They organized and opened a store in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to which they sent their produce. In this case the leader was a country pastor. A multitude of other examples, large and small, could be named, all illustrating the same principle, namely, that the organization must be local to begin with, and that it must have a clear and definite object to accomplish.

The organization of rural interests need not, however, remain local and scattered. They may be federated. Those who are interested in rural organization may well take lessons from the organizers of the labor movement. The attempt to form a general, homogeneous organization of all laboring men had a promising beginning in the Knights of Labor, but it lacked the element of definiteness and of local unity. Its influence, therefore, waned rapidly, whereas the American Federation of Labor rose to great prominence, power, and influence. Organizing local unions among members of each separate trade, and then federating these unions, leaving to each a great deal of independence and local autonomy, this movement has proceeded on sound principles of organization. This points to the principle of federation as the correct one upon which to attempt the general organization of rural interests. A beginning is already made in the various local and special organizations scattered over the country. If these can be federated into state and national organizations, leaving each local body independent and autonomous, at least so far as its own special objects are concerned, a movement may be started which will do for farmers what the American Federation of Labor has done for wageworkers, though the active program need not be the same.

It cannot be too much emphasized, however, that any organization whose objects are not constructive, and designed to promote the welfare of the country as a whole, is foredoomed to ultimate failure, because it ought to fail. It is for the interest of the country as a whole that the supply of fruit

should be adjusted to the demand, and that there should not be a glut in one market while there is a scarcity in another. A fruit-growers' exchange, by organizing the shipping and selling of its fruit so as to bring about a more uniform and equal adjustment of the supply to the demand, is performing a productive function for the country as a whole, and deserves success. When it begins to abuse its power and, instead of adjusting the supply to the demand, undertakes merely to charge monopoly prices, it will deserve to fail, and will eventually fail. The same may be said of an organization of dairymen, market gardeners, cotton growers, etc. However, it is not necessary that such organizations should be philanthropic. On the contrary, it is probably better that they should be strictly self-interested; but it is essential that selfinterest should be followed in economic rather than in uneconomic ways, as these terms were defined in Chapter I. To attempt to promote one's self-interest in a way which contributes to the productivity of the whole country is to deserve success; to attempt to promote it in any other way is to deserve failure. That is why coöperative enterprises, when actuated by mere jealousy of some storekeeper, or of any one else who is doing useful and honest work, usually fail. But coöperative enterprises which attempt something constructive, like the starting of a new industry, the opening of a new market, or the prevention of real waste, and are therefore actuated by a higher motive than hate or jealousy, are usually successful, and redound to the interest and profit of the participants.

This part of our discussion may be summed up by saying that until our rural interests become organized our rural life will continue to be dominated by urban interests, urban standards, urban ideals, and that this will leave rural life in a weak and undignified position. Furthermore, it will not be easy to organize rural interests in any single homogeneous organization, because our agricultural interests are too diverse

and heterogeneous; but the organization must proceed through the formation of local associations having definite, tangible, and constructive aims, and the gradual federation of these local organizations into a general organization combining unity and solidarity with diversity and local autonomy.

THE WAY TO BETTER FARMING AND

BETTER LIVING 1

1

SIR HORACE PLUNKETT

In no way is the contrast between rural and urban civilization more marked than in the application of the teachings of modern science to their respective industries. Even the most important mechanical inventions were rather forced upon the farmer by the efficient selling organization of the city manufacturers than demanded by him as a result of good instruction in farming. On the mammoth wheat farms, where, as the fable ran, the plough that started out one morning returned on the adjoining furrow the following day, mechanical science was indeed called in, but only to perpetrate the greatest soil robbery in agricultural history. Application of science to legitimate agriculture is comparatively new. In my ranching and farming days I well remember how general was the disbelief in its practical value throughout the Middle and Far West. In cowboy terminology, all scientists were classified as "bug-hunters," and farmers generally had no use for the theorist. The non-agricultural community had naturally no higher appreciation of the farmer's calling than he himself displayed. When some Universities first developed agricultural courses, the students who entered for them were nicknamed "aggies," and were not regarded as adding much to the dignity of a seat of higher learning. The Department of Agriculture was looked upon as a source of jobs, graft being the nearest approach to any known agricultural operation.

1 Copyright. Reprinted from The Rural Life Problem of the United States by permission of the Macmillan Company.

All this is changing fast. The Federal Department of Agriculture is now perhaps the most popular and respected of the world's great administrative institutions. In the Middle West, a newly awakened public opinion has set up an honourable rivalry between such States as Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska and Minnesota, in developing the agricultural sides of their Universities and Colleges. None the less, Mr. James J. Hill has recently given it as his opinion that not more than one per cent of the farmers of these regions are working in direct touch with any educational institution. It is probable that this estimate leaves out of account the indirect influence of the vast amount of extension work and itinerant instruction which is embraced in the activities of the Universities and Colleges. I fear it cannot be denied that in the application of the natural sciences to the practical, and of economic science to the business of farming, the country folk are decades behind their urban fellow-citizens. And again I say the disparity is to be attributed to the difference in their respective degrees of organization for business purposes.

The relation between business organization and economic progress ought, I submit, to be very seriously considered by the social workers who perceive that progress is mainly a question of education. Speaking from administrative experience at home, and from a good deal of interested observation in America, I am firmly convinced that the new rural education is badly handicapped by the lack of organized bodies of farmers to act as channels for the new knowledge now made available. In some instances, I am aware, great good has been done by the formation of farmers' institutes which have been established in order to interest rural communities in educational work and to make the local arrangements for instruction by lectures, demonstrations, and otherwise. But all European experience proves the superiority for this purpose of the business association (which, by the way, has a much better permanence) to the organization ad hoc.