made toward the common good in all agricultural regions afford us hope that the time is not far distant when as much thought and effort will be put forth to better conditions in industrial districts, and in the neglected corners where people are left to suffer with no one to help them in their time of need.

The present is far removed from the old laissez faire idea of government. In the earlier days every man claimed the liberty to go without good roads; to keep his children from school; to pollute the streams and poison his neighbors; to carry a gun; or to sell liquor to whom he pleased. In the interest of the common good, these rights are now restricted and co-operation is taking the place of the competition of a war-like age.

Under the direction of the Department of Agriculture, the farmer has achieved enormous successes in the line of economic cooperation, even where the people in other occupations have failed. According to the report of the Secretary of Agriculture, more than half of the six million farmers in the United States are now represented in this co-operative movement. In his summary of

prominent objects of farmers' co-operation, Secretary Wilson places first that of insurance, with 2,000 associations and over 2,000,000 members. Co-operative creameries and cheese factories have a very large membership. Cooperation in selling has reached every part of the nation. Fruit-growers, nut-and-berrygrowers, vegetable-growers, live stock men, and producers of all sorts of grain, poultry, eggs and milk have united for self-protection and mutual interest. Co-operative buying has also become popular, there being three hundred and fifty stores owned mostly by groups of farmers, granges, and farmers' clubs, all of which buy all sorts of goods on the discount plan.*

Warehousing for storage of corn, cotton, and wheat is conducted with great success. Everywhere throughout the farming regions may be found co-operative telephone service, the cost of both equipment and service being kept at the lowest figure because of the co-operative

*The spirit of co-operation has reached the farmers and many organizations are now national in their scope. During November, 1909, the American Society of Equity held its national convention in Indianapolis; the National Grange, Patrons of Husbandry, met in Des Moines, the National Farm Land Congress in Chicago and The Farmers' Union held its national convention at Raleigh, N. C.

feature. Through this team method of working, which does away with the profit of the middlemen, the farmers are coming out of poverty into comfort and wealth. The farmers of the mortgage ridden Kansas of former days have now filled the banks to overflowing, and have changed the sod houses into beautiful homes in the midst of fruit orchards and shade trees.

During the past year the value of the farm products of this country reached the vast amount of $8,760,000,000-enough to build the Panama Canal, dredge our navigable rivers, irrigate our desert lands, dig our necessary canals, and do most of the things of this kind worth doing.* This amount is four times the value of the oil and precious metals produced in this country. The story of what this department is doing for the farmer reads like a chapter of New Zealand's effort for the

*In the report of the Agricultural Department for 1909, Secretary Wilson says: "Eleven years of agriculture, beginning with a production of $4,417,000,000 and ending with $8,760,000,000! A sum $70,000,000,000 for the period! It has paid off mortgages, it has established banks, it has made better homes, it has helped to make the farmer a citizen of the world, and it has provided him with means for improving his soil and making it more productive."

common good. The American farmer has thousands of expert investigators working for him, teaching him, and demonstrating to him how he may do things in the right way.

The Department offers the farmer a choice of new crops, furnishes him with seed and fertilizer free of charge, shows him how to breed both plants and animals. In short, there is no part of country life that this wonderful secretary and his trained assistants do not touch in a way which produces astonishing results.

It is interesting to trace the evolution of the new farmer. Once agriculture was looked upon as constituting the lowest stratum of the industrial and social life of the nation. The tiller of the soil was a serf, getting a precarious living, while his overlord used the greater part of the land as a game preserve. The animals and birds were protected. To kill a hare was a capital offence; so was the very act of setting traps and nets by a serf. Later when freed from vassalage to the soil, the agriculturist with his rude implements of husbandry, was unable to rise even to the rank of the most poorly paid industrial laborers.

The brightest of the farmer boys would not remain upon the land but sought the city with its greater opportunities. But thanks to a nation whose best thought was given to the development of agriculture, and to the enrichment of the life of the farmer, a great change has taken place, and now the farmer is reaping the results of the small army of government experts who have been laboring in his behalf. Farm life for many is still hard. Failure of crops, lack of water, poorness of soil, may contribute to occasional financial distress. Lack of neighborliness, and distance from school still send many sons and daughters to the busy centers; yet for the greater number of dwellers in the country, a new day has dawned. Good roads, trolley lines, the telephone, rural free delivery, and the daily paper help to urbanize the country. The boys returning from the agricultural colleges now "farm with brains"; and the products of the soil are increasing in amount and quality. The movement back to the land needs no artificial stimulus. The present methods of farming produce on an average about $500 for every family in the United States; and so