The farmer no longer depends upon the mails; like the city man, he telephones.

This instrument is thus the greatest civilizing force we have, for civilization is very largely a matter of intercommunication.

Indeed, the telephone and other similar agencies, such as the parcel post, the rural free delivery, better roads, and the automobile, are rapidly transforming rural life in this country.

In several regions, especially in the Mississippi Valley, a farmer who has no telephone is in a class by himself, like one who has no mowing-machine.

Thus the latest returns from Iowa, taken by the census as far back as 1907, showed that seventy-three per cent of all the farms--160,000 out of 220,000--had telephones and the proportion is unquestionably greater now.