Vol. LXI. No. 2724. 
NEW YORK, APRIL 12, 1902. 
PER YEAR 
FROM CITY TO FARM. 
A HOME IN THE COUNTRY. 
Obstacles to be Overcome. 
I have received many letters from people employed 
in large cities expressing a desire to leave city life for 
the country—the counter or the shop for the farm— 
and asking how the change can be successfully made. 
The majority of these letters come from people some¬ 
what advanced in years, who have spent their best 
days as salesmen, bookkeepers, secretaries, clerks or 
mechanics, and who are weary of confinement 
and monotonous drudgery, or who see the end 
of their usefulness and employment approach¬ 
ing. All express a love of nature as seen in the 
green fields, pure air, spring brooks, leafy 
groves, feathered songsters, clear skies and 
starry quiet of God’s primitive empire. They 
tire of the noise and dust, the rush and jam, the 
feverish pressure and artificial life; the tinselry 
and shams, the heartless greed so common in 
city life. They are sleepless and restless, lone¬ 
ly in the crowd, and in their business associa¬ 
tions are valued only for their ability to benefit 
their employers. In society (and sometimes in 
church) they are esteemed simply for their 
beauty, brilliancy or cash. No wonder they want 
to exchange the smoke clouds for the clear sky, 
confusion of cartwheels for the harmony of 
bird songs, the cackle of poultry and the bleat¬ 
ing of lambs; the foul odors of decaying life and 
sour beer for the aroma of fresh earth and 
clover blossoms, heartless greed and insincerity 
for the honest cordiality and helpfulness of the 
“plain people” of the farm. 
I have the utmost sympathy with these peo¬ 
ple. I could wish I were able to describe my 
feelings—I had almost said ecstacy—when, 
seven years ago, I left the hot sidewalk and busy 
crowds and found my sore and weary feet, sock¬ 
less and shoeless, immersed in the warm sandy 
loam of my country garden; or, seated on a 
moss-covered knoll beneath the spreading 
branches of a primitive oak, I listened to the 
ripple of the spring creek near by, or the warble 
of little birds around me, or the “bobwhite” of 
the neighboring quail, or looked into the eyes 
of the chipmunks and red squirrels that ap¬ 
proached me as if asking for a portion of my 
lunch—beautiful creatures of God that never 
told a lie—or into the vaulted blue that bore no 
tinseled shams. No altar ever raised me nearer 
God; no anthem ever gave me purer thought or 
nobler ambitions; and when, through my hoe- 
iiandle, I prayed the Great Giver for three acres 
of big strawberries, He answered me promptly 
and fully. How often I thought of that true 
Son of Nature, the Man of Galilee, as he im¬ 
printed his eternal truth on leaf and vine, field 
and forest, flock and family, and so often said 
“The kingdom of heaven is like these.” 
While, therefore, with the greatest sympathy 
I seek to be helpful to those who seek a more 
natural and wholesome environment, I face one 
of the most difficult tasks. The difficulty comes from 
not knowing the circumstances, tastes and abilities of 
those whom I would advise. No two persons would 
need exactly the same advice, while the needs of all 
would cover the whole field of suggestion. I can write 
only in the most general way, seeking to show the 
difficulties and possibilities in adopting the vocation 
of the the tiller of the soil, with special reference to 
these classes asking advice. In the way of these peo¬ 
ple from the city to the farm I see one or more of 
four obstacles: 
1. Loneliness will be likely to become very oppres¬ 
sive to one used to the crowd in city life, though at 
first the escape would afford great relief. This will 
be most sorely felt by the occupants of the house. It 
will need a heroism not always possessed by the home 
family to tide over the period of reaction that will 
certainly come when once the freshness and novelty 
of the changed conditions have measurably worn off— 
when the flowers have disappeared, the landscape as¬ 
sumed its mantle of grey, the birds taken their south¬ 
ern flight and the long, dull nights and howling Win¬ 
ter winds have come. The frequent callers, the daily 
SHRUBBY ALTHAEA GROWN IN TREE FORM. 
