A' BABBLED OF GREEN FIELDS 163 



call. The utter helplessness of the city-bred, spe- 

 cialized for success only within the narrowest 

 groove, is not the least disturbing or distressing 

 manifestation of modern unemployment. 



Undoubtedly country living has an important 

 bearing on health; yet just what, or how much, is 

 difficult to say. If we were to believe statistics, 

 which show lower death rates in cities than in 

 the country, we should perforce esteem the country 

 a poor place to live. But these vital statistics take 

 no account of the fact that the drift of population 

 is steadily from the country to the cities; or that 

 in this drift it is typically the young and strong 

 who leave the country. Of much more significance 

 than the vital statistics it seems to me are the find- 

 ings predicated on the government's dietary re- 

 searches: namely, that so far this country never 

 has produced enough foodstuffs to give every citi- 

 zen the optimum diet recommended by the De- 

 partment of Agriculture. To do so would require 

 a total increase of forty odd million acres in food 

 crops. Slight reductions could be made in wheat 

 acreage, and in barley, rye, rice, and buckwheat. 

 But cattle, hogs, poultry, dairy, fruit, and vege- 

 table farming would all have to be enormously 

 expanded. 



In a broad way we have no idea how much 

 benefit may derive from country living, for we have 

 no idea what the effect on national health would 



