Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 68.djvu/263

Rh rapid suburban transit, the revival of village industry in the skilled trades and education which tends to raise the standard of living, are the real panaceas for the evils of the crowded city. Our statesmen can aid in hastening the solution of the problem by directing their attention toward the regulation of steam and electric railroads.

Agriculture also is undergoing a transformation; it is changing, in this country, from extensive to intensive methods. Our greatest industry does not readily lend itself to consolidation and combination. The small and medium sized farm triumphs, in the long run, over the bonanza farm, except perhaps in the cultivation of such crops as cotton, sugar-cane and tobacco, where the plantation system seems destined to continue. As the population increases the big farm breaks up and disappears, leaving several smaller ones in its place. Farming must, therefore, be classed with those occupations which do not readily submit to minute division of labor, or extreme specialization of industry. Scientific agriculture must be classed among those industries or trades which require skilful and artistic individual work. Its possibilities are not generally realized. The era of free public land is practically over. Men can no longer go west and take up new, unbroken ground. A few decades ago the competition of the newly opened western lands injured temporarily the farming regions of the eastern and north central states. To-day the situation is changing, many western farms have been robbed of their virgin fertility by uneconomical and short-sighted farming, and the eastern farmer is daily finding new opportunities for profitable agriculture. Dairy farming, stock raising, horticulture and market gardening are more and more attracting his attention. Scientific methods are being adopted; renewal of soil fertility is the first care. The 'good' farmer is one who makes a profit at the end of the season, and who also preserves unimpaired the fertility of the soil. To be a successful farmer in this country it will be necessary to have definite ideas regarding farm management, and the proper methods of crop rotation and fertilization must be understood. Business methods must be adopted, and the cost of each crop must be accurately determined. The farmer will be obliged to keep in close touch with the industrial and commercial life of the nation. Agriculture will be a business, and business principles will be applied. The era of the unscientific, haphazard, go-as-you-please style of farming is rapidly becoming obsolete. The rise of the agricultural college and secondary school, and the potent influence of the United States Department of Agriculture, together with the general introduction of the trolley, the telephone and rural mail delivery, mark a new and promising epoch in the history of American agriculture. The agricultural transformation will diminish the drain of ambitious young men from the farm to the factory, the store and the bank.