The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1895-05-18
A WORD TO THE COUNTRY LAD,

If this country is suffering in any way
from lack of food it is not because we have
no land for the landless. There are still
vast quantities of unoccupied territory,
and so long as this is the case it must be an
anomaly to hear of people hungering for
bread. The trouble is too many people
want to raise wheat on city streets, and
the attempt is failure and half starvation.
Every nook or county in the land is want
ing farm labor and cannot get it. The
Minneapolis Tribune is authority for the
statement that not more than one-sixth
OF the area of the great State of Minnesota is
under cultivation, and the Des Moines
Register suggests that the difficulty is not
scarcity OF lands, but of men who are will
ing to 90 out and cultivate them Presi-
dent Stickney, OF the Chicago Great West
ern Railroad, reports that within thirty
four miles OF Minneapolis and not much
farther from st. Paul. with their four or
live hundred thousand inhabitants, there
are immense acres of land unoccupied
which could be easily converted into good
farms. lie proposes a movement of the
poor from the twin cities to that point, and
urges that forty acres and cow-not
forty acres and mule"-be given to
each family these lands to be theirs with
out payment until, by observing reason
able thrift, they can begin to pay for them.
OF course, this looks well on paper, but
1t would not work well on a large scale. In
the first place men would not go willingly
and so would not work successfully. Give
laborer taste Of the city, with it's COM
pany, associations and even dissertations,
and he will not be OF long use in the
country. No artificial process will remedy
the congestion OF the city. Those who
came from the country must go back will
ingly. Those who have been brought up
in the city and learned certain line of
work would starve on the land if given
forty acres and cow" The best that
can be done now is to warn the country
laborer to stay on the farm and those who
know anything about pillow handle who
have come to the city to better their for
tune be induced to go back.
On the same subject the Cincinatti En-
qirer says: Living in a city is costly
luxury. The town gets nothing for which
he does not make an cash outlay. The
rains, and the dews, and the sunshine, and
the fructiferous earth do nothing for him
unless he has the money to pay for the
product. He works at his occupation, and
the money he gets for it goes to the cloth
Ter, manufacturer and tiller of the soil,
The countryman is poor indeed who cannot
have possession of enough land, as owner
or tenant, to raise enough provision to
keep the wolf from the door. When the
townman gets out of employment and his
money is exhausted he is at the end of his
string Conn., potatoes, garden stuff, pigs,
chickens and the like are not growing for
nm. The necesSaries of life which a
countryman could obtain for his family
in pinch on an acre of land do not come
to his board after the mill stops or the
business establishment curtails its force in
hard times. In seasons of financial depres-
sion and business stagnation the town.
and not the country, sends hungry men,
women and children to the souphouses.
The town is art, not nature. 1t is COM
pick, not simple"