Connecticut western news., 1910-03-03
'BAcKTO FARM"

It seems to be the fashion now for the newspapers, magazines, economists, and in fact, almost everybody who is not farmer, to advise everybody else to go "back to the farm"
 We are told by statisticians that our consumption of foodstuffs is increasing so much more rapidly than our produo- tion of the same, that it will be but comparatively short time when we will be importing the necessities of life (par ticularly wheat) instead of exporting for the purpose of supplying other countries, as we have been doing for many years. There is no question that the opening up of the Northwest as @ grain growing country will increase the supply of wheat enormously, and will thus make strong competition for the United States in the markets of the world. But if they beat us out in selling, there will be all the more left for home consumption, and the day of importing will be put so much farther away.
 
 ference to the necessity of more men on the farms to raise general crops, and the trend of all the articles written on the subject is toward. the return of the orig inal farmer or his descendants, who have forsaken the cultivation of the soil and rural life for @ hurly- -burly exis- tence in large towns or crowded cities. Many of those who left suburban for an urban life undoubtedly hope some day to return to the country, but we think very few of them calculate to re- turn as tillers of the soil, but rather as gentleman farmers, with large estates, and money enough to hire help to care for them.
 The farmer in the East has a hard task to make living, because he suffers two handicaps the almost utter impossi- bility of getting good help, and the fact that as soon as his boys arrive at an age where they would be of great assistance to him, they go to town to learn trade or profession, leaving him still more dependent on the hired help which he cannot get.
 But is it not far better that the boys should go away, follow their natural in- clination, and become skilled mechanics or thorough professional men, than to stay on the farm and become failures be- cause they are living life and perform ing duties they are rot fitted for or pos ltively hate?
 We venture the prediction that there will be no "back to the farm" for these people, but the farms will be titled aud we'll cared for. The signs have been plain for some time. Among the multi tude of immigrants coming to our shores are thousands of the most skillful agriculturists in the wOrld-men who have been accustomed to getting from rods what the average farmer of the | East gets from acres. The Italian, the | Pole, the German, the Jew, and many l other nationalities who are skilled in | tilling the soil are coming here. A large | number of these stay ill the cities, but many are following their natural calling. | They are going out on the farms; in the beginning as help, but ill short time as owners of a small place. and from that to @ larger one is but a short step for them. Most of those who go to the country have families large enough to banish the bogy of the hired man, and, ill addition, as others of the same na tionality settle near them, little com munity is formed that reminds one of those described in Harriet Beecher StoWe's 'Oldtown Folks.'''