No 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 237 



(.'ountry life f<tT- lliose who are i\ \n\v\ u( il, to hctlei tin* ajiriciillure, 

 to iiiijirove llie scli(»ols, cliiiiclu's, i-oads au<i uliolf {ntajoiiiical siina 

 tion and the social coiidiiion. And as the elTon to iiiipi-ove aii.v 

 society is ruudanientaily sound, so the elVort to make i-oiiiiii-^\ 

 life more etfeetive is .sotially and economically a sound movement. Il 

 is not necessary for ns to assume tliat country life of itself is less de 

 veloped or more developed than city life, but only to bear in miud that 

 country life is not as effective as it is capable of being.' 



The "back to the land" movement is very largely a city impulse; 

 in part a desire of cities to relieve themselves from congestion; in part 

 a desire or ellort to find work for the unemployed or to find possibili- 

 ties for the "ne'er-do-wells ;" and to a considerable extent the effort of 

 real estate dealers to sell land. 



Of course, we need good farmers and it does not matter wlnMlicr 

 these men are country-bred or city-bred if only they are <pia!itied by 

 experience, by type of mind and by other (jualitications, to be farmers. 

 But a large part of the city -to-the-coun try movement is socially and 

 economically unsound as a solution of rural ills. A great many per- 

 sons, undoubtedly, who are now going from cities to country will be 

 very much disappointed. This will not be because farming is a poor 

 business, but merely because many of those persons who go, will not 

 be qualified to be farmers. Ordinarily it is unsafe for any man to 

 change greatly the character of his life or activity after he is thirty- 

 five or forty years of age. There are some inexperienced city persons 

 wdio go to the country past that age who makes a success; but I am 

 convinced, as compared with the w^hole number, that they are few. I 

 am interested not in the "city to country" movement, because I am 

 not a student of city affairs. I feel that other means must be invoked 

 to solve the city matters than merely to send the surplus to the coun- 

 try districts. I am interested primarilv in the re-direction of country 

 life. 



The theme that I wish to develop in your mind to-night 

 is this: it is very necessary that at least a part of our 

 civilization have contact with real experiences, real situations, 

 with elementary conditions. The tendency of the time is 

 the splitting and the complexing of our civilization and the develop- 

 ing along partial lines. There is a lack of wholeness in our lives. This 

 is illustrated in our common manufacturing. For example, we no 

 longer use the whole w-heat for bread. We refine it out, first taking 

 one thing and another out of it with the idea that apparently the 

 value of bread lies in its whiteness and not in its completeness. It 

 lies largely in its looks and baking quality. It is very necessary that 

 a good part of our civilization have direct contact with Mother Earth 

 and with types of experiences that bring many native qualities into 

 play. 



The farmer's business has relations with a large line of effort, which 

 altogether makes up his type of life and his philosophy; whereas a 

 man working in a shop does largely the same thing day after day and 

 his philosophy of life may not be connected intimately with the char- 

 acter of the work that he follow^s for a livelihood. In the farmer's 

 business, the philosophy of life grows out of the situation in which he 

 naturally finds himself. The farmer is a real part of his background. 

 He is as much a part of his farm as the trees, or the livestock or any- 

 thing else on his place. It has often been said that farmers ought to 



