reason. A
certain bank in a Mississippi valley state tried to stop the withdrawal of
funds for the purchase of machines, the vast sums being withdrawn from the
state for this purpose had become so alarming; but it was like damming
Niagara! In a prosperous little farm community in Iowa with only a few
scattering families, there were nine automobiles last summer; and the
situation is probably typical of prosperous western communities. A
reliable authority vouches for the fact that 179 automobiles were sold in
Cawker City, Kansas, in 1911. The population of the "city" in 1910 was
870. Obviously most of these machines must have been distributed among the
farms in the outlying country. The village itself had last year but
twenty-one automobiles.

Quite likely the per capita number of machines is greater in our great
agricultural states than in the cities. It is needless to emphasize the
social possibilities of this newest of our agencies for the newer rural
civilization. As a means of communication it outstrips all but the
telephone. It brings farm life right up to the minute for progressiveness,
with a pardonable pride in being able to keep pace with the city. It
annihilates distance and makes isolation a myth; and as the expense
becomes less and less with every year, the time is soon coming when every
farmer who can now afford the ordinary farm machinery will be able also to
possess this newest symbol of rural prosperity.

II. The Emancipation from Drudgery.

_The Social Revolution Wrought by Machinery_

Next to the great social transformation caused by these modern means of
fighting isolation comes the emancipation from drudgery brought in by farm
machinery. Labor saving machinery is just as much a feature of modern
civilization in the country as it is in the city. Machinery, by developing
the factory system, centralized industry and produced the great cities,
attracting thousands from the farms to man the looms. But this is only
half the story. Meanwhile the invention of _agricultural_ machinery made
it possible for the farm work of the country to be done by fewer men.
Therefore the farm population of the United States decreased from 47.6% in
1870 to 35.7% in 1900, representing a change from agriculture to other
employments by three and a half millions of people. Meanwhile, comparing
the average value of farms, and the relative purchasing power of money,
the average farmer was 42% better off at the end of the centu