§ 11. 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 when the value of the wealth income is added that it is as great. Even the few largest incomes made in farming are small in comparison with many of those made in commerce, transportation, and manufacturing. The great mass of farmers of the nation are hard-laboring men, poor in the eyes of the city dwellers.7

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 class 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.

Though 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 competition 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. The joy and pride of possession that goes with even a little plot of ground and a house that is one's own, the satisfaction of " being one's own boss," the very real and deep sense of workmanship and of independence that comes from planning and carrying through even simple tasks, rather than in acting under the orders of others —these are motives, not easily measurable in money, which keep many men on farms despite the temptations of higher financial rewards in cities.

6 See Vol. I, p.'206.

7 See Vol. I, p. 227, note, for figures on owners and farm laborers.

Many mistaken ideas are current among city folk in respect to country life, and much mistaken sympathy is wasted. The city man, living on external excitements, speaks with dread of the solitude of the country life, with no "movies" just around the corner and no Coney Island near. But he forgets that the people living in the country as real farmers were, with few exceptions, born and reared in the country. Families in the country average larger than in the cities, and the country has a rate of natural increase greater than the city. Persons raised in the country prefer to stay there, if they can make a living, a preference that tends to depress labor incomes in the country. The interests that fill the lives of country people are not the same as those of city people, but they are often far more real. I know a farmer-boy who when ten years old refused a ticket to the circus because he preferred to help on threshing day; and he and his brother probably have had more pleasure breaking and driving a yoke of calves to a homemade cart than any family of city boys ever got riding the elephant at the zoo. The non-pecuniary compensations in farm life help to outweigh larger pecuniary rewards in manufacturing, transportation, mining, and trade, and prevents the rural exodus from being as great as it would otherwise be. In consequence the price of food is kept at relatively low levels, giving to the farmer and his family lower average monetary labor incomes than those earned in city occupations (organized or unorganized). § 12. Ownership and tenancy. Since 1880, when the first figures on farm tenures were collected, the proportion of farms operated by owners has steadily decreased.

These statistics arouse fears that the class 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 class of tenants as to the hired laborers rising into the class of tenants. The proportion of male operating owners to all male workers on farms has remained almost constant at about 42 per cent; while hired workers have 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 thirty-five 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 reassuring facts, the problem of maintaining and increasing operating ownership of farms in America is one deserving of the most earnest thought and effort. 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 assist; special efforts in agricultural education should be made and active administrative efforts should be directed toward this important end.

References

Benton, A. E., Farm tenancy and leases. Agricultural Experiment

Station Bulletin, No. 178. 1919. Carver, T. N., Selected readings in rural economics. Bost. Ginn.

1916. Mead, E., Helping men own farms. N. Y. Macmillan. 1920. Nourse, E. G., Agricultural economics. Chicago University Press.

1916. (A large volume of readings, well selected and edited.) Phelan, J., Readings in rural sociology. New York. Macmillan.

1920. Taylor, H. C., Agricultural economics. Pp. 439. N. Y. Macmillan.

1919. Vogt, P. L., Introduction to rural sociology. Pp. 443. N. Y. Appleton. 1917.