Throughout the decade 1910-20, all through the first half of which the farmers loved regular prosperity and all through the latter half of which their prosperity was the best ever enjoyed by American farmers, the rural inhabitants increased solely 5.4% whereas the urban inhabitants elevated at the speed of 25.7%. That's to say urban inhabitants elevated almost 5 occasions as quickly as the rural inhabitants, increased movement to centres showing that farm life and farming had come to be disliked, however their new benefits: improved roads, rural free mail delivery, telephones, vehicles, farm electric lighting plants and modern water and heating methods, all developed quickly throughout the ten years in question. The retardation in the rise in inhabitants has been somewhat greater than that of manufacturing, as is indicated by the rise in the per capita production of wheat from 5.5 bus. 1920, and a rise in corn from 22.2 bus. As already mentioned, the increase within the mortgaged indebtedness of the farmer-owned farms of the United States from 1910 to 1920 was $2,286,538,362. Although there were 86,864 or 1.4% more farms within the United States in 1920 than in 1910, there were 23,627 or .6% fewer farm house owners. Mr. E. B. Rosa, in his authoritative analysis, Expenditures and Revenues of the Federal Government, makes a more cautious estimate, for the 4 years 1917-20, of the "excess of expenditures over the estimated normal expenditures on a pre-warfare foundation," and reaches a figure of $35,427,730,074, in opposition to which he locations an estimate of the particular battle income, i.e. "the excess of revenue over the estimated value of authorities on pre-battle foundation," $11,818,699,300.
