244 PHASES OF FARM LIFE. 



The best and most hopeful feature in any people 

 is undoubtedly the instinct that leads them to the 

 country and to take root there, and not that which 

 sends them flocking to the town and its distractions. 



The lighter the snow, the more it drifts, and the 

 more frivolous the people, the more they are blown by 

 one wind or another into towns and cities. 



The only notable exception I recall to city life pre- 

 ceding country life is furnished by the ancient Ger- 

 J mans, of whom Tacitus says that they had no cities or 

 contiguous settlements. " They dwell scattered and 

 separate, as a spring, a meadow, or a grove may 

 chance to invite them. Their villages are laid out 

 not like ours [the Romans] in rows of adjoining 

 buildings, but every one surrounds his house with a 

 vacant space, either by way of security, or against 

 fire, or through ignorance of the art of building." 



These ancient Germans were indeed true country- 

 men. Little wonder that they overran the empire 

 of the city-loving Romans, and finally sacked Rome 

 itself. How hairy and hardy and virile they were ! 

 In the same way is the more fresh and vigorous blood 

 of the country always making eruptions into the 

 city. The Goths and Vandals from the woods and 

 the farms what would Rome do without them, after 

 all? The city rapidly uses men up; families run 

 out, man becomes sophisticated and feeble. A fresh 

 stream of humanity is always setting from the coun- 

 try into the city ; a stream not so fresh flows back 

 again into the country, a stream for the most part of 



