ty years
ago. But there is one great difference between then and now. Then, rural
civilisation was passing through a stage of marked social advancement
which was common throughout the country; now, there are distinct
indications of social degeneration, which Mr. Ross regards as the
inevitable consequence of the new landlord and tenant system. Many
members of these communities must have left the Old World to escape from
the selfsame conditions which they are reproducing in the New.

Rural society in the Middle West, as it presents itself to the observer
whose authority I have cited, is obviously in a transitional stage. The
lack of farm labourers, which is the common subject of complaint by
farmers in all parts of the United States, cannot fail to be aggravated
by the change in the conditions of tenancy just noted. The man whose
chief concern is to get the most out of the land, at the least expense,
in two or three years, will not treat his labourers so well--nor the
land so well--as will the man who means to spend his life on the farm;
and therefore the labourers will not stay. This scarcity of labour may
be met to some extent by an increased use of machinery; but it is more
likely to lead to poorer cultivation, which means the depopulation of
agricultural districts. England and Ireland furnish too many examples of
the rural decay immortalised in Goldsmith's "Deserted Village." It would
be strange and sad if the experience were to be repeated on the richest
soil of America.

In the Southern section we find a wastefulness similar to that in the
corn belt, but due to wholly different causes. The communities are
old-settled, but in many instances they are still abnormally depressed
by the terrible effects of the great war, followed by a period of social
and economic stagnation. Here there was little but agriculture for the
people to rely upon, and their methods have, until recent years, been
very backward. The growing of the same crops year after year upon the
same fields, the neglect of precaution against the washing away of the
soil surface, and the failure to use fertilisers, have made the profits
of tillage disappointingly small. Billions of dollars have been lost by
these communities through persistent soil exhaustion and erosion. In the
last few years the Federal Department of Agriculture has maintained a
most efficient staff of agricultural experts under the direction of Dr.
Knapp, one of the ablest organisers of f