Rural Health and Welfare.
by George Thompson Fairchild.
PREFACE.
In giving these pages to the public I offer no apology for a restatement of fundamental principles always requiring adjustment to new life and circ.u.mstances; but economic literature has usually dealt too exclusively with the phenomena of manufactures and commerce to gain the sympathy of rural people. An experience of more than thirty years in handling such subjects at the Michigan and Kansas Agricultural Colleges, together with the expressed confidence of former pupils whose judgment I trust, has led me into the effort to bring the subject home to farmers and farmers"
families in this elementary way.
I have carefully refrained from quotations, or even references to works consulted, for the obvious reason that such formalities would distract the attention of most readers from the direct, common-sense thinking desired, and render the style of the book more complex. I hereby acknowledge my debt to the leading writers of past and present upon most of the topics treated, not excluding any school or party.
The statements of facts I have taken from best authorities, with care to verify, if possible, by comparisons. Many data have been diligently compiled and rearranged for more exact presentation of facts, and the phenomena of prices of farm crops have been a.n.a.lyzed with especial care.
The necessities of the printed volume have to some extent obscured the charts by reduction, but I trust they may be intelligible and interesting to all students of agricultural interests.
No attempt has been made to argue or to expound difficulties beyond a simple statement of principles involved, and the spirit of controversy has been absent from my thoughts throughout. Whatever bias of opinion may appear is without a tinge of bitterness toward those who may differ. I trust that men of all views may recognize in these pages the wish of their author to have only truth prevail.
In offering this volume to farmers I do not a.s.sume that all questions of wealth and welfare can be settled by rule. I hope to point out the actual trend of facts, the universal principles sustained by the facts, and means of most ready adjustment to circ.u.mstances in the evolutions of trade and manufacture. The business sense of farmers is appealed to for the sake of their own welfare. Several important questions of rural welfare have been touched only suggestively because the limits of the volume could not admit of fuller treatment.
My grat.i.tude is offered especially to Professor Liberty H. Bailey, of Cornell University, to whose suggestion and patient attention the existence of this volume is due.
George T. Fairchild.
BEREA COLLEGE, KENTUCKY, March 1, 1900.
INTRODUCTION. GENERAL WELFARE.
_Elements of welfare._-The welfare of communities, like that of individuals, is made up of health, wealth, wisdom and virtue. If we can say of any human being that lie is healthy, wealthy, wise and good, we are sure of his satisfaction so far as it depends upon self. When a community is made up of individuals kept in health and strength from birth to old age, sustained with acc.u.mulated treasures, wise enough to use both strength and wealth to advantage, and upright, just and kind in all human relations, our ideals of welfare are met.
These are four different kinds of welfare, each of which is essential, and only confusion of thought follows any attempt to treat them all as wealth, however they may be intermingled and exchanged. Health is essential in gaining a full measure of wealth and wisdom, and perhaps in maintaining genuine character; but a healthy life gives no a.s.surance of complete welfare. The facts concerning health in a community make a distinct subject of study for promotion of welfare, and we call it public hygiene.
The science of education deals with ways and means of securing public wisdom. The science of government includes all facts relative to public virtue. So the facts by which we know the nature and uses of acc.u.mulated wealth in any community make a distinct study under the name economic science; it deals with certain definite groups of facts. To call everything good "wealth" and everything evil "ilth" adds nothing but confusion to our thoughts.
_Mutual welfare._-Every human being in society is directly interested in the study of wealth as related to his own and his neighbors" welfare. No one can understand his relations to those about him in the family, the neighborhood, his country and the world without some understanding of the sources and uses of wealth all about him. His very industry gains its reward by certain means in society depending upon economic principles. His motives for acc.u.mulating wealth have a distinct place. His uses of acc.u.mulated wealth are a part of the general facts which make wealth desirable. So the study of wealth in society must be everybody"s study, if each wishes to do best for himself or for his neighbors. In such study of welfare every one finds his interests completely blended with the interests of others. His existence is part of a larger existence called society, from which he receives himself in large measure and most of his satisfaction; to which he contributes in like measure a portion of its essential character and future existence.
The old idea that one gives up freedom of self for the advantages given by society has no foundation in fact, because we are born into our place in society without power to escape its advantages, disadvantages or responsibilities. The maxim "Each for all and all for each" is thoroughly grounded in the const.i.tution of man; his needs and abilities enforce society and insist upon community of interests. Even personal wealth confers little welfare outside of its relations to other human beings. The whole progress of the human race tends toward acceptance of the clear vision of Tennyson, where
"All men find their good in all men"s good, And all men join in n.o.ble brotherhood."
