Rural America

“ The rural communities in America are feeders of the cities; in them is the nursery of the men and women who are to become leaders in the larger circles of business and professional life, in journalism and literature, in religion and social reform. Many a rural teacher or pastor has built himself into the affections of a boy or a girl, incarnating for them the noblest ideals and stimulating them to achievement and service in an environment that he himself could never hope to fill and with a power of influence that he could never expect to wield. ”

“ This effort on the part of my Administration and the Congress has resulted in a landmark policy. For the first time, rural affairs has received the prominence it has always deserved. It is a policy that can truly help alleviate the diverse and differing problems rural America will face in the 1980's. ”

“ In my earlier chapters I traced to the Industrial Revolution in England the origin of that subordination, in the English-speaking countries, of rural to urban interests which finds its expression to-day in the problem of rural life. I have shown that the continuance of the tendency in America was natural if not inevitable, and have urged that, for economic, social and political reasons, its further progress should now be stayed. ”

“ It need not surprise us that, under such circumstances, a race of men habituated to the incessant labour of a rude and unskilled agriculture, and habitually fond of social enjoyments, congregated together in rural communities, occupying portions of the wholly unappropriated soil, sufficient to provide each family with material comforts, far beyond their ancient means, or almost their conceptions ”

“ Gradually, the community idea has spread over the country, in some cases springing up [Pg vi] almost spontaneously, until to-day there is a very widespread belief among the farmers, as well as among the special students of rural affairs, that the organization and development of the local rural communities is the main task in conserving our American agriculture and country life. It is interesting to note that what is true in America is proving also to be true in other countries. ”

“ Not one college of forestry in all this great land up to 1898, and as yet but one in its infancy! Until the last generation not a single school of agriculture, scarcely a book obtainable which might give direct help to the rural American boy and girl! Therefore, the farmer should not be blamed for the wasteful and unscientific treatment of forest and field. All this leads to the conclusion that to secure a competence, lands of high and varied agricultural capabilities, lands worthy of an intelligent American, should be selected upon which to build and maintain rural homes. ”

“ These delights—if such they be—cannot be extended into remote villages in Kansas or Nebraska; but their enchantment must be reckoned with by those who would remould the life of the open country and make it morally and mentally satisfying to those who are born to it, or who, but for its social stagnation, would prefer a rural to an urban existence. ”

“ The evidence of competent American witnesses proves that there is, in the United States, notwithstanding its immense agricultural wealth, a Rural Life problem. Here, as elsewhere, on a fuller analysis, the utmost variety of race, soil, climate and market facilities serve but to emphasise the importance of the human factor. ”

“ We may, however, concede that the neglect of rural life is much easier to explain and excuse in the United States than in the older English-speaking countries. Quite apart from the abundance of agricultural resources which the American farmers enjoy, [Pg 61] it might well be thought that the rural communities are keeping pace with the progress of urban civilisation. The citizens who now occupy the farm lands of the United States have been largely drawn from the pick of the European peasantries. ”

“ It was with a start, therefore, that people began to realize, soon after the turn of the century, that rural population was in fact decreasing, and that farm life fell short of the rosy dream of pastoral independence so cherished by Americans. ”

“ We need above all things to produce such a rural condition as will satisfy the farmer to live permanently in the country rather than to move to town when the farm has given him a competence.
I am not to be understood as saying that farmers ought never to live in town. There will always be shifting both ways between town and country. In some cases, small-area farming develops around a village; or a village grows up because the farms are small and are intensively handled. In irrigation regions, the whole community may be practically a hamlet or village. ”

“ It was the rural way of life that shaped the county and his demands which needed to be met.
At first glance this farmer's life seems tempered by nature and largely self-contained. The daily routine was established by seasons and sunlight; fortunes were made or lost at the mercy of the wind and rain. A farm was not only the farmer's livelihood and workshop but his home. Thus, unlike the city worker whose occupation was entirely separate from home concerns, country life had a total integration. ”

“ However, farmers and ranchers do not live or work in isolation; the labor of many people, both rural and urban Americans, helps provide the agricultural products so vital to our health, our prosperity, and our quality of life. What connects farms and ranches with urban stores and consumers is a network of farmers, ranchers, agribusiness industries, scientists, inspectors, shippers, retail distributors, and others who work together to grow, process, and share the bounty of our great land. ”

“ But this consideration does not lessen the need for a sternly practical treatment of the rural social economy under review. In this chapter, I propose to go right down to the roots of the rural problem, find what is wrong with the industry by which the country people live, and see how it can be righted. ”

“ Now the porcupine and the skunk, the chimney swift and the adder are the undisputed owners of the deserted farms. The people have gone as though the plague had smitten the land, and houses, barns, fences, bridges, and well-sweeps are mouldering 214 away together. Why is it? Ask the West and the great cities, which between them have drawn the young blood from New England’s rural families, leaving the old and feeble to struggle alone with life on the hills. ”

“ The small farm unit, usually from five to twenty-five acres, brings neighbors close together, abolishing loneliness and most of the social ills of farm life in the East. Beautiful irrigated villages are springing up which rival in comfort and privilege most places on earth, and combine both city and country privileges, where rural and urban meet. The spirit of cooperation is strong in irrigated communities, enforced by the common dependence upon the common enterprise and water supply. ”

