148 THE LURE OF THE LAND 



titude. I was born near the Ohio Biver, and could 

 hear the whistle and see the smoke of the passing boats. 

 When I lay under the wide-spreading beech-tree dur- 

 ing my midday rest, I did not dream of a future on the 

 farm. My thoughts followed the southward-moving 

 steamboat down to the Mississippi, down past Memphis 

 and Vicksburg, down to the cane-fields of Louisiana, to 

 New Orleans and the gulf. My ambition was some 

 day to get a passage on one of those boats and seek my 

 career and my fortune in the South. Other boys on 

 the farm have similar dreams. 



What, then, are we to do to stop the flowing of the 

 best blood of the farm to the city? The answer, it 

 seems to me, is a simple one: make the farm a more 

 productive place than the city, and its prospects for a 

 career more certain. It is true that it is useless to 

 hold up to the future farmer dreams of wealth such as 

 that which is acquired on Wall Street, though it will 

 be easy to show that Wall Street wealth is not the re- 

 sult of productive industry, but is the gleaning and 

 reaping from the wealth of others. It is speculative 

 wealth, a form of acquirement which will some day be 

 forbidden by law. On the contrary, there can be held 

 up to the intending farmer of the future a wealth of 

 independence, of joy, and of productive industry which, 

 joined with a fair monetary reward, should be, and 

 probably will be, more alluring than the city life of to- 

 day. It is useless to preach to the boy of the dangers 

 of temptation. He is willing to take his chances, be- 

 cause his neighbor and playmate has gone to the city 

 and is earning more money in some modest employment 

 than he could ever dream of earning on the farm. A 

 salary of even fifty dollars a month attracts him might- 

 ily, and when he thinks of the possibility of getting as 