See Ruralisms, Page 272. 
visits of the newsboy, the ring of the ’phone, the 
glare of theater lights and the daily sensational oc¬ 
currences that have kept the pulse bounding will all 
be wanting, and by and by that want will be keenly 
felt. These things must be reckoned with at the out¬ 
set, and fortified against, or they may prove disas¬ 
trous. It must be understood in the beginning that 
the whole habit of life is to be changed—revolution¬ 
ized; and when one has reached the meridian of life 
this is a very serious matter; serious, not only to the 
sensibilities, but to mind and body as well. Of course, 
the extent of this change will be different in differ¬ 
ent cases, but in all it must be carefully considered. 
2. Ignorance of the conditions of success on a farm, 
of course, would be fatal; and this must be a fact in 
the case of a person city-bred. As well expect a farm¬ 
er, country-bred, and knowing nothing of trade, to 
succeed as a city drygoods merchant, as to expect the 
latter to succeed as a farmer. It requires as much in¬ 
telligence to succeed in farming as in trade or the pro¬ 
fessions—as wide a range of study and as practical a 
business brain. True, some fools make a living on the 
farm—I know several instances; but it is a fool’s living. 
3. Next to this, in all probability, will be the 
want of means to purchase and equip a farm and 
begin operations on it. The prices of land vary 
so largely, owing to quality, improvements and 
location, that it is hardly worth the while to 
write any figures. As in all business, the more 
capital intelligently employed the greater the 
income. Some idea of the necessary capital may 
be gained from the statement that within a ra¬ 
dius of four or five miles of the writer’s market, 
a manufacturing city of 30,000 population, small 
farms of fair quality and improvements can be 
purchased at $75 to $125 per acre. The size of 
farm one would need depends on the line of pro¬ 
duction proposed and the extent of such produc¬ 
tion. As a garden, small fruit and poultry farm, 
25 to 50 acres of good land, with house and barn 
and necessary pens and yards, would be suffi¬ 
cient profitably to employ the labor of two or 
three men, besides a large amount of “home 
help,” and would cost from $3,000 to $5,000. To 
equip it with three horses, two cows and the 
necessary implements would require $700 more. 
For necessary expenses until the place began 
to return profits, $300 more might be necessary. 
Of course, this is but an approximate estimate, 
and falls, perhaps, midway between the cost 
per acre of land far removed from market, and 
that near the larger cities. 
4. There is another fact that must be reckon¬ 
ed with by those who would take up the vocation 
of the farmer; and that is the small returns of 
cash. Many a farmer with a $5,000 farm never 
sees $500 a year in money. To the city man, ac¬ 
customed to $1,000 or $2,000 a year, this would 
be discouraging, though at the end of the year 
the farmer will probably have as much net cash 
as will the city man with his large salary. But 
this fact must be faced at the start, that the 
vocation of the farmer is one of perplexing prob¬ 
lems, long hours of hard toil, self-denial, eternal 
vigilance and small profits. Farm life, indeed, 
has much poetry in it, but it also has some 
mighty tough prose. But these obstacles can 
be largely overcome by men of the proper met¬ 
tle and the farmer’s life made one of the noblest 
and happiest on earth. In my next paper I will 
_ try to point the way. I. a. thayeii. 
R. N.-Y.—Mr. Thayer's advice is sound as a 
rock. He has made the change from town to 
Fig. ioo. country, and knows just what he is talking 
about. We have hundreds of letters from town 
and city people who are eager to make a home 
in the country. Many of them are evidently unfitted 
by reason of habits or views of life for the hard and 
patient toil by which a happy farm home is built. We 
sometimes find them quite indignant when we point 
out the obstacles that must be overcome and try to 
show them the shadow that Winter or crop failure 
will surely bring. Yet it is not all shadow, as we 
know from personal experience, and Mr. Thayer’s 
next article will make this point clear. 
To satisfy some New England farmers who call for In¬ 
formation about Soy beans for fodder we shall print,, 
next week, a useful article by Prof. J. B. Lindsley. 