Each stage in the progress of the conquest of nature to meet human wants, from the gathering of wild fruits, through hunting and fishing, domestication of animals, herding, and tillage of permanent fields, to the manufacture of universal comforts and tools, and to general commerce, has made more important the welfare of neighbors. Even the wars of our century are waged in the name of and for the sake of humanity. The study of individual welfare involves the public welfare. Welfare of a cla.s.s is dependent upon the welfare of all cla.s.ses. Wealth of individuals is genuine wealth in connection only with the wealth of the world. Welfare without wealth would imply the annihilation of s.p.a.ce, of time, and of all forces acting in opposition to wishes.
_Wealth in farming._-The subject of the following pages is wealth, how it is acc.u.mulated, how distributed to individual control and how finally consumed for the welfare of all concerned. But special reference is made to the sources of wealth as a means of welfare in rural life, and to the bearing of definite economic principles upon farming, especially in these United States of America. Farming is, and must always remain, a chief factor in both wealth and welfare, and its relations to the industry of the world grow more important to every farmer as the world comes nearer to him. We cannot now live in such isolation as our fathers loved. The markets of the world and the methods of other farmers all over the world affect the daily life of every tiller of the soil today. Commerce in the products of farm and household reaches every interest, when the ordinary mail sack goes round the world in less time than it took our immediate ancestors to go as pioneers from Ma.s.sachusetts to Ohio. It seems possible to show from the experiences of farm life the essential principles of wealth-making and wealth-handling, including the tendencies under a world-wide commerce. These every farmer and laborer needs for his business, for his home, and for his country.
Nature Of Wealth
_Wealth defined._-If we look at the objects which men number in speaking of their wealth, we shall soon find the list differing in important particulars from the list of things which they enjoy. All enjoyable things contribute to welfare, but not all are wealth. Some, like the air and the sunshine, if never lacking, cannot be counted, _because no storing against future need is practicable_; but the fan that cools the air and the coal that gives heat are counted when they are stored as means of meeting future wants. If we could not foresee wants of ourselves or of those dependent upon us, we could not gather means of supply for those wants. If we had all wants supplied at a wish or a prayer, we should have no incentive to store. The pampered child whose every wish is met has no clear conception of wealth or its uses. Let him be without a meal, and he seeks provision for the future by an effort to save what is left over from his last meal and by exertion to add to his store in antic.i.p.ation of want.
Thus wants, to be met only by exertion, are the foundation of the universal ideas of wealth, and whatever we have stored as a provision against wants becomes our wealth. If hunger were our only desire, our wealth would include only stores of food, conveniences for storing, means of increasing the store, and means of utilizing the articles to be eaten.
Each desire adds to the range of articles which may enter our list of objects of wealth until enumeration is impossible. None of these, however, will be stored as wealth beyond the limits of antic.i.p.ated use: if so stored, they add nothing to the supposed wealth. An isolated family, able to consume only thirty bushels of potatoes in a season, is not more wealthy from having three hundred bushels stored: the wealth is measured by actual relations to wants not otherwise supplied. Even in a populous city, the three hundred bushels of potatoes become a store of wealth only when other people need them and _are able in turn to meet other wants of the owners_.
Indeed, we soon come to estimate any object of wealth according to its power, directly or indirectly, to meet the first want that comes. A cherished memento of friendship may be ever so gratifying, and yet find no place in our account of wealth, because it can serve no purpose in meeting other wants.
Any object of wealth may cease to be counted, not because it has changed, but because wants have changed. The last year"s bonnet goes for a song, because the fashion changes; the reaper rots behind the barn or at the roadside, because the harvester is wanted in its place. So the wealth in any object is limited by its relation to the present or prospective wants of its owner, and his control to meet these wants. The wealth of any community is its store of material objects suited to the current wants or fitted to exchange with other communities for more suitable articles of use. We estimate it only by thinking of uses in producing pleasure or preventing pain, its limitations in quant.i.ty to a certain range of wants, and its control for use or transfer by an owner.
