The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-05-25
THE FARM BETTER THAN THE CITY

The Chicago Record-Herald deplores that
the annual increase of the population of
that city embraces several thousand young
men from the farms who are the victims
of the notion that opportunity awaits them
in the cities alone. 1t is true that this
opinion on the part OF so many young men
is a delusion. but the young men them
selves are not responsible for il. They
read OF this or that man who has risen TO
some distinction in commercial, profess
sional or political life that he was raised
on a farm" This is said so frequently
that, very naturally, the young man on
the farm comes to believe that success
awaits him in the cities. In the illusion
produced by the glowing stories of the few
the young man loses sight of the failure
or the oblivion of the many who go to the
cities and are thereafter rarely ever heard
of. The nine-tenths find that they must
struggle in a crowded labor market and
accept wages that will not secure them
the good living of the farm. If they marry
they must, for the most part, live in crowd
ed tenement houses if they go to the
cannot hope for the larger success of which
he has read and which has led him to the
city. So If all who go to the cities from
the farm would tell the plain truth about
the matter they would confess that they
would be better back on the farms If they
could rent and till small piece of land.
Those people who write and talk about
g. ,~;..o 49,
| life of drudgery to be escaped. This is a
mistake; the average farmer in Indiana
does not toll so many hours in the year
as do men in most city employments. With
modern machinery the farmer is very much
a mechanic, and a mechanic the severity
of whose labor has been greatly reduced
| by labor-saving and abor-lghtening ma
| chinery. No man who so largely depends
! upon his daily employment for his bread is
/ so much his own man as the average
farmer. AT the present time the drudgery
of the farm is no greater than that of any
other employment. There are thousands
of men in Indiana who, farming intelli-
gently, are forehanded and are making
money from year to year. 1t was the
| opinion of the late Governor Mount that no
occupation afforded such opportunities for
acquiring competency as does farming in
Indiana. While it may be that many
| of the brightest of those born on the farms
| have cast their lots in the cities, there is
| good reason to believe that in a COMPARE
son of all who left the farms with all who
! remain on them the average of the latter
would be the better so far as living condi-
tions are concerned.
| During the last few years the introduc-
tion of the telephone, the electric railway
and the free rural delivery of the mails
have changed the situation. The isolation
| or the out-of-the-world life on the farm is
! practically a thing of the past, or will be
in the course of a few years. Furthermore
it has been demonstrated that in no calling
are brains more needed than in managing
the affairs of the farm. In the near future
the farmer, above other men, must be a
man of intelligence and ability if he would
succeed. An evolution has begun which
will change the methods of agriculture as
the introduction of machinery has Nevolu-
tionized the methods of production in other
| industries.