he took up an urban occupation.

Sec. 5. #Sociological effects of agricultural decay#. Such changes caused
a relative decline in the birthrate of the old American stock. The places
of many of these long-settled families remained unfilled as thousands of
abandoned farm houses testified. The places of others were taken by a
tenantry, white or black, lacking the thrift of ownership; the lands of
others passed to new owners of alien races. The populations of many rural
neighborhoods thus became heterogeneous, with results calamitous to the
social life. Once prosperous schools declined, once thronging country
churches were deserted, and much of the old neighborhood democracy
disappeared. When, about the year 1900, prosperity began slowly to return
to the American countrysides in the form of rising prices of farm produce,
it was in large part too late to remedy the evil, except as it may be
done by generations of effort under more favoring conditions. There
are merely suggested here some of the complex sociological effects of
past economic changes in American agriculture. It is certain that in
the future also the economic changes in this field will be related
closely to social and political changes of a fundamental character.

Sec. 6. #Fewer, relatively, occupied in agriculture; use of machinery.#
Probably ever since the first census in 1790, the relative number of
agriculturists in this country has been decreasing. Beginning in
1880, the numbers of those occupied in agriculture for gain have
been reported at the census dates in a form that makes them fairly
comparable.[4]

The explanation of this decrease in the proportion of the population
that is engaged in agriculture is twofold; the first is the real
increase in the productive output per person in agricultural industry.
In larger part this is due to the increasing use of machinery in place
of simple hand tools, and the substitution of horse-, hydraulic-,
windmill-, steam-, and gasoline-power for human labor. This change has
been made readily in the regions of level fields, but of late has been
made possible to a greater extent in hilly country, by rearranging
and combining the old irregular fields into regular fairly level
rectangular fields easily tillable, while turning the rougher lands
and hillsides into wood lots and pastures.[5] One man, thus, driving
three or four or more horses, can do the work formerly done by two
or more men and do it just as well. The farme