ignificance in the specific case; and living
conditions and the purchasing power of money are so different in
country and city and in different parts of the country.[8]

Sec. 10. #Compensations of the farmer's life#. In bare monetary terms
the average farmer's family gets a labor-income less than that of the
ordinary wage-earner in a factory, and it is only by the aid of the
wealth-income that it appears to fare as well or better. Even the few
largest incomes made in farming are small in comparison with many of
those made in commerce, transportation, and manufacturing. The great
mass of farmers of the nation are hard-laboring men, poor in the eyes
of the city dwellers.[9]

But this much is certain: the farmer's income in monetary terms has
on the average much larger power to purchase the main goods of life
(material and psychic goods) than it would have in town. Equally good
house usance would cost more in nearly all towns, and much more in
larger cities. Retail prices of the same food and fuel even in small
towns would be much greater. The necessary outlay for clothes to
maintain the class standard is much less for farmers than for city
dwellers. Moreover, in the use of horses and carriages, and now of
automobiles, and in the free control of his own time--in many elements
of psychic income--the farmer is on a parity with men in other
occupations of double or quadruple his income expressed in monetary
terms.

Tho the farmer's working day in the busiest season of summer is very
long compared with that of factory or office workers, his working
day at other seasons is usually much shorter than the average urban
worker's day. The farmer's life is nearly always free from the
excessive pressure, haste, and competition of city life, and the
value, to many a man, of the more natural and wholesome conditions of
outdoor life and outdoor work are hardly to be measured in terms of
even the most untainted dollars.

Sec. 11. #Ownership and tenancy.# Since 1880, when the first figures
on farm tenures were collected, the proportion of farms operated by
owners has steadily decreased.

Percentage of farms operated by
Owners Cash tenants Share tenants

1880 ............ 74.5 8.0 17.5
1890 ............ 71.6 10.0 18.4
1900 ............ 64.7 13.1 22.2
1910 ............ 63.0 13.0