336 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



November, 1905 



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Write today for book and mention edition AH 11. 



S. C. JOHNSON & SON, RACINE, WIS. 



'The Wood-Finishing Authorities 



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^ We do not grind in oil. Lists of manufacturers of high-grade zinc paints sent on request 



THE CITY AND THE 

 COUNTRY. 



A GREAT feeling of unrest has seized 

 the city dwellers. For years they 

 have been regarded as the most for- 

 tunate of mortals. The very word " city " 

 is filled with magic inspiration. It sums up, 

 in a sense, all the delights and all the re- 

 sources of civilization. Perhaps it does. 

 Cities are fine places. They abound with fine 

 sights. They are filled with fine people. They 

 contain everything that every one wants and 

 needs, and many things good folic do not want 

 and certainly do not require. The cities have 

 retained their supremacy, and people have 

 rushed to them as veritable wells of treasure, 

 where money and pleasure, learning and suc- 

 cess, can be had almost for the asking, and cer- 

 tainly as rewards for residence within their 

 midst. 



The cities were never so popular nor so 

 populous as to-day. More people live in them 

 than ever before. More people come to them 

 than ever came before. Never, in all history, 

 were so many people crowded together in one 

 place as in the great cities of to-day. 



Yet their inhabitants are not satisfied. 

 Multitudinous as are the pleasures of the city, 

 they are no longer complete enough or ample 

 enough for all who would absorb them. It 

 has been discovered that the advantages of city 

 life are limited; that great and wonderful as 

 they are, they are not sufficient for every taste 

 nor for every mind. Too many people have 

 settled down in the cities, and the hordes of 

 people whose mere enumeration make the 

 census takers stand aghast create discomfort, 

 add to expense and entail numberless unfore- 

 seen disadvantages. 



The astounding discovery has been made 

 that there are spots upon the sun. The envied 

 persons who have been residents of cities do 

 not welcome the newcomers as the latter 

 hoped they would be welcomed. That the 

 cities have drained the rural regions has long 

 been manifest. This situation was tolerated 

 so long as no great inconvenience was ex- 

 perienced by any one; but the moment the 

 newcomers became so numerous that the older 

 residents were crowded, while the new ones 

 themselves found it difficult to obtain an abid- 

 ing place, a new condition arose which entirely 

 changed the aspect of city living and greatly 

 altered the general conception concerning the 

 advisability of living within these charmed 

 limits. 



The pendulum has, therefore, swung back. 

 While vast crowds are still streaming into the 

 cities from all sides, other crowds, almost as 

 numerous in point of number, are swarming 

 out. Both streams represent people of every 

 conceivable means. Among the incomers are 

 men of huge wealth who will make the resi- 

 dent millionaires sit up in amazement at their 

 prodigal expenditures. Many there will be 

 also who, as many others before them, have 

 come to make their fortune, and rise to such 

 heights of fame as their own inherent merits 

 and personal opportunities may permit. 



The crowds that go out are also persons of 

 varying means. Some are people of wealth 

 who have taken great homes in the country; 

 others are persons of moderate means who 

 think they will be better able to live on a cer- 

 tain income in the country than they could in 

 the city. Others, again, are unfortunate indi- 

 viduals who have tried the city and failed. 



But the animating thought in all this great 

 company is the joy with which the country life 

 is welcomed. It is a strange and a new thing! 

 But a few years ago the tendency toward the 

 city was so pronounced that country life, with 

 all its manifold blessings and advantages, was 

 not thought of save by a few misguided souls 



