Читать книгу Chapters in Rural Progress - Butterfield Kenyon Leech - Страница 4

Narrowness is perhaps the charge most often brought against American farm life. To a certain extent this charge may be just, though the comparisons that usually lead up to the conclusion do not always discriminate. It must be remembered that there are degrees of desirability in farm life, and that at the least there are multitudes of rural communities where bright flowers still bloom, where the shade is refreshing, and the waters are sweet. But, granting for the time that in the main rural life is less pleasant, less rich, less expansive than city life, we shall urge that this era of restriction is rapidly drawing to a close. There are forces at work that are molding rural life by new standards, and the old régime is passing. We shall soon be able to say of the country that "old things have passed away; all things have become new."

This statement may seem too optimistic to some who can marshal an array of facts to prove that bigotry, narrowness, and the whole family of ills begotten by isolation still thrive in the country. It is true that our picture is not all of rose tints. But what of that? If it were not true there would be no farm problem; the country would have to convert the town. The fact remains that rural life is undergoing a rapid expansion. Materially, socially, and intellectually, the farmer is broadening. Old prejudices are fading. The plowman is no longer content to keep his eye forever on the furrow. The revival has been in slow progress for some time and has not yet reached its zenith; indeed, the movement is but well under way. For while the new day came long ago to some rural communities and they are basking in a noonday sun, yet in far too many localities the faintest gray of dawn is all that rouses hope.

The fundamental change that is taking place is the gradual adoption of the new agriculture. "Book-farmin'" is still decried, and many "perfessers" have a rocky road to travel in their attempts to guide the masses through the labyrinth of scientific knowledge that has been constructed during the last decade or two. This difficulty has not been wholly the farmer's fault – the scientist would often have been more persuasive had his wings been clipped. But there is a decided "getting together" nowadays – the farmer and the man of science have at last found common ground. And while the pendulum of agricultural prosperity shall always swing to and fro, there are, to change the figure, reasons for believing that an increasing number of farmers have rooted the tree of permanent success.

To enumerate some of these reasons: (1) Thousands of farmers are farming on a scientific basis. They use the results of soil and fertilizer analysis; they cultivate, not to kill weeds so much as to conserve moisture; horticulturists spray their trees according to formulas laid down by experimenters; dairymen use the "Babcock test" for determining the fat content of milk; stock-feeders utilize the scientists' feeding rations. (2) The number of specialists among farmers is increasing. This is a sign of progress surely. More and more farmers are coming to push a single line of work. (3) New methods are being rapidly adopted. Fifteen years ago hardly a fruit-grower sprayed for insect and fungus pests; today it is rare to find one who does not. The co-operative creamery has not only revolutionized the character of the butter product made by the factory system, but it has set the pace for thousands of private dairymen who are now making first-class dairy butter. (4) In general the whole idea of intensive farming is gaining ground.

This specialization, or intensification, of agriculture makes a new demand, upon those who pursue it, in the way of mental and business training. This training is being furnished by a multitude of agencies, and the younger generation of farmers is taking proper advantage of the opportunities thus offered. What are some of these regular agencies? (1) An alert farm press, containing contributions from both successful farmers and scientific workers. (2) Farmers' institutes, which are traveling schools of technical instruction for farmers. (3) The bulletins issued by the government experiment stations located in every state, and by the federal Department of Agriculture. (4) Special winter courses (of from two to twelve weeks), offered at nearly all the agricultural colleges of the country, for instruction in practical agriculture. (5) Regular college courses in agriculture at these same colleges. (6) Extension instruction by lectures and correspondence. (7) A growing book literature of technical agriculture. (8) More encouraging than all else is the spirit of inquiry that prevails among farmers the country over – the recognition that there is a basis of science in agriculture. No stronger pleas for the advancement of agricultural education can be found than those that have recently been formulated by farmers themselves.

If this regeneration of farm life were wholly material it would be worth noting; for it promises a prosperity built on foundations sufficiently strong to withstand ordinary storms. Yet this is but a chapter of the story. Not only are our American farmers making a study of their business, bringing to it the resources of advancing knowledge and good mental training, and hence deriving from it the strong, alert mental character that comes to all business men who pursue equally intelligent methods, but the farmers are by no means neglecting their duty to broaden along general intellectual lines. Farmers have always been interested in politics; there is no reason to think that their interest is declining. The Grange and other organizations keep their attention on current problems. Traveling libraries, school libraries, and Grange libraries are giving new opportunities for general reading, and the farmer's family is not slow to accept the chance. Low prices for magazines and family papers bring to these periodicals an increasing list from the rural offices. Rural free mail delivery promises, among many other results of vast importance, to enlarge the circulation of daily papers among farmers not less than tenfold.

The really great lesson that farmers are rapidly learning is to work together. They have been the last class to organize, and jealousy, distrust, and isolation have made such organizations as they have had comparatively ineffective. But gradually they are learning to compromise, to work in harmony, to sink merely personal views, to trust their own leaders, to keep troth in financially co-operative projects. There will be no Farmers' Party organized; but the higher politics is gaining among farmers, and more and more independent voting may be expected from the rural precincts. Farmers are learning to pool such of their interests as can be furthered by legislation.

It is also true that the whole aspect of social life in the country is undergoing a profound evolutionary movement. Farmers are meeting one another more frequently than they used to. They have more picnics and holidays. They travel more. They go sight-seeing. They take advantage of excursions. Their social life is more mobile than formerly. Farmers have more comforts and luxuries than ever before. They dress better than they did. More of them ride in carriages than formerly. They buy neater and better furniture. The newer houses are prettier and more comfortable than their predecessors. Bicycles and cameras are not uncommon in the rural home. Rural telephone exchanges are relatively a new thing, but the near future will see the telephone a part of the ordinary furniture of the rural household; while electric car lines promise to be the final link in the chain of advantages that is rapidly transforming rural life – robbing it of its isolation, giving it balance and poise, softening its hard outlines, and in general achieving its thorough regeneration.

This sketch is no fancy tale. The movement described is genuine and powerful. The busy city world may not note the signs of progress. Well-minded philanthropists may feel that the rural districts are in special need of their services. Even to the watchers on the walls there is much of discouragement in the advancement that isn't being made. Yet it needs no prophet's eye to see that a vast change for the better in rural life and conditions is now in progress.

No student of these conditions expects or desires that the evolution shall be Acadian in its results. It is to be hoped indeed that country sweets shall not lose their delights; that the farmer himself may find in his surroundings spiritual and mental ambrosia. But what is wanted, and what is rapidly coming, is the breaking down of those barriers which have so long differentiated country from urban life; the extinction of that social ostracism which has been the farmer's fate; the obliteration of that line which for many a youth has marked the bounds of opportunity: in fact, the creation of a rural society whose advantages, rewards, prerogatives, chances for service, means of culture, and pleasures are representative of the best and sanest life that the accumulated wisdom of the ages can prescribe for mankind.