ated. Letter writing makes and keeps friends.
Thousands of farmers' families have joined The League of the Golden Pen in
recent years. Their mail collected and distributed doubles in four or five
years after the local R. F. D. is started.

Among the new civilizing factors is the metropolitan daily, bringing to
millions of farmers the daily stimulus to thought and action which the
continued story of the throbbing life of the struggling world unfailingly
brings. On one rural route the number of daily papers delivered increased
in three years from thirteen to 113. The great interests of humanity are
now intelligently discussed by the farmer and his boys as they go about
their work, and the broadening of interests is what prevents stagnation
and enriches life.

We are not surprised to find a wonderful increase of magazines and other
periodical literature in the country, especially the farm journals which
have attained such influence and excellence. R. F. D. did it. Likewise the
remarkable increase of shopping by mail is due to the same cause. Though
many such purchases are doubtless foolishly made, it is undoubtedly true
that even the great catalogs of mail-order houses with their description
of many of the comforts of modern civilization have been of great
educative value and have stimulated the ambition of countless country
homes for an improved scale of living.

A recent rural survey of Ohio revealed the fact that pianos or organs were
found in 25.9% of the 300,000 rural homes of the state, though only 4.8%
had bath tubs! We venture to guess that many of these musical instruments
were bought by mail, after the family had for many days studied the
alluring catalogs of Chicago mail-order houses. Incidentally, it would be
well for Chicago to sell more bath tubs! The new rural civilization is
rapidly requiring them.

_The Automobile, a Western Farm Necessity_

Often merely a luxurious plaything in the city, a saucy bit of flaunting
pride particularly irritating to envious neighbors, the automobile finds
great usefulness in the country. The average village as yet cares little
for it; but the western farmer in the open country is finding it almost a
necessity. The proportion of autos to farms, in the prosperous corn and
wheat belt, is very surprising. Low salaried tradesmen in the cities have
mortgaged their homes to buy the coveted automobile; the thrifty farmer
has also been known to do the same, but with vastly better