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Show Decrease in Farm Population Necessary, From i an Economic Standpoint By DR. WALTER BURR, Kansas State Agricultural College. THE decrease in the population of America's farms is due to sound economic processes, and there is nothing alarming in the situation. situa-tion. The shifting in population is due to the installation of more efficient machinery on the farms, thus lessening the demand for labor. The decrease in farm population has been necessary from an economic eco-nomic standpoint. When you get rid of the necessity of an average of about 20,000 men in a wheat harvest, then there isn't anything else for the people to do in the country except farm. Of course, in ordei to have a sound, economic state, a large number of other people will havt to get out of the farming area. This is the thing that has been happen ing in our agricultural area throughout the entire Middle West, and it isn't a thing about which we need feel discouraged. I have also heard it said that the small town in the Middle West is becoming decadent; that it is being wiped off the map. As a matter mat-ter of fact, the Rockefeller Institute for Research recently made an extensive study of the small towns of America, and their conclusions were that in the last ten years an added number of towns have been built in America, and that the population of these towns has been in creasing. |