The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-09-22
THE DRIFT INTO CITIES.

Massachusetts, is dismayed to learn from
her recently completed decennial census
that, whereas the population of the State
has increased % per cent during the last
ten years, the gam is confined entirely to
the manufacturing cities, and that there
has been great falling off of the rural
population. This means that the farms
are being abandoned, and that farmers
sons and daughters have gone into the
factories of the cities.
The press of the State discusses the prob
lem from numerous points of view. One
is the old cry that rural life is hard and
uninviting under present conditions, and
that IL could be made more attractive by
instituting a higher and better form of
social pleasures. This is undoubtedly a
leading cause for DESERVING the farms, but
one equally as potent is the hard and
wearing life of farming in the Eastern
States. There the farms must be large,
and hence compact rural population is
impossible. Again, the nature of Eastern
teamwork virtually prohibits summer in
diligence in social pleasures, and the
winters are so cold as to make them a
task.
1t is proper aim in life to live in COM
fort, and to invest the environment
with as many wholesome pleasures as
possible. No young man or woman who
finds farm life burdensome and city life
pleasant can be blamed for exercising a
preference for the city, even though the
income may be smaller. For there are
pleasures in life apart from money
making; and, considering even this phase
of the matter, there is rarely chance to
make more money on an Eastern farm
than dn some humble capacity in the city.
The Massachusetts case would not be de-
serving Of so much attention did it not
represent a general condition throughout
the Eastern States.
In California the situation is radically
different. In spite of the fact that for the
last few years until recently the profits of
farming have been small, there is no ten
dency to drift cityward. A visit to any
one OF the favorite agricultural communi-
ties will explain the matter at once. Here
the farms are small; the people, living
close together, can mingle on terms Of init
macy impossible in Eastern rural districts;
there is no time of the year, summer or
or of climate place restrictions on social
intercourse; and all the conditions COM
bine to make farming intrinsicaly SO at
tractive that there is no inducement to
abandon the farms for the city.
A striking illustration of this-practi-
cally unheard of in the East-is the aban-
donment of the city for the farm by
wealthy families, who establish themselves
on large orchards or vineyards, preferring
the delights OF rural life to those offered
by the city. This is SO common and so re-
markable that it deserves the consldera-
ton OF those Eastern young men and
women to whom farm life is distasteful.
One might think that wealthy persons
would be insane to leave the city, with all
its allurements. to seek greater pleasure in
the country, and SO they would be re-
garded in the East. Not so here; and if
census of wealthy business men should be
taken it would likely develop the fact that
a very large portion of them would gladly
exchange city life in California for the
pleasures of the country if they could do
so without sacrificing their business too
boauilu