_Wealth distinguished from power._-Wealth is not to be confused with power of other kinds. Power may be for future exertion; wealth is the result of exertion. Power may take any form of welfare,-health, wisdom, character, as well as wealth. So no personal abilities can be counted as wealth, however useful they may be as means of gaining it. Jenny Lind"s abilities as a singer may have been better than wealth; but exertion of those abilities in the United States enabled her to carry back to Europe wealth of which she had none before coming. The ingenuity of Elias Howe exerted upon the sewing machine has been an immense source of wealth and welfare to the world, but it alone could not secure him daily food. Your words and my music combined in a song fit to tickle the fancy of the mult.i.tude may transfer wealth to our pockets, but it was in neither the words nor the music, nor yet in the song, and still less in the power to contrive them.
If wealth in material things had not been in possession of the mult.i.tude, the same sweet sounds might have given satisfaction to the crowds without an idea of wealth in the transaction. Much of the welfare of the world is from exertion of powers entirely independent of wealth. The chief joys of home are not measured by the wealth in our tenement. The chief welfare of society is only incidentally connected with wealth.
Chart No. I
_Fluctuation of Farms and Farm Interests since 1850_
At the top is shown the relative size of farms at the close of each census period, with the number of acres tilled and untilled. The lower part of the chart shows the changes in different farm interests, especially in the amount and character of capital employed and the number of people engaged in agriculture. a.s.suming the conditions of 1850 to be par, the increase or decrease is shown for each kind of live stock, the number of farms, the total farm population, and the number of farm managers, as well as the valuation of real estate and of live stock. To ill.u.s.trate, take No. 4, the number of cattle, excluding the cows. In 1860 there were 1.5 times as many as in 1850. In 1870, on account of the consumption and disturbance of the war, the number was reduced to 1.4 times as many. In 1880 there were more than 2.3 times as many, and in 1890 there were 3.48 times as many. In a few instances the estimate for 1897, though not an accurate enumeration, is added for comparison. A careful study of these various changes will show that while the total population in 1890 was only 2.7 times the population of 1850, the total number of people employed in farm occupations of every kind was 2.88 times as great; although the number of independent farmers was only 2.28 times as great. The total value of real estate in farms was over four times as great, and the total value of live stock exactly corresponded. The number of cows, sheep and hogs had not kept up with the population; while the number of beef cattle and horses and mules had increased much more rapidly. The fact that the value of live stock had increased in much greater proportion than the numbers shows that there has been great improvement in the individual character of the animals. That the average wealth of farm proprietors is more than three-fourths as large again is shown by comparison of the number of farmers with the value of the farms. That the number of mules, cattle and hogs actually decreased between 1860 and 1870 indicates the enormous consumption of the armies in the Civil War.
[Chart.]
Chart I. Showing the rate of increase in farms and farm live stock as compared with population. See explanation, p. 8.
Chart No. II
_Progress of the United States in Farm Crops since 1850_
This chart indicates to the eyes facts shown by the census reports as to the relative increase or decrease of certain staple crops in comparison with the population. a.s.suming the conditions of 1850 to be par, the several lines indicated by numbers show the ratio of the several crops to the crop of 1850. Thus the wheat crop in 1860 was nearly .75 greater than in 1850; in 1870 it was 2.87 times as great; in 1880 it was nearly 4.6 times as great; only a little greater in 1890, but in 1897 was nearly 6 times as great. It should be remarked that the census returns are founded upon the crop of the previous year, and therefore, will not exactly correspond with current estimates. At a glance it will appear that rye, buckwheat, sweet potatoes, sugar and rice have nowhere nearly kept up with the increase of population, while all the other crops have been considerably in excess. The barley crop could not be shown upon the chart for want of room, but is more than fifteen times as great. The cultivation of fruits is estimated to be twenty times as great, although the census returns give insufficient figures for accuracy. It is evident that the people of the United States demand a better living, as well as raise more profitable crops, than in 1850. Some striking ill.u.s.trations of the effects of the Civil War are seen in the falling off of many crops during that period. Only oats, wheat and potatoes increased beyond the increase in population. Most of the others actually diminished; and the staple products of the southern states prior to the war have scarcely as yet regained their previous standing. This is accounted for in part by the immense destruction of capital, but in larger part by the entire change in conditions of plantation cultivation.
[Chart.]
Chart II. Showing the rate of increase in total crops for the given period. See explanation, p. 10.
