Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1909-02-10
The COMMISSION ON COUNTRY LIFE.

THE COMMISSION ON COUNTRY LIFE.
The commission on country life has
Travelled like the mountain and with
much the same results. II 1t has sug-
gested anything that has not been
urged by the daily and weekly news
paper over and over again for the past
ten wears no one has noticed the new
suggestion. The fact is the commission
was one of those affairs that can not do
any harm. may do considerable good
but might well have been omitted and
the energy centered upon II have been
better exerted in some direction where
it was more needed. The commission
has done one most excellent thing IN
a negative way. 1t has brought out the
information that the country home rs
in an excellent way and country dwell
ers know what country life lacks ana
are getting ready to fix 1t where IL
needs fixing. The need of better san
itation is general knowledge in the
country and its processes are more
generally observed than ever before.
The bone yard" Known to every
youth of present middle age has dis
anneared: the hogs run about the we'll
curb in very rare instances nowadays
and the farm home is built with sani-
tation well in mind That better roads
are needed is a part of the farm child
knowledge and their making part OF
the work laid out for the next decade
of progress In short the commission
has not discovered anything that we
did not know and has suggested little
that was not already in the air. AS
Commission It was we'll enough; per-
hans 1t was worth all it cost but II Will
not revolutionize country life or coun-
try methods.
In the country where the Times-He-
publican circulates the change in coun-
try life has been greater of late years
than in city life. The revolution came
on the heels Of the pioneer period,
when the farm was paid for, the last
mortgage lifted and the old man and
woman built for their age the big house
they needed when the family was
Sleeping three in bed. The land that
had been bought for SIS an acre and had
slowly crept up in. value to $50, by one
of the periodical leaps that realty VAL
ues take became worth $50 an acre. 1t
was wealth to the pioneer now grown
old His sons took over the labor OF
the farm while the old people looked on
and saw the land prices leap again to
s75 When the pioneer died the other
day and the estate was to be divided
,his executors sold "the old home place
for $3.50 an acre. Two hundred and
forty acres of 1t, $4,000. And it had
supported a large family, educated
them all, helped the sboys, to get a
start and sent the girls to their hus-
bands with present assistance and fu-
ture prospects. From it and its neigh
bors had come splendid citizenship
the bone and sinew of new and great
err commonwealth than the past had
known. 1t was an evolution. 1t is still
in the process of an evolution, a world
process that men and commissions may
tinker at but can not change or stay
and can scarcely check or hasten. The
commission is the bug on the fywheel
spun by the mightiest force in exist
ence, the evolution and growth of the
race.
Commission us no more commissions
in pity of the farms and the farmers
His isolation is more imagined than
actual. Such as it is he has it in his
power to ameliorate and even Danish it
1t will be done never fear. To our Wis
ion the old order changeth slowly. We
are impatient Of desire that our own