THE OLD AND THE NEW. 19 



years, to guess what the rank of the farmer "vrill be in the 

 next century, and to predict the changes that will take place 

 in his relation to our industrial and social life. 



I cannot but believe that these changes will have the effect 

 to elevate the farmer, to raise his rank in our industrial 

 hierarchy. During the last twenty-five years the tendency 

 has been away from the farms, and toward the towns. The 

 great improvements in machinery and in the facilities of com- 

 munication, the specialization of industries, and the organi- 

 zation of trade and manufactures, have afforded opportunities 

 for rapid gains ; and the farmers' boys, who looked from afar 

 upon the glittering prizes that the people in the towns were 

 winning, have been inflamed with the ambition to have a 

 share in this boundless gain. So it has come about that our 

 cities have grown much faster than was wholesome for them 

 or for the country. But we are beginning now to find out 

 that the Fortune that dwells in towns, and that presides over 

 trade and manufactures, is a freakish goddess, and that the 

 favors which at one moment she lavishly bestows, in the next 

 moment she heartlessly snatches away. Of those people in 

 our cities, who, four or five years ago, thought themselves well 

 to do, a large proportion are now penniless ; and with many of 

 them the question of food is becoming a very serious question. 

 Thousands of them have unburdened themselves of heavy 

 obligations by means of the bankrupt law; and there are 

 not a few, who, with consciences too scrupulous to seek 

 relief in this way, are still laden, and will be laden for many 

 years, with a terrible load of debt which the shrinkage of 

 values has let down upon them. And while there is good 

 reason now to hope that we have come to the turning of 

 the tide in our business, that the period of depreciation and 

 disaster is about closing, and that we shall see an improve- 

 ment from this day in trade and in our manufacturing in- 

 terests, yet this improvement will be slow ; the profits of 

 business will be small ; and only those will be able to sustain 

 themselves, who know how to work on the narrowest margins, 

 and to practise the most rigid economy. Even though trade 

 should be moderately good in the future, a large slice of the 

 profits will be consumed by taxes. The cities and large 

 towns are nearly all burdened with enormous debts; and 

 they have got in the habit of snaking large appropriations 



