regarding the country itself, for the farming. occupation and the environment are hardly to be distinguished. Indeed, in leaving the occupation of farming, it is usually necessary for such people also to leave the country towns. . . . Suggestions, therefore, that farming does not pay, or is too laborious and unprofit ... 1 From Ernest R. Groves, Using the Resources of the Country Church. Association Press, New York, 1917; pp. 7-9, 14-15, 19-21. tent with The effect toil. able, translated into effective action, bring about a removal from both industry and locality. The early experiences on the farm may leave a suggestion of unof prolonged reasonable toil. Romantic youth cannot rest content with a vision of endless, lengthened hours of work and merely a living. . . . Parents have at times been responsible for this conception of farming, because they have insisted upon having their sons and daughters work unreasonably during vacation and after school. The parent who looks backward upon a generation more given to long toil than this, may the more easily commit this mistake and teach his children to hate the farm and rural life. The effect of deferred or restricted recreation. The rôle of advertising. The lure of success in the city. The adult of little imagination is likely to forget another source of experiences in youth that may suggest to the country boy attitudes that later provide a basis for discontent in regard to rural life. The boy on the farm finds at times that his holiday and vacation are encroached upon by needed labor. Weather and harvest conditions rob him of the pleasures that his village chum enjoys. Some definite plan for an outing or some greatly desired day of sport has to be given up that the crop may not be injured. Doubtless parents allow these disappointments to happen with little reason, and looking at the matter from an adult point of view, do not regard the boys' feelings as of serious significance; and yet, in the light of modern psychology, we know that such experiences may build up a very significant hostility to the rural environment. Modern advertising is itself a supreme illustration of effective suggestion, and its development has been for the most part in the hands of urban interests. Such advertising has forced rural people to contrast their manner of life with urban conditions, and often with the result of discontent. They are drawn to the city on special occasions by alluring city publicity manipulated with scientific skill by experts, and often return to their country homes dissatisfied because of false notions regarding the pleasures of the city. Of course this is more largely true of young people and they are more open to suggestion. . . . Spectacular success is largely dependent upon urban conditions of life, and such success obtains public attention. Even in the country, the successes talked about are likely to be those made possible by city life. These are given space in the magazines and daily papers edited and published in the cities, and so they naturally occupy the minds of rural readers of such periodicals. The young man who feels the attraction of such enterprise . . . receives a suggestion that invites him cityward. When a community is itself represented by some former resident in some spectacular success, it is certain that many young men will question their future on the farm in that locality. Thus . . . the career of a man of fame may continue to act as a tradition long after his death and still add to the rural migration. . . tive. In brief, a solution of the rural problem requires that the country Making the be made so attractive that people suited to rural life will be drawn farm attractoward, rather than repelled by it. One way of making rural life attractive is to render farming more profitable, and one way of rendering farming more profitable is to extend the farmer adequate credit facilities. In 1916 Congress passed the Federal Farm Loan Act, the aim of which was the improvement of the financial as- The Federal pect of the farmers' life. In 1921 the United States Department of Agriculture issued a report which was based on the experience of 1916. 2,700 farmers who had borrowed money through the Federal Farm Loan Banks. The following is an extract from this report: An analysis of 78 per cent of the total number of loans from the time of the organization of the Federal land banks to November 30, 1919, indicates that only 13 per cent of the amount thus loaned was for the purpose of purchasing farm land. It is probable, however, that even this small percentage represents an increase in the proportion of loans for this purpose. An analysis of about one-third of the loans made prior to November 30, 1918, indicates that only 8 per cent of the proceeds were used for buying farm land. If the proportion of loans is representative, within a year the proportion of the total number of outstanding loans made for buying farm land increased from 8 to 13 per cent. As this year was a period of rapid growth in the volume of business, the total amount of loans being 1 From the United States Department of Agriculture, Bulletin No. 968. "Buying Farms with Land-bank Loans." Washington, July 29, 1921; pp. 4-6, 8, 10-11. Farm Loan Act of Only a small per cent of the amounts loaned were for the pur pose of buying farm land. The landless The hope for the future. A conclusion. nearly doubled, this increase appears to indicate a tendency toward the more extensive employment of the system as an aid in buying farm land. . . . ... By no means all of the loans made for buying farm land represent the borrowings of landless persons. [Of a group of 2,054 borrowers who were studied,] almost exactly two-thirds of these borrowers owned land other than that which they were buying by the aid of the Federal farm-loan system, and only one-third belonged to the landless class. When one bears in mind that probably not more than 15 per cent of the loans made by the Federal land banks have been for the purpose of buying farm land; that only one-third of these borrowers were landless ; and, finally, that the total loans of the Federal land banks probably represent only about 8 per cent of the entire farm-mortgage indebtedness of the United States, it will be clear that the direct aid afforded by the system to the landless farmer in the acquisition of land has been relatively small. It should be noted, however, that it is a much larger proportion of the total new business. Moreover, not all landless farmers are persons who require unusually favorable credit facilities to aid them in buying farm land, for some landless farmers have wealth which may be used in buying land, and some landless persons who desire to buy farms are not farmers at all. It is probable that the relative use made by landless farmers will increase as the possibilities of the Federal farm-loan system for financing the purchase of farms becomes better known among this class. The small proportion of the loans made to total mortgage indebtedness is largely owing to the newness of the system, and the rapid progress made in the past few years would seem to guarantee that its relative importance as a source of farm loans will be greatly increased in the future. It appears that the Federal farm-loan system has demonstrated its possibility as an aid to the landless farmer in acquiring land. Further analysis of its use by borrowers indicates that it provides conditions considerably more convenient for the buyer who must finance a large part of the purchase price on credit than are afforded by the great majority of private agencies engaged in farm-mortgage business. This, however, does not imply that the system could not be further modified so that it could be more readily employed in financing the purchase of farms by landless men of small capital. to individ uals who intend to make use of the farm loan bank system. Objection is sometimes raised to the use of Federal farm loans on Some hints the ground of their initial cost. [Possibly the system could be improved in this regard, but it is also true that the inconvenience to the borrower could be decreased if the latter were to observe certain rules. For example,] the prospective purchaser of land who plans to buy with money, part of which he borrows from a Federal 'land bank, should give due consideration to the possibility of delay in the completion of negotiations for a loan. Cases have occurred in which prospective buyers have made deposits on land to secure a contract of sale, which contract they have forfeited because they were unable to complete the purchase, money which they depended upon Federal land banks to furnish being held up for one reason or another. Frequently, delay is due to failure to comply with the requirements of the Federal land banks regarding the title to property; but the possibility of delay for other reasons, such as the impracticability of the appraiser for the land bank promptly viewing the land, should be foreseen, and the contract of sale should be made. to cover a sufficient time. 147. The marketing of the farmer's produce1 nificance of the farmer's marketing problem. Of the economic problems which confront the farmer, none has Social siga wider social significance than the effective marketing of his produce. It is commonly stated that "the farmer gets too little for his produce, while the ultimate consumer pays too much for it." Properly understood, this statement is true, and it is admitted on all sides that there is urgent need of a marketing system which will give the farmer more for his produce, and at the same time allow the consumer to secure such produce at a smaller cost and with less inconvenience than at present. In the following selection Mr. James E. Boyle discusses marketing from the farmer's point of view: 1. Production. [Recent market reports indicate a glut in the market of low-grade agricultural products, and a scarcity of high 1 From the American Economic Review. Vol. XI, No. 2. June, 1921. (James E. Boyle, "Marketing of Agricultural Products"); pp. 209-213. |