ods of the farmers. This will, it is believed, cure a radical defect
in their system--a defect which, as I have argued, is responsible for a
restricted production, and for a course of distribution injurious alike
to producer and consumer, besides exercising a depressing influence upon
the economic efficiency and social life of rural communities. It follows
that the first step towards a general reconstruction of country life,
which has the promise of giving to the country a social attraction
strong enough to stem the tide of the townward migration, is
agricultural cooperation.

Such being the general aim and the definite procedure, the first
practical question that arises will be, how to apply this
solvent--agricultural cooperation. It will not suffice to throw these
two long words at the hardy rustic; shorter and more emphatic words
might come back. Two equally necessary things must be done; the
principle must be made clear, and the practical details of this rural
equivalent of urban business combination must be explained in language
understanded of the people. It is not difficult to draft a paper scheme
for this purpose, but the fitting of the plan to local conditions is a
very expert business. Hence the central agency should have at its
disposal a corps of experts in cooperative organisation for agricultural
purposes. After a short visit to a likely district by a competent
exponent of the theory and practice, local volunteers would be found to
carry on the work. Experience shows that once a well-organised
cooperative association of farmers is permanently established, similar
associations spring up spontaneously under the magic influence of
proved success in known conditions. I should strongly recommend
concentration at first on a few selected districts, with the aim of
making standard models to which other communities could work. I need
hardly say that all this work would be done in cooperation with whatever
other agencies would lend their aid. The Country Life movement would be
extremely useful to the great educational foundations centred in New
York. I happen to know that the Trustees of the Rockefeller, Carnegie
and Russell Sage endowments are keenly desirous to promote such a
redirection of rural education as will bring it into a more helpful
relation with the working lives of the rural population. Then there are
such bodies as the Y. M. C. A., whose leaders, I am told, are alive to
the value of the open air life,