o unless some limit is set
to the exactions of farm labor on the time and strength of the worker.
It separates the individual from his fellows in the greater part of the
farm work and gives him little opportunity for social recreations or
play.

One of the best evidences that the conditions of life and work on the
farm need to be improved is the number of people who are leaving the
farm for the city. This movement has been especially rapid during the
last thirty years of our history, and has continued until approximately
one half our people now live in towns or cities. Not only is this loss
of agricultural population serious to farming itself, creating a
shortage of labor for the work of the farm, but it results in crowding
other occupations already too full. There is no doubt that we have too
many lawyers, doctors, merchants, clerks, and the like for the number of
workers engaged in fundamental productive vocations. Smaller farms,
cultivated intensively, would be a great economic advantage to the
country, and would take care of a far larger proportion of our people
than are now engaged in agriculture.

All students of social affairs agree that the movement of our people to
towns and cities should be checked and the tide turned the other way. So
important is the matter considered that a concerted national movement
has recently been undertaken to study the conditions of rural life with
a view to making it more attractive and so stopping the drain to the
city.

Middle-aged farmers move to the town or city for two principal reasons:
to educate their children and to escape from the monotony of rural
life. Young people desert the farm for the city for a variety of
reasons, prominent among which are a desire for better education, escape
from the monotony and grind of the farm life, and the opportunity for
the social advantages and recreations of the city. That the retired
farmer is usually disappointed and unhappy in his town home, and that
the youth often finds the glamour of the city soon to fade, is true. But
this does not solve the problem. The flux to the town or city still goes
on, and will continue to do so until the natural desire for social and
intellectual opportunities and for recreation and amusement is
adequately met in rural life.

Farming as an industry has already felt the effects of a new interest in
rural life. Probably no other industrial occupation has undergone such
rapid changes within the last gene