FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 97 



cultiu-al villages is lai-go. Ilesides siieh table producls as have been men- 

 tioned above one thinks of mustard and catsup, evaporated celery and 

 the 101 food delicacies canned in glass which our fancy grocers usually 

 obtain from a distance. There is to mention besides potato and corn 

 slarrli. fancy and cream cheeses, pate-de-fois, perfumes, maple sugar, 

 charcoal, wood alcohol, ax and implement handles, brooms, pulp, fancy 

 brick, tile and terra-cotta. 



The success of the Kcyerofters at East Aurora, N. Y., of the United 

 Crafts of Cabinet Makers and Leather Workers at Eastwood, X. Y., and 

 of the Elmscott Press show what a persistent devotion to art and original 

 ideas will accomplish. We have some of us gotten into the way of think- 

 ing that there is no use of an}^ neighborhood, which is without coal or 

 iron or a port or a dozen railroads, trying to do anything more than the 

 rough work of carrying the wood and water for industry. So long as 

 any community thinks that way it will be given the hod-carrier's work. 

 But the truth is that almost any village has within it capacity to make a 

 product which will be admired throughout the country and will make it 

 the Mecca of some craft if only the man of genius and perseverance can 

 be found who will utilize the labor and materials at hand. Linen is but 

 linen yet we go to the west of Ireland for hand made handkerchiefs. 

 Wool is wool, but we pay three and four prices for the rugs of Turkestan 

 madeof a very coarse wool at that. Wood is everywhere plentiful but we 

 get carved images from Oberammergau and toys from Sonnenburg. The 

 geography of skill, experience, genius and perseverance is not like the 

 geography of coal and iron and no community need despair of its future 

 until it is willing to admit that it has not within it, and cannot acquire, 

 any of these great determinative factors of profitable industry. 



I have intimated that the development of this neglected element of our 

 industrial economy involves the finding again of the proper industrial 

 function for the small town. The great cities have been growing inor- 

 dinately with us for many years. This fact is thought to prove the univer- 

 sally profitable character of business on a large scale — of concentration. 

 As I have already intimated I believe this indicates lack of careful study 

 of the correlation of industries. I think it also shows the neglect of the 

 crafts as distinguished from machine production. Our villages stagnate 

 with abundance of unused labor talent. Nowhere in Europe are so many 

 idle grown men to be seen as hang about the groceries of small American 

 villages and cities. Yet nowhere is the rush of business so intense as in 

 the great American cities. The village is a great unused American force. 

 None will benefit more than the farmer if the small village shall find a 

 new function in the industrial economy by equipping itself with such 

 manufactures as do not involve great use of power or machinery but 

 rather dej)end upon cleanliness, care, honesty of manufacture, the skill 

 of the work, enter])rise and art. 



A word more and 1 shall have finished. It has been my thought that 

 agriculture will ])roflt from a diversification of numufactures involving 

 the develo]>ment of the work sho]» industries and the establishment of 

 these in regions where labor and living" and materials are cheaj) — that is 

 close to the agricultural community. But success along this line depends 

 no. less upon agriculture adopting diversified production so that as many 

 of the needs of neighboring markets shall be supj)lied as possible. 

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