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The Lure of the Land:
Farming after Fifty
By
Harvey W. Wiley, M.D.
Formerly Chief Chemist of U.S. Dep't of Agriculture
Author of "Foods and their Adulterations,"
"1001 Tests," "Principles and Practice
of Agricultural Analysis," etc.
Illustrated
New York
The Century Co.
1915
Copyright, 1912, 1915, by The Century Co.
Published, January, 1915
To the memory of my
FATHER AND MOTHER
pioneers of the backwoods of Southern Indiana, who taught me the homely duties of cultivating the fields they rescued from the forest, reverence for truth and to battle for the right, and illustrated by their example the dignity of labor in a hard environment,--
I dedicate this book.
Rura laudamus merito poetae
Rure floremus; dominoque laurum
Sole gaudentem necat oppidorum
Nubilus ser.
A. Couleius.
I.
THE LURE OF THE LAND
It is not my purpose to discuss problems of life in the country for those whose incomes permit them to follow any desire or whim that may possess them. The lure of the land to which I refer is not that of the speculator; nor of the miser, who would increase his landed possessions as he would his gold; nor of the promoter, whose desire for the country is to lay it off in lots and sell it to his fellows; nor of the exploiter, who loves to possess only that he may rob and degrade. From my point of view I would set forth for the average man of average means, who wishes to indulge the natural desire for country life, the dangers and difficulties, as well as the advantages and successes, of making his home on the farm.
It is evident that those who live in the country must earn a living, but in doing this there is no need that all of the beauties of rural life should be sacrificed until it becomes a burden unbearable. It is not difficult to understand how the youth brought up on a farm turns his longing eyes towards the town. The conditions of farm life, as a rule, are not such as to attract or to hold the farmer's son or daughter. Life does not
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consist alone in watching the beautiful sunrise, in strolling through a shady forest, or wandering by a babling brook. To the farmer's boy life means early rising, hard and continuous labor, plain and often poorly cooked food, hard beds, and an absence of all the opportunities which the youth so strongly desires. It is just as natural for the farmer's boy to look towards the town as it is for the town boy to look towards the country, but these conflicting desires arise from different sources.
To the farmer's boy the town appeals as a means of a career. The country appeals to the city boy as a place of rest and quiet enjoyment. When you turn your face towards the city you go to hard struggle, a hard environment, to a life surrounded by temptations. When you face the country, on the contrary, you look to a life of repose, of quiet, not devoid of labor, but with greater certainty of success and less ignominy of failure. The one is an instinct to return to the natural life, the other is a desire to acquire the artificial life. Each of them is logical, and each of these desires must be reckoned with from the standpoint of practical philosophy.
The point I wish to make is this: When should the city man yield to his desire to go to the country? I would not in any way seek to diminish the intensity of this desire, but I think it wise to do something to help control it and to set forth the facts of the case in some way which may be beneficial to the man who tires, as every good man should tire, of city life. The number of those who are able to go to the country and found large estates, build fine houses and drive fine horses, is extremely limited. On the other hand, the number of men in very moderate circumstances who would love to yield to the longing for out-of-door life
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is immensely large. Before indulging this desire, however, some practical points are worthy of consideration.
In the first place, the lure of the land, even in mature persons, is apt to lose its pull when brought up against the hard conditions of country life. The person who thinks of going to the country, therefore, should be perfectly certain tha the really wants to go. It may be he is longing only for a vacation, and in this case in a few weeks or months, or at most years, he will tire of his vacation and desire to return to the old conditions. It is most unfortunate, in a case like this, that he should have so disposed of his fortune as to make it practically impossible to get away from the country with which he once was so enamored.
There is a large number of city men,--and it is mostly among the men that this desire obtains,--who have achieved respectable careers as teachers, as employees in business houses, as physicians, as lawyers, as ministers, as business men, whose eyes are turning towards the country. Should they yield to this temptation, or should they stay where they are making a respectable living and deporting themselves as respectable citizens? The answer to this question, of course, cannot be a general one. It all depends. First of all, the wife and daughters should be consulted. While the husband and father may desire to go to the country, the wife and daughter may not. The venture is certain to be a failure unless all parties are agreed upon its desirability. The titular head of the house, therefore, should never lose his heart to the lure of the land until he is certain that the wife and the daughter, and the son too, for that matter, are of the same mind. A mere sojourn of a week, or a month, as boarders at a farmhouse is by no means sufficient to determine this point. Many
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a wreck has been the result of taking the family to the country, and afterwards having part or all of it become thoroughly dissatisfied. There are so many rough realities in a life of this kind that it takes the poetry out of the visions of joy, peace, contentment and success, that arise in the minds of many.
There are thousands of people to-day, however, to whom the question is one of immense importance. The longer a man thinks about it, the more infatuated he becomes with the idea. He must, therefore, lay aside prejudice and desire, and look at the matter in the full light of practicality. The landscape is apt to lose its beauty after a few hours in the harvest field, and the forest is valued only for its shade after ten hours' plowing in the hot sun. The problems which are to be considered are many, and only a few can be presented in this work. As one who knew all about farm life as a boy and has had a pretty large experience with it as a man, and who has returned to it in the late afternoon of his life, I may perhaps be able, from my experience, to say a few things that will be helpful.
