mechanism of a world of business. He believes he will win because he is
in league with the ongoing forces of our civilization.

The mossback cannot win, because he prefers a flintlock to a Mauser. He
has his eyes upon the ground, and uses snails instead of stars for
horses.

The old farmer was a pioneer, and he had all the courage, enterprise,
and resourcefulness of the pioneer. He was virile, above all things
else. He owned and controlled everything in sight. He was a
state-builder. Half a century ago, in the Middle West, the strong men
and the influential families were largely farmers. Even professional men
owned and managed farms, frequently living upon them. The smell of the
soil sweetened musty law books, deodorized the doctor's den, and floated
as incense above the church altars.

The new farmer lives in a day when the nation is not purely an
agricultural nation, but is also a manufacturing and a trading nation.
He belongs no longer to the dominant class, so far as commercial and
social and political influence are concerned. But none of these things
move him. For he realizes that out of this seeming decline of
agriculture grow his best opportunities. He discards pioneer methods
because pioneering is not now an effective art.

The mossback sees perhaps clearly enough these changes, but he does not
understand their meaning, nor does he know how to meet them. He is
dazzled by the romantic halo of the good old times, dumfounded by the
electric energy of the present, discouraged and distracted by the
pressure of forces that crush his hopes and stifle his strength.

Economically, the old farmer was not a business man, but a barterer. The
rule of barter still survives in the country grocery where butter and
eggs are traded for sugar and salt. The old farmer was industrially
self-sufficient. He did not farm on a commercial basis. He raised apples
for eating and for cider, not for market--there was no apple market. He
had very little ready money, he bought and sold few products. He traded.
Even his grain, which afterward became the farmer's great cash crop, was
raised in small quantities and ground at the nearest mill--not for
export, but for a return migration to the family flour-barrel.

The new farmer has always existed--because he is the old farmer growing.
He has kept pace with our industrial evolution. When the regime of
barter passed away, he ceased to barter. When the world's market became
a fact, he raised w