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Show l Farm FamiHel Larger Than in Cities AN INTERESTING fact has been dragged out from its hiding hid-ing place in a maze of census report figures and presented to the American peopie for consideration. considera-tion. This fact is that, the farms, which are responsible for most of the nation's food supply, lia'e the added burden of being a main source of the child supply. In other words, while the city family fam-ily tends to dwindle to proportions that fit a city flat, the farm family continues con-tinues to fill an entire farmhouse. This contrast has been noted for some years, but statistics on farm population popula-tion were not tabulated until the last r'ensus, and the country has not realized real-ized how great a proportion of non-producers non-producers the farms were supporting. To put it Into plain figures, if you compare the SO.000,000 of our farm population with an equal amount of city population, you find that the farins have 2,000,000 more children under ten years than those cities have. This statement Is made by Dr. C. J. Gaiyin, who Is In charge of farm popu lation studies m the Department of Agriculture. Ag-riculture. To make his figures more vivid, he shows that 2,000,000 is, roughly, rough-ly, about the population of Oklahoma. If you imagine the task of feeding, clothing and educating a group of people peo-ple of this size, you have an idea of the situation. Then think of the farmers farm-ers supporting their excess burden of young children and trying to keep up with the rising standard of living. Children between ten and twenty years are more numerous on the farms than in the cities in almost the same proportion as those under ten. So, altogether, al-together, hie farms have an excess burden of nearly 4,000.000 children, as compared with the same amount of city population. It is true that the farmer can feed a large family almost as cheaply as a city man can feed a small one. Some other expenses are lower, too, in rural districts. And the child on the farm helps In the work. In Its surveys, the United States children's bureau finds that farm work Is an ImrKirUint form ot child labor. |