i d Sixteenth Annual Report. 



cultural interests and to quicken rural civilization as to develop 

 the cities and the interests that center in them. In general, the 

 imagination of the people is directed toward the cities rather than 

 toward the farming districts. This is particularly true in the 

 old eastern states, and this condition calls for very serious con- 

 sideration. 



II. A common attitude in New York State toward agriculture 

 and country life is likely to be one of criticism. We dwell on 

 the loss of rural population, on abandoned farms, on decadence of 

 the country town, on the lessened valuation of farm property and 

 on the emptiness and bareness of country life. I find the state- 

 ments of eastern men quoted all over the west in derogation of 

 eastern agriculture. I was told recently in the Hood river valley 

 of Oregon that apple-growing was no longer commercially profit- 

 able in New York State; and when I asked for evidence I was 

 referred to a paper of this nature said to have been written by a 

 New York man. 



In the long run and broadly speaking, the condition of country 

 life in any region is about what the people make it ; and the people 

 do not make more out of it than, they expect to make. Whenever 

 there is a general attitude in any community of criticism and 

 derogation of any industry or condition, without being coupled 

 with a constructive movement, there is, of course, likely to be an 

 actual and continuing decadence. 



I am constantly impressed with the surprise that persons express 

 when they find very profitable farms and orchards in New York 

 State, as if they had expected to find only the contrary. 



III. In contrast to all this is the method of the west, par- 

 ticularly of those parts that we loosely assemble as the " new 

 west,"' meaning by that the new irrigated regions and the newly- 

 settled communities and those that are now much in the public 

 mind as new projects. As compared with the east, the west has 

 no past and no traditions. Its outlook is, therefore, one of pros- 

 pect rather than of retrospect. It is natural that the people should 

 enlarge upon the hopeful side and overlook or minimize the 

 hopeless. 



All successes are noted and heralded in the west. The result 

 is that it has come to be the prevailing opinion that agricultural 



