Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1912-07-26
THE GRANGE
Conducted by
J. W. BARROW. Chatham. n. r.,
Editor Of the NetD York state Grange
ReUfetU
RURAL LIFE MOVEMENTS.
Country Life and Back to the Land
Are Not Identical.
Especial Correspondence.l

Especial Correspondence
We hear much these days about the
back to the land movement and the
country life movement, and some
times these two descriptive terms are
used INTERCHANGEABLE and therefore
carelessly. They are not identical and
should not be confused.
The back to the land movement is
a movement from city to country and
Implies a change in the sources Of
livelihood and all the conditions sur
rounding 1t. The country life move
ment is, In short, an attempt by those
already on our farms to improve them
and better farming conditions and
thus to develop a more efficient coun-
try life In respect to its financial, edu-
cational and social features. The
former Is fraught with dangers that
are not imagined until confronted.
For a city man who has earned his
| livelihood for many years in the city's
occupations and is weary with the
| struggle for existence and the rush
| and worry that goes with 1t q change
W COulllIN Is IdulCdl anu
serious. He is carried away with the
open, free and independent life of the
farmer that he has read about and
contrasts it with the slave life he has
led. The outlook is rosy, the condi-
lions inviting, the work easy. But
! after the change is made things take
on different hue sometimes, and the
city farmer discovers that experience
is needed to make success of farm
life, an education required that he has
not had, a training essential that he
has never dreamed of. Along this
way there are monuments of failures
erected by those who have Travelled
it to their sorrow and who have re-
turned to the city again, wiser and
poorer men. Such q change is pltiable
in the extreme.
There is another class of back to
the landers" who deserve less of pity
than of contempt. These are they
who are merely looking for some new
way of spending their surplus money.
who regard farming as a joke and
country folks as ignoramuses. These
men-not all, but many-are menace
to n real farming community in that
they disturb its economic conditions
make farm labor more expensive and
less remunerative to the native farm
err and often drive him out of business
because he cannot compete with the
'Wcalthy" city man who has money
to burn ana who cares not whether it
cost 81 or 81 to produce dollars
worth of crops.
Now, as to the country life move
ment it is most cOmmendable ana
most essential to improved rural con-
dtions. 1t should be encouraged be
cause it is intended to build up and
not tear down. to improve and not i'm
pede. to develop and not retard. 1t
would remove the difficulties which
beset the business of farming: it would
enhance the social opportunities Of the
rural towns; it would encourage edu-
cation of practical sort; it would
make farm life more attractive to the
young men; it would improve the rural
school and make it the center OF rural
activities; it would give new meaning
to the old faiths and new direction to
| old customs: II would reVlvlfy tie con-
ditions surrounding the country church
and make it more vital force in the
rural community and would develop q
sufficient social life and remove those
barriers which grow up in the cOun
try to more fraternal, more unseltish-
more ncighborly social conditions. All
this will grow out of n rightly directed
country life movement.
}. w. BARROW.