My object is not to keep farmers' sons and daughters at home, so much as it is to keep fathers and mothers who have no business in the country from going there. Better by far to stay in the city, where the environment is known and where the niche into which you are thrust is more or less adapted to hold you, than to come to grief through a mistaken idea of what is necessary to successful farming.
The difficulty of the problem is increased by reason of the artificial life of the present time. Every day the urban population seems to grow larger and the rural population to diminish. It is a rare thing for an intelligent and ambitious farmer's boy to become a farmer,
THE LURE OF THE LAND 7
or for a wll educated and brilliant girl to marry a farmer, not because such things should not be, but because the expectation of success and happiness in life is not at the present time in any particular way associated with country life. Nor am I foolish enough to suppose that the cities are going to be depopulated. Much as that is to be desired, it is not likely to happen. On the other hand, we must calmly look forward to an increasing density of the urban population and a smaller percentage left in the country. While I try to look at the matter from a philosophical point of view, I realize the almost hopeless effort of trying to depopulate the city. I shall have something particular to say upon that point further on. My purpose, therefore, is not to change the existing order of things, but to try to make the best of it.
Much is to be expected from changes in the studies of our country schools. The ideas of country life imparted to the school children in the city should be no longer colored nor painted. The truth should always be told. It is well to imbue the city child with a love of rural life, but it would be wrong to imbue him with a love of this kind and to leave him in ignorance of the hard conditions which it imposes. I have had many applications from city boys to spend their summers with me on the farm, and have had a little experience of that kind. How quickly the glamour of the country wears away from the city boy when he goes out to work in the fields! The hard labor of the hot day soon removes the last vestige of enthusiasm, and it takes a boy of fine spirit and splendid mettle to stick to his job.
Again, the wickedness on the part of promoters in seeking to sell to city people suburban properties should be pointed out. As I read their advertisements I cannot
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help thinking, "How many suckers will bite at this bait!" As a rule, the most unhappy man you meet is the so-called suburbanite. When you can see him through the bundles he carries to and fro, you do not always detect the countenance of the happy. The suburbanite's family expects to live as people live in the city. There must be servants to do the work, prepare the food and sweep the floors, and the best of the city market must be brought. No wonder the man who goes back and forth to his business soon finds life a burden!
While I agree that it is better for the individual to have a country home, accessible by trolley or otherwise, and still to do business in the city, his lot is not the one which I am to portray. The man I have in view is the one who not only goes to the country but, after investing his little hoard of a lifetime, expects to make his living for the rest of his life from the farm on which he is settled. My observation is that it is rare for a man who has devoted his more active life to other pursuits in the city, to become a successful farmer; I mean by that to live from the products of his farm. Thus at the very outset I may say to those who are suffering from the disease which I call ruralitis, that the expected living which is to come from a farm is to a large extent visionary.
At the same time I would be sorry to see this love of rural life less regnant than it is. Theoretically, my idea of humanity would be a scattered population, all of the productive industries taken out of the cities and place in the country to which they properly belong, and the city left only as a place of exchange. Meanwhile, let us make the best of things as they are. The suburban life should be encouraged because it has some
[Illustration: Senator Justin S. Morrill, Father of the Land Grant Colleges.]
LURE OF THE LAND 9
points of superiority. At least in the suburbs you can have a house with the light and air of heaven all around it, and if it is beautiful, as sometimes it may be, its beauty will not be confined to the front door, as is the case in the city. The suburbanite can have his yard and his garden, even, though he may have to hire their care. He has light and air, he has opportunity for his children to place their feet upon the ground, and he does not have a saloon at every corner of his yard. He should be schooled beforehand, however, to bear the burdens becomingly and to know that even in the suburbs life is not one long dream of happiness.
But most of all I would speak for those who intend to be real farmers, to live upon the farm and gain their livelihood therefrom,--and by farm I do not mean simply fields of wheat and corn, but I mean orchards and dairies and gardens and forests, in fact all the various activities by means of which Mother Earth yields her treasures of grain and fruit and flowers to her tenants. Hard as the life is, full of unexpected difficulties, accidents and discouragements, one should not be always deterred from trying it. And so I would speak the truth about farm life and call attention to some of its difficulties, and warn the man who feels the lure of the land in his heart against possible disasters.
At the same time, I would extend the right hand of fellowship to those who come. I would teach them the philosophy of patience, the dignity of labor, the splendor of producing something that is of real value and not merely an exchanging of values with the hope of a "commission," and instil into their minds the philosophy of living as near to nature as possible. Then if they follow the natural impulse, they will not suffer such grievous disappointments, nor magnify disasters, nor
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falter in their faith in the midst of difficulties. They will be able to build up, in the sunlight and the air of heaven, a real home of comfort founded upon labor, and of happiness and contentment of a purely natural character.
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