Many American farmers are facing their most severe financial crisis since the 1930's. An unprecedented proportion of farmers may be forced to quit within the next 5 years. To see how farmers might adjust to the farm financial crisis and how those adjustments might affect farm-dependent rural communities, we conducted a telephone survey of farmers in North Dakota and Texas. We asked them about their finances, their families (age, number of children, and so on), and their off-farm working experience. After initial screening, 1,953 farmers (933 in North Dakota and 1,020 in Texas) remained who were younger than age 65, considered farming their primary occupation, and sold $2,500 or more of farm products in 1984.