202 GARDENS AND THEIR MEANING 



threatened America has first forced itself upon the mother 

 countries. Let us follow for a little the main thread of their 

 agricultural history. 



A gloomy period of discontent, which may truthfully be 

 called Darkest Agriculture, has long been prevailing among 

 the small farmers all over Europe. About ten years ago the 

 storm which had been brewing burst. Its cause was twofold : 

 it arose from the farmer's ignorance and from his isolation. 

 Which of these evils was the worse it would be hard to say, 

 because the isolation from which he suffered was not purely 

 geographical. Isolation is too often a state of mind ; jealousy, 

 suspicion, and 'greed have long been recognized as among 

 the most perfect of human insulators. 



It appears, according to John Graham Brooks, that there 

 was scarcely a district in all Europe where the small farmer 

 had not been for years systematically fooled because of his 

 economic and social weakness. The past records tell gloomy 

 tales of extortion, and in some places these conditions have 

 continued till the year 1905. Little more than a slave, the 

 farmer was kept down by middlemen who worked his 

 credulity for all it was worth. 



Especially in regard to fertilizers, where even a primer of 

 chemistry might have saved him, he proved an easy mark. 

 One story reads much like another. In Essex County, 

 England, for instance, it was discovered that every year far- 

 mers were being tricked into buying artificial manures, liter- 

 ally of no value, at something like twenty dollars per ton. 

 In much the same way worthless seeds were palmed off 

 upon them. No wonder that these distressing conditions, so 

 widespread and so steadily on the increase everywhere, caused 

 a fever of unrest. At last human nature could endure no 

 longer ; a universal cry went up for a radical cure. The re- 

 sponse came from social reformers who had been for years 