“ I have to commend to the statesmen and the philanthropists of the town the somewhat incongruous proposal that they should take the initiative in rural reform. Neither the thought nor the influence which can set in motion what in agricultural communities is no less than an economic revolution are to be found in the open country. ”

“ Such themes might not only be expounded with profit to those who work their fellowmen, but should also be impressed betimes upon those who work the soil for the good of their fellowmen.
The Paramount Problem. The paramount problem, therefore, is to make the conditions of rural life desirable—to convert farming into an enjoyable vocation; to make farm life and its labors a business to be envied and not despised. The fact is, planning for beauty and comfort in the city has progressed far and away beyond the country. ”

“ Compared with his predecessor of a century ago, the farmer of to-day is better fed, better clothed and housed, and better able to secure adequate education and recreation. At the same time the relatively greater advances which urban communities have made in economic and social activities render the improvement of rural life highly desirable. ”

“ Anything that makes farm life more worth living, anything that banishes rural isolation, anything that dignifies the business of farming and makes it more prosperous, anything that broadens the farmer's horizon, anything that gives him a greater grasp of the rural movement, anything that makes him a better citizen, a better business man, or a better man, means the passing of the mossback. ”

“ Our urban way of looking at things has made us assume that this city system must be suitable to rural conditions. The contrary is the fact. When farmers combine, it is a combination not of money only, but of personal effort in relation to the entire business. ”

“ In recent years however the country problem has been claiming its share of attention. It has grown to the dignity of a national issue. The great Rural Life Movement, starting from the Agricultural Colleges, has enlisted the intelligent cooperation of far-visioned men in many professions. Thinking people see clearly that in spite of the growth of cities, the nation is still rural. Agriculture is still the main business of our people. ”

“ The rural community has suffered in nearly every imaginable way from the rapid and rather crude development of our industrial civilization. The emigration of strong, ambitious men to the towns, the substitution of alien labor for the young and sturdy members of the large American families of other days, the declining birth rate and the disintegration of a hearty and cheerful neighborhood life, all have worked together to create a problem of the rural neighborhood, the country school and the country church unique in its difficulties, sometimes in its discouragements. ”

“ In view of this apparent change in the attitude of people toward the farm problem, it may not be idle to suggest some possible errors that should be avoided when we are thinking of rural society. The student will doubtless approach his problem fortified against misconceptions—he probably has thoughtfully established his view-point. But the average person in the city is likely to call up the image of his ancestral home of a generation ago, if he were born in the country, or, if not, to draw upon his observations made on a summer vacation or on casual business trips into the interior. ”

“ By the enforcement of prohibitory laws, and the general reprobation of intemperance in the rural districts of New England, the moral condition of the hill farmers has been, on the whole, much improved, and their manner of life—their civilization—much advanced. ”

“ Herdsmen—one would expect to find them scattered by reason of their occupation. Besides, a sky continually bright, a genial clime, a picturesqueness of scene—all seem to invite to rural life; and yet I have ridden for hours, a succession of lovely landscapes rising before my eyes, all of them wild, wanting in that one feature which makes the rural picture perfect—the house, the dwelling of man! Towns there are; and at long intervals the huge hacienda of the landed lord, walled in like a fortress; but where are the ranchos, the homes of the common people? ”

“ I have tried to show that modern civilisation is one-sided to a dangerous degree—that it has concentrated itself in the towns and left the country derelict. This tendency is peculiar to the English-speaking communities, where the great industrial movement has had as its consequence the rural problem I have examined. If the townward tendency cannot be checked, it will ultimately bring about the decay of [Pg 173] the towns themselves, and of our whole civilisation, for the towns draw their supply of population from the country. ”

“ Moreover, in a country where advanced farming is the rule, there is a remarkable, and, from the standpoint of national stability, most valuable, steadiness in employment. Good farming, by fixing the labourer on the soil, improves the general condition of rural life, by ridding the countryside of the worst of its present pests. ”

“ Farms of a score to a few hundred acres, only part of which are cultivated, form rural communities among the hills or along a river valley. Here and there a few houses cluster in village or hamlet, where each house yard has its garden patch, but the inhabitants of the village depend on other means than agriculture for a living. On the farms dairy and poultry products share with agriculture in rural importance, and no one crop constitutes an agricultural staple. In New England the villages are comparatively near together, and social life needs only prodding to produce a healthy development. ”

“ It has been my privilege for one-third of a century to have known rather closely many of the men and women who have been instrumental in bringing the rural problem to its present stage of advancement. They have been public-minded, able, far-seeing men and women, and they have rendered an unmeasurable service. The rural movement has been brought to its present state without any demand for special privilege, without bolstering by factitious legislation, and to a remarkable degree without self-seeking. ”

“ The farmers are being welded into a more compact society. They are being nurtured to greater alertness of mind, to [Pg 22] greater keenness of observation, and the foundations are being laid for vastly enlarged social activities. The problem now is to extend these advantages to every rural community—in itself a task of huge proportions. ”

“ It is very pleasant to pass through your enterprising manufacturing towns, and to see this rural population, which, after all, is the foundation of all State organizations, which are based upon the farms of old New England. The farm has been, perhaps, one of the most productive measures toward the enrichment of this country in things that are greater than the material things—in manhood, valor in warfare, and statesmanship in political life. ”