Springfield daily republic. [volume] (Springfield, O. [Ohio]) 1887-1888, 1888-08-15
CITY AND COUNTRY.
oNE-FouRTH OF AMERICAS PEOPLE
LIVE IN TOWNS.

The Complaint In Other Countries Sim
liar to That In Ours-Farmers' sons
FIocking to the Cities-where VIII II
Ead?-Auother Side.
1t has been lately estimated that more
than one fourth of the American popula-
ton now live In towns of over 5000 in
habitants. wher ,as fifty years ago only
one-fifteenth h,ed In this way. The
change is usually attributed partly to
railroads. which make it possible to sup
ply these large collections of people with
the necessaries of life. and partly also to
the demand felt for city conveniences.
luxuries. ,xcitements and companionship
At any rate, the results are confined to
no single nation or continent. M. kebbel.
in his Agricultural Laborer, says of Eng
land: The rising generation of peas
antry take no interest in agricultural
work. The best boys from the
schools all set their faces toward the
town, and scorn the plow." In France. M.
Baudrillart finds that while the popula-
tion of the farming districts diminishes.
that of the towns increases This, he
thinks. due largely to popular education,
which has created new wants and broken
up the old intellectual stagnation. He
complains that in France q new and lower
grade of laborers is being imported from
Belgium and Italy to take the place of the
French peasant. who seeks the towns.
All this is curiously like the complaint
we hear among ourselves. In New Eng
land. where farming is difficult and unre-
munerative, we see many farms passing
int ha 81 he rr,p nd he
Swedes, while the cities are built up by
the sons of those who were once farmers
As you cross the prairies, where farming
is still profitable. you may sometimes see
wheat fields or corn fields stretching TO the
horizon. and titled by the joint labor OF
some colored family which came within
thirty years out of slavery. Not that
those fertile regions do not still sustain q
thriving race of farmers of the Anglo
Saxon race; but even there they are
dividing the soil. it seems, with races
more backward With all the skill
brought to bear upon scientific agricuit-
ure, it may be doubted whether it is an
intellectual pursuit requiring as high q
brain power as the more difficult branches
of mechanical work-the various applica-
tions of electricity. for instance-and If it
were, it has an element of solitude about
it that dissatisfies.
A STRANGE SITUATION.
"God made the country, and man made
the town. says Cowper; but man seems
for some reason to prefer his own handi-
work. To one who approaches the mat
ter simply as lover of nature the situa-
tion seems a strange one. but he Is com
PEELED to recognize it. Talking In Colo
RADIO the other Day with Scotchman who
owns a sheep ranch of 5000 acres, / nat
urally congratulated him on an employ
ment so attractive. and spoke of the de-
lightful associations with the pursuit In
the Scottish ballads. the writings of the
Ettrick Shepherd, and so on. He inter.
rupted me with the bluff assurance THAT
he hated sheep, that he had herded them
first in South Africa, and then in Colo
RADIO, but wished that he might never see
one of those animals again. or even hear
its name mentioned. Thus. it seems. do
poetry and fact diverge when people come
TO talk about rural occupations.
Where is this sort of thing to endf II
in England. with all the immense artifi-
cial prestige that has so long attached IT,
self to the ownership of the soil. there Is
long will even our broad acres of virgin
soil prove attractive? Yet there certainly
is, somewhere in our hearts, love not
merely for wild nature. but for the pro-
cess of subduing it TO order and produc-
tiveness. talked the other day with q
young Harvard graduate. who went half
a dozen years ago from fashionable clubs
and the leadership of the german" to q
very isolated ranch in Washington terri
tory, and he told me that such was his de-
light in the sense of ownership and
growth that often, after a hard days
work. he would stroll out in the evening
simply TO look on his growing crops and
orchards II felt about them" he said.
very much as suppose a mother feels
about her children" Though the sense
Of isolation had finally driven him away
partly. however. for the sake of his young
still felt the tie and the long.
ing
ANOTHER VIEW OF 1T.
Side by side with this vast thronging
t3ward town life in tie winter has come a
longing for the country in
the summer. All persons beyond middle
age can remember the beginning of this
amazing division of social life between
summer and winter. which now gives to so
many persons of moderate means dupi-
cate residence for the two seasons. In
,ur larger cities, where whole streets of
brown stone palaces remain all summer as
silent as the catacombs, it was formerly
he custom for those who resided in such
houses to keep them open all summer, the
family taking perhaps fortnight's out
ng TO 1.-The springs" or 1.-THE beach. and
.hen returning home
The leEgthening vacations of public and
private schools illustrate the same change
If habit; there was formerly almost as
ong a vacation in winter as in summer; in
some colleges much longer, that the
students might teach school. But now the
summer vacations last in some cases three
'olid months; and the migration includes
not merely the occupants Of the brown
stone fronts, but vast multitudes of hard
working families. who dwell all summer
n tent on the beach. or in those hives
If summer population by inland lakes or
beneath mountains. If this tendency
,oes on developing for the next fifty years
IS for the last fifty. it may not solve the
problem of scientific agriculture, but it
will certainly furnish some aDtidote to the
Illeged evils of cities.-T. w. Higginson
N Harm Razar