72 RURAL RECONSTRUCTION 



a more intractable and irresponsive soil to work upon than con- 

 fronted it probably everywhere else. Whereas Swiss and Danes 

 almost naturally organise, under stress of compelling necessity, 

 French under the influence of inborn gregariousness, Dutch and 

 Americans at the bidding of commercial utilitarianism, and Germans, 

 with their ingrained habit of discipline, under the guidance of urging 

 authorities, our farmers remain devoted to their inherited individual- 

 ism, which will not, as long as it has its way, brook the slightest 

 interference not compellingly imposed upon it, and maintains its 

 own course in spite of all argument, exceeding in these qualities 

 all other rural populations, generally individualist as they are. 

 Let the coming storm threaten small craft as it pleases, they will 

 still each paddle his own fragile canoe. Time with its chances and 

 changes has no teaching or bidding for our average farmer who, 

 in his unregenerate state, jogs on carelessly in his old " leather 

 jacket " husbandry, whatever new experience or perfected science 

 may teach. We have deliberately been content with things as they 

 are, and as they have been handed down to us from time almost 

 immemorial. Constitutionally we are conservative in our habits, 

 but given to muddling and bungling. How long did not our 

 military authorities persist in swearing by muzzle-loaders as the 

 one true form of ordnance, after all the rest of the world had already 

 decided altogether in favour of the breech-loaders which won 

 Konuggraetz. Breech-loaders were here declared to be not " in 

 it " ; and we would stand or fall by the " Woolwich Infant." 

 The same plea is now put forward by old fogies, whose reasoning 

 has grown rusty, against progress in agriculture and rural life — 

 organisation and co-operation being distinctly comprehended in 

 that term. Necessarily the clearing of a new forest area involves 

 the felling of obstructing trees, some of which may have grown 

 dear to people. And among those which must in this connection 

 perforce come down in the antitype of rural reconstruction, there 

 are, as in the worthless underwood and old rotting trunks which, 

 according to our Forest Inquiry Committee, figure so largely in 

 what still remains to us under the complimentary designation of 

 " forest." a goodly number of wholly useless cripples, which have 

 nevertheless twined their shoots and tendrils so firmly round the 

 hearts of those who have the charge of them that, in spite of all 

 utilitarian considerations, they feel loth to allow the woodman 

 access to them. 



Once, on the other hand, so it is comforting to reflect, we become 

 convinced of the value of a new departure, there is no race to exceed 



