44 AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 
February, 1909 
Monthly Comment 
The Old and the New in the Country 
2 O “butter-in’” was ever so uncomfortable or 
so much in the way as the newcomer who 
| N s%] ventures to purchase a rural property in 
7 <j] a region in which the native-born are in the 
5 As majority. The social comfort of such a 
SGcONA person is precisely that of the Philadel- 
phian residing north of Market Street who 
thinks he can make an impression on the elect who live south 
of that singular dividing line. The pyramids of Egypt, with 
their frayed surfaces and weather-beaten contours, are, in 
fact, in a very mobile class compared with the passive resist- 
ance offered by the oldtimers to the advances of the new. It 
is a force that can not be calculated in any known mathe- 
matical quantity, and its specific gravity is so dense that it 
quite outweighs all other substances, forces, powers and 
combinations in this respect, as it does, indeed, in all others. 
YEY it is quite natural that this should be so. The country- 
side not only constitutes the largest habitable portion of the 
surface of the earth, but it is entirely ample and sufficient in 
itself. Has not the farmer his fields and meadows; his 
horses, cows, pigs, ducks and chickens; his potatoes and his 
cabbages? Does not the daily yield of eggs, the comparative 
size of the potatoes, and the ravages of the cutworms supply 
topics of conversation at least as elevating and as invigorat- 
ing as the vagaries of the weather, or the doings of various 
ladies at sundry theaters on Broadway? And are not his 
neighbors always available for discussion, dissection, analyza- 
tion and annihilation? Here, indeed, we come right into the 
chief delight of the countryside and the final proof of its supe- 
riority as a state of existence. The study of human nature is 
nowhere pursued with more avidity than in the country. It 
is the one universal industry. Everybody studies it and every- 
body practises it. Everybody talks of it; everybody compares 
notes on it; everybody formulates judgments on this absorb- 
ing theme and proclaims them from the roof tops. In the 
city, of course, it is quite different. There one can live next 
door to a man for years and never so much as know his name; 
there you may see your neighbor daily and never have a hint 
as to his business or the source of his income. 
Tuis barbarous custom has never obtained in the coun- 
try. If knowledge is an expression of civilization then the 
countryside is, of all states of mind and matter, the most 
civilized, for there alone is knowledge, and profound knowl- 
edge, of people other than yourself, of affairs other than 
your own, of doings other than those you yourself perform, 
and of matters of which you have no concern. There is a 
lot of useless knowledge in the world, and nowhere is it more 
abundant, nowhere is it more assiduously cultivated than in 
the rural districts, in which everyone’s affairs are of so much 
greater interest than your own. There are, of course, many 
compensations for this state of affairs; for if one should, by 
chance, happen to forget anything about oneself, he has but 
to apply to his neighbors, and is forthwith regaled with a 
mass of detailed information that entirely saves the bother 
of making notes or keeping a diary. 
Ir must be obvious that one unaccustomed to this state of 
things will find it mighty strange and queer. That something 
of this sort exists, no doubt everyone has heard. But one 
only realizes it after one has plunged into it and inhales it 
with the pure fresh air and absorbs it with the pleasant out- 
looks over the open land—natural conditions that are sup- 
posed to be the prevailing characteristics of the countryside. 
And so they are; but human life itself is the greatest of all 
forces, and the human force of the countryside is the most 
overpowering force of all that great fair region. If not pres- 
ent within your house it is without it, and there it is supreme. 
If the country folk are in the majority in your neighborhood, 
they will be the measure of its progress and human desira- 
bility. The farmers will fix the taxes and determine the 
quality of your roads; if they can have a hand in adjusting 
your boundaries, be assured that that, too, will have their 
attention. And the standard by which all these things will 
be done and measured will be the country standard, a stan- 
dard not fixed by expert advice and certainly not carried out 
under skilled or scientific direction. 
THERE may be nothing unfair in this, and never a sugges- 
tion of illegal procedure; but the countryside has its own 
ways and lights, and its own ways of accomplishing results, 
which, being very rural, are doubtless satisfying to the rural 
mind. The fundamental political concept of the country is, 
for example, that the most capable minds of the region are 
the active political powers. The governing boards and coun- 
cils, the public bodies of every sort, are, for example, invari- 
ably composed of the “best”? men available for these lowly 
offices. This naturally follows from the very complete infor- 
mation that everybody has about everybody else. You may, 
together with every other inhabitant, see your local mayor 
every day, as he wends his way to his arduous clerkship in 
the great city. In New York you may never so much as 
catch a distant glimpse of this mighty potentate throughout 
the whole of his term of office. But in the countryside it is 
different; the town clerk may shovel in your coal; you buy 
your groceries from the tax assessor, and the lady of the chief 
alderman, or whatever his lofty title may be, may be the 
estimable person who comes in once a week to do the family 
wash. It is a bit different in the country, and the newcomer 
who has never realized these things will find it difficult to 
adjust himself to them. 
Bur a true adjustment there can never be. The new will 
always be new in the country, and the old old. If the old- 
timer sells his ancestral mansion, the purchaser is entitled to 
no more consideration than if he had bought a pair of old 
pants. He has simply taken something that was no longer 
good enough for the original owner, who forthwith estab- 
lishes himself in a more modern house that can not be com- 
pared with the old in architectural interest and which may 
actually boast no greater comfort or convenience. The 
years may come and go, but the tenacious memory of the old- 
timer keeps alive the horrid fact of the newness of the 
newcomer. The continual payment of yearly increasing 
taxes, the achievement of personal distinction elsewhere, 
even definite accomplishment, count as nothing against the 
rigidity of the country elect, of the men and women of the 
soil, of those whose right to country air and country living 
rest on the distinguishing merit and proud claims of birth. 
But the countryside is broad and its beauties may be en- 
joyed without irritating contact with the natives. Real 
progress in the country is best obtained and illustrated where 
great tracts have been developed by single ownership or by 
corporate development. New communities are thus estab- 
lished in which everyone stands on an equal basis of fresh- 
ness. There may be discomforts and drawbacks here, too; 
the promises made at the outset may not always be kept; but 
at lease everyone will be common victims of the same entice- 
ments. Life has some compensations, even if it is not always 
free from care. 
