Xll INTRODUCTION. 



life. The tide townward, which has gone on since 

 the steam age began, about 1835-40, and with in- 

 creasing volume up to 1890, has at last begun to ebb. 

 The tendency to move outward has already taken 

 up nearly every deserted farm, and is buying up all 

 available land within one hundred miles or more of 

 the larger cities. The rise of electricity as the world's 

 motive power has made this possible. Steam power 

 never could serve the farmer as it could serve the 

 manufacturer. It built great factories, and around 

 factories grew our great towns. Steam took our 

 best brains and our best hands away from the farm. 

 It took our most interesting employments out of our 

 home life to do the knitting, sewing, soap-making, 

 spinning, weaving, candle-making and shoemaking 

 in vast establishments by machinery. The farmer 

 was left to do, as well as he could, what coarse things 

 were left for him to do, by hand power and animal 

 power. Electricity is bound to reverse all this. 

 Steam was concentrating, electricity is distributive. 

 You can carry steam only an eighth of a mile with 

 profit; electricity you may carry hundreds of miles. 

 The twentieth century will open with a vastly 

 increasing country population, all bound together 

 with telephones and trolley roads. A large share of 

 business will be done by telephone. Merchants will 

 sit in their houses one hundred miles from their 

 stores, yet within speaking distance of their em- 

 ployees. Coming out to breathe pure air and enjoy 

 green fields, the tide will bring wealth and culture 

 and refinement. The country will get back its 

 population, with a gain. We shall once more have 

 our farmer presidents, as in the days of Wash- 



