The changing interface between commercial agriculture and quasi-agricultural interests in rural areas and the rising capital requirements in farming suggest an emerging compromise in the form of a dual rural economy: (1) large commercial farm units, and (2) smaller farms, based on subsistence, part-time, retirement, or hobby interests.

This article is based on an address, by Harold O. Carter and Warren E. Johnston, delivered at the annual meeting of the American Association of Agricultural Economists, Virginia Potytechnique Institute, Blackburg, Virginia, August 7, 1978. The complete text appears in the December issue of The American Journal of Agricultural Economics.