New England Towns Losing Population 1890 1910 Total towns (in 1910) Maine 348 291 523 New Hampshire 152 163 224 Vermont 187 156 229 Massachusetts 154 123 321 Rhode Island 12 8 32 Connecticut 79 48 152 --- --- ---- 932 789 1481 [8] The writer wishes to make it quite clear that he is thinking, in this discussion, merely of the boys and girls who _ought_ to stay on the farm. Unquestionably many of them must and should go to the city. This book pleads merely for a _fair share_ of the farm boys and girls to stay in the country,--those best fitted to maintain country life and rural institutions. Country life must be made so attractive and so worth-while that it will be to the advantage of more of the finest young people to invest their lives there. Every effort should be made to prevent a boy's going from the farm to the city, provided he is likely to make only a meager success in the city or possibly a failure. [9] Yet in a class of 115 college men at the Lake Geneva Student conference in June, 1912, a surprising number stated that they had suffered a similar experience as boys at home, though usually at times when the farm work was particularly pressing. One claimed that he had driven a riding cultivator by moonlight at 2 A. M. [10] Quoted by M. Jules Meline (Premier of France) in "The Return to the Land." [11] "The Rural Life Problem of the United States," p. 47. [12] By Edwin Osgood Grover, the son of a country minister. [13] Some allowance should be made for the possibility of students enrolling from a small city who actually live on a suburban farm. [14] "The Country Town," p. 185. [15] "Rural Christendom." Roads. p. 84. [16] H. W. Quaintance. in Cyc. of Am. Agric. IV; p. 109. [17] Publication of the Amer. Econ. Assn. V; pp. 817-821. [18] The financial results of these improvements in farm machinery will not at all surprise us. It follows as a matter of course that machinery has greatly reduced the cost of production. A leading agricultural engineer at Washington is authority for this comparison. In 1830 a bushel of wheat represented over three hours of labor; while in 1896 only ten minutes; making a saving in the labor cost of producing wheat equal to the difference between 17 3-4 and 33 1-2 cents. In 1850 it required 4 1-2 hours labor to produce a bushel of corn; while in 1894 it was reduced to 41 minutes. Likewise the labor represented in a ton of baled hay has been reduced from 35 1-2 hours in 1860 to 11 1-2 in 1894; reducing the labor cost of a ton of hay from $3 to $1.29.