Los Angeles herald., 1906-03-18
UNTITLED FARMS AND THE
CITY POOR

| ing and there are few responses.
Thereupon it proceeds to show that the
lure of the city has absorbed thousands
of the best young people of the agri-
cultural districts, leaving the farms to
go untitled.
Then follows the customary dream Of
the city philosopher, who cannot under
stand as the Journal puts it, why the
average family of the city slums pre-
fers to suffer the misery of the tene-
ments rather than go out into the
country where healthful employment
awaits all, and where the pure air will
revive debilitated bodies and the sun
shine win back the feeble tides of life"
City newspaper men have worried
themselves greatly over this question
for many years and the most of them
are apparently no nearer the solution
now than they have ever been. But
why doesn't the city newspaper man,
when he gets sick and friendless and
out of a job, "go into the country,
where healthful employment awaits
aIl'? His answer would be swift and
xpressive-"What do know about the
game?" Or, perhaps, in still more en-
phatic slang-"Nay, nay, no country
stunt for me; die first"
The trouble with the city philosopher
is that he isn't practical when he sug-
gests farm life for the struggling poor
in the tenement districts of the city.
He is simply dreaming a dream and
hoping it may come true.
Agriculture is a science Farming has
come to be skilled labor. The rules of
seed-time and planting, of sowing and
reaping, are a sealed book to people
who have spent their lives in the city.
The city man who has earnestly and
honestly tried to raise dozen chick
ems to the point where the expense and
the income will be equal has acquired
only little fly-speck of the knowledge
which the farmer must possess If he
would make even a bare living. The
clearing, the plowing, the narrowing,
the planting, the cultivation and the
harvest require today an amount of
scientific knowledge equal to that Of
any other skilled labor and more than
that of some. The farmer himself
rarely appreciates the extent of his
own scientific knowledge because 1t has
come to him by eXperience-because he
was born to it, and through genera
tions the learning has descended from
father to son, until he does mechani-
cally those simple things which If he
did not know from sheer instinct when
and how to do would spell his ruin.
Where would the city poor man, who
never saw a farm, perhaps, except
from a car window, acquire this vast
fund of information? Nobody is going
to give him a farm and nobody would
employ him on the farm If he didn't
know the game"
One of E. P. Roe's most delightful
and successful books, "Driven Back to
Eden" tells the story of a New York
bookkeeper, who when he found the
city existence was drying up his heart
and brain and body, and running the
health and morals of his children, in
vested a few hundred dollars in a
small farm and went into agriculture.
His failures and successes are thrill
ingly told, and the book ends, of course,
with his triumph. He made himself
and family healthy, happy and well-to-
do by changing from the city to coun-
try work. But most people who read
the book do not pause to consider that
this man was driven back to Eden
he had been there before. His boy
hood was passed on farm; his father
was a farmer before him, and hence,
when he smelled again the upturned
earth and heard the birds singing In
the trees, the instinct of generations of
farmers came again to him and he
naturally made a success. 1t was 1.-The
call of the wild"
But the poor occupant of city ten
ement, unless he came of race of
farmers, or had in him the agricultural
instinct, would have no more chance on
a farm than he would have in the gen.
eral managers chair of q transconti-
mental railroad. He doesn't know the
game" and the world is too busy, even
in the country, to stop and teach him.
And for his family-their misery would
be unspeakable. They might enjoy for
a week the green grass, the inviting
shade, and the fresh milk and the but
ter. Then would come the old lure of
the city, with it's electric lights, its
street cars, it's theaters, its churches,
it's excitement and even its dirt and
its wickedness. And that would be the
end of the farm business. Better a
bed in the alley, where we can see
something and somebody, than out here
in this crushing lonesomeness."
Don't paint any pictures of tenement
poor people going out in the country to
till the farms unless they know the
game"
The remedy for the growing lack of
farmers lies in education and a
changed public sentiment that will rec
ognize the scientific superiority of
agricultural pursuits. Lure the farm
bovs hack TO the farm with counter