_Wealth in material objects._-Our attention is called to wealth in comparing two material objects of desire. One has more uses, more important uses, more rare uses, than another; or one is less easily obtained than another. In either case we prize that one in store, as the more important. We compare two farms, as material aids to different owners, and call both wealth in different degrees. We note the condition of two countries as to all the machinery of industry, and know that one has greater wealth than the other. We compare the acc.u.mulations of this generation with those of our fathers, and rejoice in our advance in wealth as one important form of power to gain a genuine welfare. Thus, in comparing our country"s inventory by the census of 1890 with that of 1850, we find that while its people are only 2.7 times as many, there are 3.15 times as many farms of exactly the same number of acres, though more of each is cultivated, and that the value of property used in farming is more than four times as great; so we know that the farmers have increased in wealth and welfare as compared with our fathers. See Charts I and II.
_Rural wealth a.n.a.lyzed._-A brief a.n.a.lysis of rural wealth in any established community will help to understand the meaning of the word and its relation to welfare. First may be named the farm fields and plantations brought by exertions continued through long years from raw forest or prairie to present tilth and productiveness. An English farmer, when asked how long it took to establish a certain permanent pasture, replied, "Three hundred years." Second, all fences, drives and farm buildings, for convenience of handling and storing produce and stock.
Third, all the tools and implements of the trade. Fourth, all domestic animals of every kind, and all attendants of their sustenance and growth, including feed and manure. Fifth, all contrivances for marketing and preparing for market. Sixth, all highways between neighbors and toward market. Seventh, all local elevators, stock-yards and depot facilities.
Eighth, the homes, with all material comforts and utensils. Ninth, any store of provisions in cellar, pantry, smokehouse or bin. Tenth, all personal belongings for clothing, adornment and enjoyment. Eleventh, the family libraries and a.s.sociated treasures. Twelfth, any actual store of gold, silver or other current wealth available for future wants. This does not include notes, mortgages, bonds, or any other promises to pay, nor certificates of stock in any business enterprise, because these are mere t.i.tles to wealth supposed to exist elsewhere,-as distinct from the wealth as the deed is from the farm. Thirteenth, any peculiar advantages of location, scenery, pure air, pure water and agreeable temperature, that are controlled by owners for personal advantage or enjoyment, and can be objects of desire to others. Fourteenth, any "good will" attached to, and part of, particular farms, due to long established methods and facilities in preparing or marketing produce. If such "good will" is attached to a person rather than to the place, it is not wealth, but power.
The last two are seldom distinctly enumerated by the a.s.sessor, yet they are clearly estimated in any exchange of places or transfer of t.i.tles.
They are owned, used and transferred like other forms of wealth, and save future exertions to obtain them. All these are wealth because they contribute to welfare through being acc.u.mulated materials to meet future wants, and are to be measured in any estimate by their relation to the wants they will satisfy and the exertions they will save.
_Future wants certain._-Wants and exertions are readily seen to be at the foundation of all ideas of wealth as indicated above. If we are uncertain as to the continuance of any wants or uncertain as to the conditions for meeting those wants, we stop acc.u.mulation of materials for satisfying them. Exertion stops unless the satisfaction to be gained by our effort is foreseen with a reasonable certainty. The farmer is never absolutely sure of returns for his labor upon the cornfield; but he is reasonably certain, and is absolutely certain that the crop will not come without labor. This a.s.sumed continuance of individual wants and their relations gives the grand motive for wealth gathering.
The means of protection and support for physical life will be needed by ourselves and our children. Tools of better form and machinery of better manufacture will be needed to reduce exertion in future. Reduced exertion for a given satisfaction will mean a fuller supply of things we are going to need still. If these wants are fully met, we are going to have leisure to satisfy larger and higher wants. It is the certainty that each advance of wealth will bring advancing wants to consume more wealth, that gives a genuine motive to activity in gaining wealth, i.e., in acc.u.mulating the things to be used. The degree of uncertainty in all future plans leads to over-estimating the importance of gold, diamonds or any forms of wealth that can most easily be transferred between places or individuals, or be turned to account in each change of necessities.
_Ownership._-The importance of wants and exertion emphasizes the importance of the individual self in all ideas of wealth. The _ownership_ of one"s _own_ abilities and their products is absolutely essential to his care for acc.u.mulation, and that care is in proportion to his security in such ownership. Directly or indirectly, every exertion and every sacrifice must depend upon confidence that it will bring its object; but wealth-getting has no object without control, in some measure, of results.
This fact makes individual ownership an essential to the highest exertion, a natural sequence to the right of liberty.