ey of the more important of these new agencies will indicate
how they affect the relations of the farmer to his community and to
other communities. These may be considered under the two general heads
of means of transportation, and means for the exchange of ideas.

As long as transportation was by wagon and by boat, commerce was slow
and expensive; each community was compelled to be largely
self-dependent, and life was isolated to an extent that it is difficult
for us to conceive. Anderson has well stated the situation when he says:

"Merchandise and produce that could not stand a freight of
fifteen dollars per ton could not be carried overland to a
consumer one hundred and fifty miles from the point of
production; as roads were, a distance of fifty miles from
the market often made industrial independence
expedient."[14]

It was the steam railroad which made larger markets available, made
possible the growth of our large cities and the opening up of new lands
distant from markets. The railroad and manufacturing by power machinery
put an end to the "age of homespun," and made it more profitable for the
farmer to sell his products and to purchase his manufactured goods in
exchange. The railroad, and the markets which it made available, changed
the village center from a place of local barter to a shipping point and
so tended to center the economic life of larger areas in the villages
with railroad stations. Better local roads were necessary and business
tended to become centralized in the village. The numerous wayside
taverns along the main highways disappeared, as did the neighborhood
mill and blacksmith shop. The railroad, more than any other one factor,
has determined the location of our rural community centers.

The electric railroad made the village centers more available to farm
people and gave transportation facilities to many villages without
railroads, but it also made it possible for the people of smaller
communities to go to the larger centers for trading and other
advantages. Trolleys have made it possible for many farm children to get
to high school who could not otherwise have attended and have enabled
those living near them to more easily get back and forth from the
village centers for all phases of community life. On the whole, however,
they have probably carried more traffic between communities, and it
seems strange that they have not more generally been able to find