Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1888-07-26
CITY AND COUNTRY.
oNe-FouRTH or AMERICAS PEOPLE
LIVE IN TOWNS.
The Complaint In Other Countries sim
liar to That in Ours-Farmers' sons
fqoe..in. to the Cities-Where win 1t
Z do Another Side

liar to That in ours-f arner- Sons
Fqoc.in. to the Cities-where Win 1t
Z de Another side
Ii has been lately estimated that more
than one fourth of the American popuIa-
;ion now live in towns of over 5000 in
habitants. whereas City years ago only
s,r.s- gjTteenth lived in this way The
change Is usually attributed partly to
railroads which make it possible to sup
DIV these large collections of people with
The neeessaries Of life. and partly also 10
the demand felt for city eolvenienees,
Injuries. excitements and ompanionship
At any rate. the results are confined TO
no single nation or continent NJ hebbel,
in his Agricultural LaDorer. says OF Eng
land The rising generation OF peas
antry take Ia. 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
ton 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 lie
complains that in France a 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 Ing
land. where farming is difficult and unre
muneratiye. 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
20 81 pol ma
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 fert lie regions do not still sustain
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 agricult-
ure it NAV 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 dlssatisiies.
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 a lover of nature the situa-
ton seems a strange one, but he is com
PEELED to recognize it. Talking in Colo
RADIO the other day with Scotchman who
owns sheep ranch of 5000 acres, | nat
urally congratulated him on an employ
ment so attractive, and spoke of the de
ligntful 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 end? If
in England. with all the immense artiti
cial prestige that has 50 long attached it
s+lf to the ownership of the soil, there is
growing indifference to farming. how
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 a
young Harvard graduate. who went half
Il dozen years ago from fashionable clubs
and the leadership of the german to a
very isolaieu fdilcti IN ', aslils.o teiIl
Iory, anu ne toiu me 'het such was MS ue,
growth that often, after a hard day 5
work, he would stroll out in the evening
SIMPLY 10 'ooh on MS growing crops ana
orcilpIu' lJlU aoou' 'leln' ne sdl1'
very hi'ici Us l suPpoSS9 iiiother ieels
"Doul Ler 'iiilS'i e inouSI lhe Sehse
Vi l9olA3ioh il'u uiidIly urlNeh nm away
party uo"eNGr' ior tie sane Oh ms young
!HHiLy -ne SUN ieIV the 'le anu th' 'ohs'
nis -.-.. -..,-
ANofliE' VIEW OF IT.
side by SIDE wlth TINS vast thron8ing
toward town liie III the winter has come
proporhonate longing Tor the country in
the summer All persons beyond middle
age can remember the beginning OF tins
amazing division OF social life between