CITY AND COUNTRY 



Effects of Human Environments on the Progress of Civilization 



O. F. Cook 

 Bureau of Plant Industry, U. S. Department of Agriculture 



ADVANCEMENT of the working- 

 farmer has been the distinctive 

 feature of our American system of 

 agriculture, and of our national progress. 

 Civilization in many countries could be 

 described as superficial and parasitic, 

 in being limited to a dominant class, 

 with a primitive peasantry doing the 

 agricultural work, as in China and in 

 many parts of Europe. "From time 

 immemorial to the present day the lot 

 of the Eg\-ptian peasant has been to 

 work and to starve that those above 

 him might li\-e daintily," but such 

 inequality is not consistent with "the 

 free institutions of Western Civiliza- 

 tion." The Western idea is that work 

 should be shared, while Orientals taki 

 it as normal that some should live with- 

 out bodily exertion, and form a superior 

 class or stratum of society. A life of 

 leisure and repose is an Oriental ideal, 

 but repugnant to Western instincts of 

 activity and fair play. Even our 

 women have revolted against the 

 Oriental tendencies and claimed th^ir 

 share of labor and responsibility. 



A nation of progressive, independent, 

 "small" farmers, tilling their own land 

 with the help of their families and 

 neighbors, has been our ideal in 

 America, not a landed aristocracy con- 

 ducting large estates, nor tenants 



farming for urban proprietors. Feudal 

 tendencies have been resisted, but now 

 agriculture is side-tracked by urban 

 industrialism. Urban preferences and 

 exactions are carried to extremes that 

 discourage farming and endanger the 

 production of food and industrial raw 

 materials. Hunger and idleness of 

 urban populations are in prospect. 

 The farmer is patronized, commiser- 

 ated and exhorted to persevere, because 

 production is necessary, but it is the 

 urban interest that speaks, not the 

 spirit of rural progress. Urban ideas 

 and ideals prevail, even among those 

 who are concerned about agriculture, 

 and farmers themselves are misled by 

 urban prepossessions. 



FINANCIERS MISUNDERSTAND FARMING 



The notion that agriculture is about 

 to be transformed by urban capital 

 keeps many intelligent people from 

 sensing the real problems. Millions of 

 dollars sp^nt in futile efforts to project 

 urban ideas into agriculture show how 

 farming is misunderstood in the city, 

 even among financiers and "captains of 

 industry." Although many of the 

 large undertakings do not go beyond 

 the stock-st'IIing stage, and others are 

 short-li\c'(l, there is a persistent belief 

 that farming should be done in big units, 



Note: The force of generalizations in any of the extremely complicated matters pertaining 

 to our civilization flcpcnds so much upon the opportunities and aiiilitics of the one who makes 

 them that it ma>' not ht- out of place to point out to the rc-ii(K'is of the JoiKN.M. that the author 

 of this paper, who has already contrii)iite(l several articles on this general subject, has had unusual 

 opportunities to study and understand the reactions of living things to their environment. Mr. 

 Cook's intensive early studies of one of the strangest of all groups of creatures, the Myriopods, 

 which made him an authority on this classification; his investigations of the slime moulds and the 

 termites, and later his systematic studies of that difficult group of plants— the palms— and the 

 behavior in plantations of the colTee, the cacao and the Central American rubber tree, which 

 involved a close study of their structure and variations, anil his late years spent in studying the 

 acclimatization phenomena connected with cotton breeding and selection, ha\e [iiit him in pecul- 

 iarly close touch with the reactions of plants and insects towards their environment. These 

 experiences, together with his early years of work in Liberia among the West -African negroes, 

 his investigations of the ancient and |)resent primitive agriculture in Central .America and Peru, 

 his studies of agriculture in Palestine and Kgypt, and his recent glimpses of the ancient agriculture 

 of China, should give to his discussion more weight than is given to the words of a mere writer on 

 general subjects. This discussion is being presented in two parts, the second of which will appear 

 in the following nund)er of the JoUKNAl.. The italics are the Kilitor's. — Kditok. 



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