124 STAT^ POMOI.OGICAI. SOCIE^TY. 



had lost her husband and was without home or children, say, 

 "When I drive past comfortable farm houses in the evening and 

 see the bright light shining out and imagine the family group 

 within, I always have to cry." There was the lonely heart- 

 ache for a home of her own. 



You will notice that many people who go from the farms to 

 the city and acquire a competence, come back and buy the old 

 farm to spend their declining years. They hope again to feel 

 the peace and security which they felt in childhood, playing and 

 working on father's farm. But where there is one man who 

 makes money enough to come back and buy the old farm, there 

 are ninety-nine who would like to do so but never save enough 

 money. Do we as men and women appreciate our advantages, 

 our independence of the rich? our freedom from worry about 

 fuel, food and rent? 



Many city people have the same idea of us that a poor young 

 man had whom I overheard a few days before Xmas, when the 

 stores were filled with Xmas gifts. I was riding on an elevated 

 car in Boston and could not help overhearing a conversation 

 between two young working men. One was telling the other 

 about the Xmas trees for sale. "Why," said he, "they ask from 

 fifty cents to a dollar and a half apiece for them here. Those 

 farmers, down in Maine, are just getting rich out of them. 

 They work on their farms in the summer and raise a lot of stuff 

 and when it comes fall all they've got to do is just to go into 

 their woods and cut these Xmas trees and send 'em up here and 

 make from $400 to $500 a carload." 



No wonder the poor fellow thought we farmers have an easy 

 time while only a few blocks from there were long lines of peo- 

 ple, men, women and children, at the coal yards waiting their 

 turn to get 100 pounds of coal, which was all they would sell 

 one person and that at an exorbitant price. Women with chil- 

 dren in their arms and sick ones cold at home waiting for a few 

 pounds of coal. Do you appreciate your wood lot as you drive 

 in over the pure white snow and haul out your life-saving fuel ? 



O, the beauty, the grandeur, the freedom of life, working 

 among these living, growing things, co-operating with nature, 

 gaining our living from mother earth ! If only the man's soul 

 is large enough to overlook the unpleasant parts, to realize that 

 what is drudgery to many is only the necessary part to make 



