m were not continued, the importance of the
local community was given national recognition and attention was
directed to the need of the better organization of local forces for
community progress.

What, then, is the rural community? Is it a real entity or is it merely
an idea or an ideal? Where is it and how can we recognize it?

We are indebted to Professor C. J. Galpin, now in charge of the Farm
Life Studies of the United States Department of Agriculture, for first
developing a method for the location of the rural community. Professor
Galpin[1] holds that the trading area tributary to any village is
usually the chief factor in determining the community area. He
determines the community area by starting from a business center and
marking on a map those farm homes which trade mostly at that center. By
drawing a line connecting those farm homes farthest from the center on
all the roads radiating from it, the boundary of the trade area is
described. In the same way the areas tributary to the church, the
school, the bank, the milk station, the grange, etc., may be determined
and mapped. The boundaries of these areas will be found to be by no
means coincident, but it will usually be found that most of them center
in one village or hamlet, and that the trade area is the most
significant in determining the area tributary to this center. When the
areas served by the chief institutions of adjacent centers are mapped,
it is usually found that a composite line of the different boundary
lines separating these centers will approximate the boundaries of the
communities. A line which divides adjacent community areas so that most
of the families either side of this line go most frequently to, or their
chief interests are at, the center within that boundary, will be the
boundary between the adjacent communities. Thus, from the standpoint of
location, _a community is the local area tributary to the center of the
common interests of its people._[2]

As indicated above the business center may usually be taken as the base
point or community center, from which to determine the boundaries of the
community. However, in the older parts of the country or in hilly or
mountainous regions, the trade or business center is not always the same
as the center of the chief social activities of the people, and may not
be the chief factor in determining the community center. Not
infrequently a church, school and grange hall located close together may