

GASOLENE 35 



conservatism of the masses of mankind leads them to 

 call anything "abnormal" that is merely unprecedented. 

 The expectation that there would be an exodus from the 

 cities if opportunity were offered was based upon the 

 unconscious assumption that people were more anxious 

 to get out of the city than to get in. But it seems on 

 the contrary that the pressure of population is from the 

 rarer to the more densely inhabited districts: the re- 

 verse of the law of gases, for men do not always behave 

 like molecules. Our cities continue to grow and the 

 bigger they are the faster they grow. Autos are more 

 used to bring countrymen into the town than towns- 

 men out to the country. However the balance lies the 

 net result is to bring about a greater mixing of rural 

 and urban population. God made the country. Man 

 made the city. Gasolene made the suburb. 



CHANGES IN THE COUNTRY. The roadside inn has 

 been revived. Front rooms of farmhouses, formerly 

 only opened for weddings and funerals, have been turned 

 into tea houses. Apples and berries, sweet corn and 

 melons, are set out on a box by the roadside in charge of 

 a child as salesman and the passing autos take their pick 

 of the produce as though it were a cafeteria. This 

 brings the grower and eater directly together and omits 

 the middle man or men. That the city dweller is led by 

 a love of nature into the country is evidenced by his 

 effort to bring the country back with him by filling his 

 car with other people's flowering trees and bundles of 

 flowers. But all men kill the thing they love. Before 

 the end of the season there are few flowers left within 

 the radius of the afternoon ride and next season there 



