Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1888-10-11
CITY AND COUNTRY.
ONE-FOURTH OF AMERICAS PEOPLE
LIVE IN TOWNS.


The Complaint in Other Countries Sim
F1ocking to the Cities-where Will It
End?-Another Side.
It has been lately estimated that more
than one-fourth OF the American popula-
tion now live in towns of over 5000 in
habitants. whereas fifty years ago only
one-ffteenth lived 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, excitements and companionship
At any rate, the results are confined to
no single nation or continent NJ 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, NJ
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 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
into the hands of the Irish and the
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. 1t seems, with races
more backward. With all the skill
brought to bear upon scientific agricult-
ure, it may be doubted whether it is an
intellectual pursuit requiring as high
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 dissatisfes
A Observation-Disclosures.
"God made the country, and man made
the town, says Cowper; but man seems
for some reason to prefer his own handi-
work. 10 one who approaches the mat
ter simply as lover of nature the situa-
ton seems strange one, but he is COM
PEELED to recognize it. Talking in Colo
rado the other day with Scotchman who
OWNS sheep ranch of 5000 acres, l nat
1rally congratulated him on an employ |
nent so attractive, and spoke Of the de- |
ightful associations with the pursuit in |
me Scottish ballads, the writings Of the |
tttrick Shepherd, and so on. He inter
'upted me with the bluff assurance that |
le hated sheep, that he had herded them
irst in South Africa, and then in Colo
ado, but wished that he might never see
me OF those animals again, or even hear
is name mentioned. Thus, it seems, do
poetry and fact diverge when people come
% talk about rural occupations.
Where is this sort of thing to end2 If
n England, with all the immense artif-
ial prestige that has so long attached it.
elf to the ownership of the soil, there is
growing Indifference to farming, how
ong will even our broad acres of virgin
oil prove attractive? Yet there certainly
5, somewhere in our hearts, a love not
merely for wild nature, but fer the pro-
ess of subduing it to order and produc-
lveness. talked the other day with a
oung Harvard graduate, who went half
dozen years ago from fashionable clubs
nd the leadership of the german" to a
cry isolated ranch in Washington terri
Dry, and he told me that such was his de-
ght in the sense of ownership and
rowth that often, after hard days
'ork, he would stroll out in the evening
imply to look on his growing crops and
richards. 81 felt about them" he said,
very much as suppose a mother feels
bout her children" Though the sense
isolation had finally driven him away
artly, however, for the sake of his young
still felt the tie and the long.
e.
ANOTHER VIEW OF 1T.
Side by side with this vast thronging
ward town life in the winter has come
'oportionate longing for the country in
le summer. All persons beyond middle
re can remember the beginning of this
nazing division of social life between
lmmer and winter, which now gives to so
any persons of moderate means dupli-
tie residence for the two seasons. In
II larger cities, where whole streets of
own stone palaces remain all summer as
lent as the catacombs, it was formerly
70 custom for those who resided in such
'uses to keep them open all summer, the a
mily taking perhaps fortnights out A
g to ''the springs" or 'the beach," and S
en- returning home C
The lengthening vacations of public and v
ivate schools illustrate the same change i,
habit; there was formerly almost as
ng vacation in winter as in summer: in 1.
me colleges much longer, that the a.
udents might teach school. But now the F
miner vacations last in some cases three F
lid months; and the migration includes
t merely the occupants of the brown
one fronts, but vast m1ltitudes of hard
,rking families, who dwell all summer
tent on the beach, or in those hives Y
summer population by inland lakes or =
meath mountains. If this tendency =
es on developing for the next fifty years :
for the last fifty, it may not solve the .
oblem of scientific agriculture, but it =
II certainly furnish some antidote to the -
eyed evils of cities.-T. w. Higginson !,
Harper's Bazaar. a
Severity of Scarlet Fever. "
E',,r,, - n |