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"- The Dust Storms of the 1930's Demonstrated the Need for Soil and Water Conservation point where it is too small to support many of the commonly accepted institutional patterns. The decreasing rural population has meant substantial losses in such services as churches, schools, and local govern- ment. Today many of the counties, particularly those within the plains, do not have sufficient populations to justify their existence as separate governmental units. Within many of the basin states, the township unit of government has never been functional, and of the township governments which were established, many can no longer perforni their prescribed functions. It is not easy to measure the ex ten t of the social costs of space, but there is no doubt that they exist. Many of the costs occur in the form of subsidies made by local, State, and Federal Governments. Rural electrification and the R.F.D. are examples where other segments of the population provide a subsidy for their operation in the sparsely settled areas. Other social costs are not apparent at once but become evident at some later date. Inadequate schooling may not be apparent up until college entrance examinations are taken. The costs of maintaining a two-dwelling household for school purposes, one on the farm and the other in town, represents a higher social cost of space which a more densely settled area would not require. The lower quality of many services found in the rural areas also represents a social cost. These include inadequate facilities for religion, medical care, care for the aged, the mentally ill and retarded, prisoners, and juvenile offenders. All of these costs exist and are significant throughou t the rural areas and even in some urban areas of the basin. 30 Related to the social costs caused by the sparse density of the rural areas are the costs related to the selectivity of out-migration. Migration from the basin appears to be highly age selective with the highest rate being in the young adult category. A number of reasons for the selectivity of the out-migration have been given, all of which are basically related to the fact that the metropolitan areas provide more desirable job opportu- nities than the rural areas. This is particularly true for the educated and highly trained. One of the significant features of the grovving numbers of the aged within the basin is that they tend to cluster in the smaller towns outside of the urban areas. Studies in Iowa indicate that there is a consistent increase in the proportion of those 65 and over as the size of the community decreases with the highest rate in the towns of 1,000 to 2,500. Similar trends appear to be true throughout the basin. What of the people who are called upon to support the services needed in these areas? Today, the agricul- turalists of the basin can be grouped into three very general categories. The tlrst grouping contains those managers who are young family men, characterized by their great need for most of the social services and by a comparative small ability to pay. They are not willing, and quite often do not have the capacity, to pay for social services, even though their families are the most likely to benefit from them. Managers in the second grouping are those that are in a older age group, have established themselves, and have been moderately successful through the years. They are not as likely to have young families, and if they do, they