THE IRRIGA T10N A GE. 



369 



crowded into smaller space, in proportion, 

 than tne city family of moderate means. 

 Why have a bare front yard? Why have 

 the bedroom ceilings so low that they may 

 be touched easily in the slanting part of 

 the room and there generally is a slant- 

 ing part? In short, why will country 

 people get so little out of life? These hot, 

 dusty days when as a famous writer said 

 it makes one "want to take off his flesh 

 and sit around in his bones," for coolness, 

 it would seem that a cool place under the 

 trees, where one could look up through 

 the moving leaves and see the blue sky, 

 would insure happiness. Yet the farmer's 

 eyes are often closed to this beauty. He 

 sells his freshest vegetables, hoards his 

 eggs, is pparing of his milk, and works 

 early and late with no time to enjoy 

 nature, for the doubtful pleasure of "mov- 

 ing into town" just in time to die. A city 

 lady exclaimed over the beauty of some 

 ferns. "Xothin* in the word but brakes 

 answered the farmer in disgust, "and the 

 meanest kind of thing to get out of a 

 field." 



We present in this issue a por- 

 with trait of Dr. Clarke Gapen and 



Brains. a jj,,j e f biographical sketch of 

 him taken from the National Advocate. 

 In a personal letter recently received from 

 Dr. Gapen he gave his views on agricul- 

 ture as follows: * * * -'lam especially 

 interested in high class farming 'farming 

 with brains and education' farming not 

 as it is but as it may be. I see in the return 

 to the farm and the fuller utilization of its 

 opportunities the only escape from the 

 dangerous tendencies of the time toward 

 oligarchy and imperialism. The father of 

 a family with ten acres which he can irri- 

 gate if necessary, is safer from the oppres- 

 sions that bear upon the average man who 

 earns his living by tha sweat of his brow 

 than is any mechanic, and the republic is 

 far safer in such hands than in the hands 

 of those who for bread become slaves to 

 immense corporations, without souls or 

 other interest in their workmen or their 

 country than what they can get out of 

 them. The possibilities of irrigation, both 

 in the humid and arid regions, open the 

 best field for an independent livelihood 

 now existing. I have just returned from 

 a beautiful little valley in this Stite (Wis- 



consin) in which most of the homes are of 

 brick and' contain the modern conveni- 

 ences, including hot water or steam and 

 a telephone in every house. A more intel- 

 ligent, self-reliant and independent com- 

 munity would be hard to find anywhere." 



Dr. Clarke 

 Qapen. 



A great service has been ren- 

 dered to the irrigation cause 

 by Dr. Clarke Gapen, formerly 

 Superintendent of the Illinois Eastern H>s- 

 pital for the Insane. He has by actual ex- 

 periment demonstrated that even in such a 

 State as Illinois, where irrigation has been 

 heretofore unknown, the productiveness 



DB. CLARKE GAPEX. 



of the soil may be increased fourfold by 

 the application of water in just the right 

 quantities and at just the right times. 

 Where water may be easily had. as in Illi- 

 nois, the importance of this demonstration 

 is inestimable. Her thoughtful men are 

 sacking for some solution of the problem 

 of what is to be done with the millions of 

 wage earners who are crowding her cities 

 and demanding work or bread. Dr. Gapen 

 has blazed the way for a solution of the 

 problem for them. If but a small quota of 

 the enterprise displayed by Chicago in 

 creating the World's Fair were turned to 

 creating rural homes on small acre hold- 

 ings for her laboring classes, the dangers 

 of social disorder which now threaten 



