The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1902-01-29

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bolh.-End.
BOYS AND THE FARM.
The South has missed. many of Its
boys during the past fifteen or twenty
years. They have drifted to other parts
of the country, principally to cities,
and in their successes have contributed
to the upbuilding of communities far
away from their homes. 1t Is time for
this program to be changed. The
South Is offering greater and greater
opportunities to its young men. But
the change will not take place unless
the leaders of puplic opinion in the
South induce the boys to take the
right view of thesituation. The news
papers of the South are beginning to
agitate the matter, and an interesting
contribution to the discussion 70 the
following from the San Antonio Ga
zette:
"A contemporary advises, young
men not to quit the farm, but to stay
there aad reap the reward of fruitful
industry. Advice of that sort comes
with better grace from one who has
demonstrated his preference for the
farm by devoting himself to agricul-
ture than from one who sits In a stuffy
office in the city and writes of the de
lights of country life more from imagi-
nation than from actual experience.
1.-The young mau who has aspira-
tions for something higher and better
than mere plodding may be ever so
much attached to 'chilhood's happy
home down on the farm and all the
scenes and associations by which it is
endeared to him, but be has no sooner
quit school than the allurements Of
the city create longing for the wider
field of effort and the quicker returns
for labor which he is persuaded the
city offers.
"The hunprum life of the farm is too
dull and plosaic for the young mau of
mettle aud spirit to plod through when
he contemplates the hustle and activi-
ty, the ceaseless round of gaiety and
the dazzling opportunities for accumu-
lating wealth and for rising in the
scale of bust ness and social distinction
which the city is supposed to afford.
"After the farmers boy has been edu-
Gated he begins to look upon farm Ia
Dor as beneath his dignity and far less
renumerative that the gentel employ
ment of whatever sort to be found in
the city. And 80 when he strikes ont
for himself, the farmers boy who has
ambition seeks the busy haunts of in
dustry to become lawyer, a doctor, a
clerk or anything else that will enable
him to live in the city and enjoy life.
Of course it is all mistake, as many a
farmers boy has learned from sad ex-
perience in. the city, where labor Is
congested and where the struggle for
existence imposes hard conditions, un-
known in the country. The tempta-
ton to vice and immortality may be es-
capped, bnt the temptation to eXtrava-
gance is not so apt to be-. The larger
wages mayIcome to the city boy, but
the greater saving is with the farmer,
and at the end of the year the latter
has The most to show for his industry.
Nearly all the great men of the
country in literature and in statecraft
have come from the farm, and the
country air seems to have special fit
ness for developing the stronger intel
lect, as we'll as the higher virtues.
But proper efforts have not been made
to render farm life ideal. Bad roads
make the distances too long between
neighbors, and there is not sufficient
effort to form attractive social circles.
The farmer boy might have his bicy-
Gle and his pleasure vehicle, but the
roads are so nearly impassable during
a great part of the year that it is no
pleasure to travel over them. So the
chances are that he keeps neither BIZ
cycle nor buggy, and though he lives
only few miles from town, he would
hardly think of driving in and out for
an evenings enjoyment in town,
which he might easily do under more
favorable circumstances.
1T is easy to see how farm life might
be made far more attractive than 1t
now is; how neighbors might be
brought closed toy gether and social cir
cles formed by improving the facilities
for travel which virtually climate dis
tance. Rapid transit has built up the
surburhs of the cities, and may DO as
much for the most remote country dis
tricts, especially when cars on electric
railroads run al the rate of ITO miles
an hour, as is proposed by the new
road which has been chartered be-
tween Liverpool and Manchester.
Then, perhaps. everybody will desire
to live in the country and only have
business location in the city. But
even then will the educated farmer
boy still be content to live on the farm,
to follow agricultural pursuits and to
apply his education to the higher de-
veiopment of the farming interests and
the conduct of the business on busi-
ness principles?
"Will agriculture reach the dignity
of science, requiring as much intelll-
gent thought and purpose as any other
line of industry, and agriculturist take
the rank to which he should be entit-
led in the social scale? Not until the