476 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE 



of the time and then consider that agriculture has no absolute or fixed 

 methods or standards. We mourn the evidences of departure from the 

 goud old ways, but we should rather rejoice in the thought that ways 

 which are adapted to one generation are not necessarily adapted to the 

 next. 



1. The first and most striking evidence of the readjustment is change- 

 of place of population. We have already considered it. We have now 

 only to remark that the city is the place in which one is to attain 

 those acquirements which we call culture. It is a hopeful thing 

 that so many of our people desire this culture. Would that they 

 might all go to the city for a time! lUit the artificialism or 

 conventionalism of the city excites the nerves and chokes the sensi- 

 bilities; and there is now a marked' tendenc}', at least in the 

 East, for persons to move countryward. There has thus arisen what 

 Ward has called a ruralization of the city, and an urbanization of the 

 country. The country is most appreciated by the best minds. Capital 

 is slowly crawling back to the country here and there. The flood tide has 

 passed its full and the ebb is now setting in. This migration cityward, 

 of which we have feared so much, is the very force which will unify our 

 Ijeople and vitalize our democracy. 



The ebb tide is setting back from the great West. The prairie schooner. 

 bound for the setting sun, has been laid upon the dry dock, and the move- 

 ment is eastward rather than westward. People are gradually out- 

 growing the habit of moving. It is the second settlement of a country 

 which makes for its permanent progress. Farmers upon virgin lands are 

 often robbers. They unlock the storehouse made pregnant with the ac- 

 cumulations of centuries, take the gold and silver and the precious stones, 

 and hurry on for hew conquests. By and by they come back and delve 

 out ihe lead and the iron, and apply science and skill where before they 

 used hammer and dynamite. English land is more productive now than 

 it was in the days of William the Norman. Our eastern hills are not 

 dead: they only wait for science. And this very day New York has better 

 farms and better farmers and a safer, and thereby a better agricultural 

 status than it ever had before! They tell me that the W'heat lands of the 

 great West can no longer raise wheat. The sooner the iurj of the gale is 

 spent, the sooner will fall the gentle shower! 



2. The unequal development of different ])arts of the country is a sign 

 of the effort at adjustment. New England suffered because its granite 

 hills w^ere too expensive of cultivation, and its water powers and its 

 urban population invited manufacture. The great West suffered because 

 cf too rapid settlement. The great South has not yet recovered from the 

 effects of war and the complete overturning of its social system. Special 

 localities here and there suffer for special and local reasons. Time is 

 slowiy healing the wounds. 



3. The abandonment of eastern farms is a direct adjustment to the 

 times. These lands are comparatively unproductive, and the cost of 

 working them is great. Yet they are capable of yielding a small profit 

 per acre, and it is only a question of how many acres a man shall have, 

 to produce the living which he desires. The abandoned farms are often 

 bought by city people for country homes, but they are also being pur- 

 ( has( d by farmtrs for grazing ranges. Many of them will some day^ 

 come .^g.-rn into a thorough state of cultivation. There is a segregation,. 



