388 Report of Farmers' Institutes 



effort. The demand was great. This — as always — enhanced the 

 price, and consequently the farmers were ready and able to supply 

 the demand. 



THE CITY man's HUNGER FOR LAND 



This brings me to the second part of my theme. \Yithoiit doubt, 

 there is inherent in every man a desire to possess a portion of the 

 earth of which he shall be the lord and master. Coupled with this, 

 there is in most of us a delight in watching the development of 

 plant and animal. This is nothing new, for from the time when 

 " the Lord God planted a garden eastward and set man to dress 

 and to keep it," down through the ages when Horace was glad to 

 return to his Sabine farm, and in the time of Virgil and Nero, 

 when men talked in the market place of soils and plants, this feel- 

 ing has existed. 



In the last decade this eternal lure of the land has been brought 

 to the surface by present-day conditions. Owing to changed econo- 

 mic conditions, men everywhere have begun to look at agriculture 

 from a different standpoint. " The stone [of agriculture] which 

 formerly the builders rejected has now become the headstone of 

 the comer." The farmers as a class have prospered, although they 

 have not grown rich in money, and they have brought into their 

 lives as never before those things that go to make abundant life. 

 Men have come to weigh values and to realize that real riches do 

 not consist in stocks and bonds and costly dwelling places. As the 

 life in the city has become more complex and the struggles more 

 keen, and the rewards for such struggle have been found to be 

 inadequate, what wonder that men cooped within brick walls and 

 following a treadmill existence should long to break these bonds 

 asunder and cast away these cords from them, and long for the 

 " green pastures beside the still waters " ? 



A while ago I met such a man by appointment in this city. He 

 told me of his successful business career; of the salary he was 

 getting — it seemed large to a farmer ; of his work taking him far 

 afield for long periods ; of his home in an uptown flat, not knowing 

 who were above or below him, on his right hand or his left ; and 

 of his privilege, if he wanted air or sunshine, of opening a Avindow 

 to let in such homeopathic quantities as overhanging brick walls 

 permitted. He told how he must procure his food from day to day, 



