and was able to
enjoy greater leisure than his kind had ever done before. The scythe
and cradle had been supplanted by the mower and reaper; horse harrows,
cultivators, and rakes had transferred much of the physical exertion of
farming to the draft animals. But, after all, the farmer owed less to
steam and electricity than the craftsman and the artisan of the cities.

The American farmer, if he read the census reports, might learn that
rural wealth had increased from nearly $4,000,000,000 in 1850 to not
quite $16,000,000,000 in 1890; but he would also discover that in the
same period urban wealth had advanced from a little over $3,000,000,000
to more than $49,000,000,000. Forty years before the capital of rural
districts comprised more than half that of the whole country, now it
formed only twenty-five per cent. The rural population had shown a
steady proportionate decrease: when the first census was taken in 1790,
the dwellers of the country numbered more than ten times those of the
city, but at the end of the nineteenth century they formed only about
one-third of the total. Of course the intelligent farmer might have
observed that food for the consumption of all could be produced by the
work of fewer hands, and vastly more bountifully as well, and so he
might have explained the relative decline of rural population and
wealth; but when the average farmer saw his sons and his neighbors' sons
more and more inclined to seek work in town and leave the farm, he put
two and two together and came to the conclusion that farming was in a
perilous state. He heard the boy who had gone to the city boast that his
hours were shorter, his toil less severe, and his return in money much
greater than had been the case on the farm; and he knew that this was
true. Perhaps the farmer did not realize that he had some compensations:
greater security of position and a reasonable expectation that old age
would find him enjoying some sort of home, untroubled by the worry which
might attend the artisan or shopkeeper.

Whether or not the American farmer realized that the nineteenth century
had seen a total change in the economic relations of the world, he did
perceive clearly that something was wrong in his own case. The first
and most impressive evidence of this was to be found in the prices
he received for what he had to sell. From 1883 to 1889 inclusive
the average price of wheat was seventy-three cents a bushel, of corn
thirty-six cents, of