Sec. 8. #The rural exodus#.  The percentage of persons in the rural population changes at about the same rate as does that of the persons occupied in agriculture.  In 1890 it was 64, in 1900 it was 60, and in 1910 it was 54 per cent.  The percentage of the population in cities of 8000 or more has steadily increased.  This phenomenon has been marked in all of the countries that have been developing along industrial lines.  It has been variously described as “the rural exodus,” “the abandonment-of-the-farm-movement,” and “the city-ward drift."[6] It is only in part explained by the change from agriculture to other occupations; perhaps even in greater part it is due to the decline and disappearance in many rural places of small manufacturing and mercantile businesses before the competition of large business in the cities.  In much of the long-settled area of the country every hillside stream once turned a little mill to saw timber, grind corn, forge iron, or weave cloth.  Most of these mills are now deserted.  In countless villages the old blacksmith shop, once a center of business, is abandoned.  Here and there a patriarchal smith still serves a dwindling group of customers and speaks with mingled pride and pathos of his sons, now in the automobile business in the city.

The movement away from the countryside has been but little counteracted as yet, but may be more in future, by the growing enjoyment of rural life, by the back-to-the-land movement, by interurban railways, by improved roads, and by automobiles.

Sec. 9. #The farmer’s income in monetary terms#.  Census figures and some additional investigations have led to the estimate of the average real income of the farmers of the United States in 1909, expressed in monetary terms, as $724.  The estimated value of all products, whether sold or used by the farmer, plus the value of his house rent and fuel consumed by family, was $1236, from which expenditures of $512 are deducted for outside labor, and for materials used for operating and maintaining the farm.  Of the $724 the sum of $402 is estimated to be the labor-income of the family and $322 is estimated to be the wealth-income (at 5 per cent of the capitalization of the farm).  This was in a period of rising values in farm lands, averaging about $323 per farm annually, and this to most farmers was equivalent to so much monetary savings.  The main items of net income, therefore, are as follows: 

Rent                                            $125
Food from the farm                               261
Fuel                                              35
Cash                                             303

Total                                           $724
Increase in value of farm                        323

  Total estimated monetary income $1047

Of the total, $422 is a labor-income, and $645 is a wealth income.[7]

It would be difficult, even if the available statistics were much more exact than they are, to compare exactly the farmer’s income with those of urban classes.  Averages of such large numbers and over such a wide area have a limited significance in the specific case; and living conditions and the purchasing power of money are so different in country and city and in different parts of the country.[8]