“It is not the amount of crop the farmer handles, but the amount of actual profit that determines his prosperity.  It requires profit to build the new home or repair the old one, to provide the home with the comforts and conveniences that are now to be had in the country as well as in the city; to send the boys and girls to college; to provide for the expense of travel and the luxuries of the home.”

Percy stopped himself with an apology.

“I hope you will pardon me, Miss West.  I forget that this subject may be of no interest to you, and I have completely monopolized the conversation.”

“I am glad you have told me so much,” she replied.  “I am deeply interested in what you have been saying.  I never realized that agriculture could involve such very important questions in regard to our national prosperity.  I only know that our farm has furnished us with a living but there has been very little of what you call profit.  We children could never have gone away to school except that we were enabled to take advantage of some unusual opportunities.  My brother almost earned his expenses as commissary in a boarding club at college.  He felt that he could not come home for Thanksgiving because he had a chance to earn something and I have missed him so much.  Most farmers get barely enough from their farms in these parts to furnish them a modest living and pay their taxes.”

“That reminds me of your statement that farming is the last thing that you would expect anyone to undertake.  In a large sense that is in accordance with the history of all great agricultural countries.  After the great wave of easy spoilation of the land has passed, and the farmers reach a condition under which they need most of what they produce for their own consumption, the parasites are themselves forced to produce their own food.  The lands become divided into smaller holdings and the agricultural inhabitants increase rapidly in proportion to the urban population which must depend upon the profits from secondary pursuits for a living.  Thus ninety-five per cent. of the three hundred million people of India belong principally to the agricultural classes, and the farms of India average about two to three acres in size.  Farming there is in no sense a profit-yielding business, but it is only a means of existence.  The people live upon what they raise, so far as they can, although, as you must know, India is almost never free from famine.  In Russia, the situation is but little better, for famine follows if the yield of wheat falls two bushels below the average.  Special agents of the Bureau of Statistics of the United States Department of Agriculture report that at least one famine year occurs in each five year period, and sometimes even two; that the famine years are so frequent they are recognized as a permanent feature of Russian agriculture.”

“But couldn’t those poor starving people do some other kind of work and thus earn a better living?” asked Adelaide.