Evening capital. (Annapolis, Md.) 1884-1910, 1888-07-27
CITY AND COUNTRY.
oNE-f ouRTH OF AMERICAS PEOPLE
LIVE IN TOWNS.

49,
liar to That in Ours-Farmers' sons
FlocIing to the Cities--where WIN 1t
End?-Another Side.
1t 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-fift eenth lived in this way. The
change is usually attributed partly to
railroads, which make 1t possible to sup
ply these large collections of people Will.
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: Tho 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, duo 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 sec 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 a
thriving race of farmers of the Anglo.
Saxon race; but even there they are
dividing the soil. it seems with races
moro backward. With oil 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 il it
were, it has an element of solitude about
it that dissatisfes.
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 a lover of nature the situa-
tion seems strange one, but he is com
PEELED to recognize it. Talking in Colo
rado tho other day with Scotchman who
owns a sheep ranch of 0,000 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
rado. but wished that hc might never see
one Of those animals again, or even hear
its name mentioned. Thus, it seems. do
poetry and fact diyerge when people come
TO talk about rural occupations.
Where Is this sort of thing to end? IF
in England, with all the immense artifi-
cial prestige that has SO long attached it.
self 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 1t to order aud produc-
tiveness. talked the other day with
young Harvard graduate. who went half
a dozen years ago from fashionable clubs
and the leadership of the german to
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 hard days
work, he would stroll out in the evening
simply to look on his growing crops and
orchards Il 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
family-he still felt the tie and tho long.
ing.
ANOTHER VIEW or 1T.
Side by side with this vast thronging
toward town life in the winter has come