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,