of necessity become a man of
commerce, as seriously concerned and nearly as consciously interested in
business conditions as the city merchant. This situation is one of the
burdens of farming. The farmer must both produce and sell his crop.
Lack of skill in either undertaking may mean failure.

Economic pressure forces attention. The pain penalty, the product of bad
adjustment to the demands of the occasion, commands respect. The farmer
feels this pressure of economic conditions just as any other man of
business. He is not free to isolate himself and enjoy the economic
security of fifty years ago. Any indifference that he may assume toward
the business world is likely to bring him economic punishment which will
teach him his economic dependence as no argument could. It follows that
the farmer's attention is driven from family and neighborhood affairs
out into the modern world with all its complexities. He thinks in social
terms, because from experience he has learned his social dependence in
matters that concern the pocketbook. With painful evidences of his
economic interrelations in mind, he tends to become tolerant regarding
movements that attempt to socialize his community life. He realizes
that the independence of his fathers has gone not to return and that his
happiness as well as his prosperity depend upon his opportunity to
become well established in social relations.

No experience in the business of farming is so impressive as that of
membership in a cooperative enterprise. Whether the undertaking fails or
succeeds, it certainly teaches the member the meaning of social
interrelations. Often it fails because the mental and moral preparation
for successful working together is lacking. This is not strange, for
rural life in the past has done little to build up a social viewpoint
and the strain placed upon individual purposes in any cooperative effort
is necessarily great. Cooperation is never so easy as it sounds in
theory, but economic conditions are making it necessary in many rural
localities if farming is to continue a profitable industry. Under
pressure the farmers will develop the ability to cooperate. In this they
are like other people, for cooperation seldom comes until circumstances
press hard upon people who hopelessly try to meet individually
conditions that can be successfully coped with only by a cooperative
attack. We therefore must not pass hasty judgment upon the failures in
cooperative efforts am