

THE NEW AGRICULTURE 



CHAPTER I. 



THE NEW CALL TO THE FARM 



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f^ACK to the soil" was never a more attractive proposition 

 L-J and never so worthy of being heeded as during these 

 opening years of the twentieth century. It is true that social 

 economists have often uttered this cry because they believed, 

 and rightly, that the overcrowded condition of cities could be 

 relieved, to the immense advantage of everybody concerned, if 

 the congested population found in sections of these human hives 

 could be induced to leave their crowded quarters and become 

 tillers of the soil. The advocates of the doctrine have had in 

 mind a more decent and desirable condition for the objects of 

 their solicitude a place where they could develop a physical, 

 social and moral life superior to that which is possible to them 

 in their present places of abode. The cry with which this 

 ^ chapter opens, however, is not uttered especially to a crowded 

 % urban population. It is uttered to all men to the inhabitants 

 J of every city, of whatever magnitude ; to the dwellers in villages 

 4 and hamlets, and to those who are already on the land, that 

 they may be contented to remain there. It is uttered to the 

 dissatisfied of every condition of life, or to those who ought 

 to be dissatisfied. It is the cry, not of social economists only, 

 not only of preachers, teachers, and statesmen, as distinguished 

 from politicians, but of seers, of men who look into the future 



