For this latter, the illustration is taken from an actual accurate
survey[1] of a purely agricultural district in Rhode Island, showing the
roads, houses, and field boundaries as they now exist, followed by a
suggestion as to the manner in which the same division of estates might
be made to conform to the assembling of their owners into a village.

[Footnote 1: A map of the United States Coast Survey.]

The Government division is into townships six miles square. It is
proposed to divide each township into nine settlements, giving to each a
square of two miles, or 2,560 acres. Each of these settlements should
have its whole population concentrated in a village at its centre. A
suitable method of division would be that indicated in Figure 11, where
a public road crosses the middle of the tract north and south, and east
and west. The outside of the tract, for the width of half a mile all
around, is laid off in farms of 80 acres and 160 acres. These are
bounded on the inner sides by a road. Inside of this road again is a
series of smaller farms (40 acres), and inside of these a tier of still
smaller places (10 acres), separated from the central village by a
narrow road. The village itself occupies 40 acres.

The division of the agricultural land is as follows:--

    4 farms of   160 acres   640
   16     "       80   "   1,280
   12     "       40   "     480
   12     "       10   "     120

in all, 44 tracts, aggregating 2,520 acres, and averaging nearly 60
acres each, the most distant being less than a mile from the village
green. This division is arbitrary; in practice, the more industrious
members of the community would buy land from their less industrious
neighbors, and the size and arrangement of the farms would vary. Often,
too, the division would be into farms averaging more than sixty acres.
In such cases there would usually be about the same population, as the
larger holders would employ more workmen.

[Illustration: FIG. 11.--DIVISION OF FOUR SQUARE MILES WITH CENTRAL
VILLAGE.]

What is attempted is chiefly to show how four square miles of land may
be so divided that its occupiers may be conveniently gathered into a
village; and it may fairly be assumed, that, except in the more remote
grazing and grain-growing regions, the population (including laborers)
would generally be about one household for each sixty acres. In the more
thickly settled regions, this limit is exceeded now; and, as population
increases, this condition will extend. In any case, the principle
advanced remains the same, whether there be thirty households or sixty.

A suitable division of the village is shown in Figure 12. Its centre is
occupied by a public square at the intersection of the main roads. The
road surrounds a piece of ornamental ground, containing about one acre.
North and south of the square are the sites of two churches, a
schoolhouse, and a store and public house. This is again arbitrary; the
purpose is to have these spaces occupied by somewhat important
buildings, which it will not be necessary to enclose by fences, so that
an appearance of more size may be given to the central feature of the
village.

[Illustration: FIG. 12.--DIVISION OF THE CENTRAL VILLAGE.]

The spaces set apart for these buildings, as well as the village green,
should be surrounded by regularly planted trees, such as will grow to a
large size, like the American elm. But the whole open space should
remain otherwise free from planting. Smooth, well-kept grass, and large
trees planted in formal lines, with an entire absence of fences, posts,
chains, bushes, and all decorations, will give a dignity and character
which an excess of ornamentation would spoil. A certain amount of
judicious bedding would be permissible, but it would be best that even
this should be confined to private places. Any fund available for
embellishing the village green will be best used in keeping its grass
cut and its walks clean,--entire neatness and simplicity being its most
effective characteristics.

On the streets leading east and west from the green there are shown
sixteen lots 100 X 250 (one-half acre), eight 50 X 250 (one-quarter
acre). These lots all open on narrow lanes at the rear. On the streets
leading north and south there are twelve lots 50 X 650 (three-quarters
acre), and eight lots 100 X 650 (one and one-half acres). These are the
village lots proper, but the twelve ten-acre tracts which front on its
surrounding street would be the residences of their owners; and these
semi-detached houses--the most distant not a quarter of a mile from the
green--would form a part of the village, and come within the operation
of its rules of association. Probably the blacksmith, the wheelwright,
and the builder would occupy these outlying places, with an "annex" of
farming to supplement their trades.

The village lots proper are all large enough for a kitchen-garden, barn,
barn-yard, &c.; and all have means of access from the rear, so that
their street fronts may be kept for ornamental purposes.

It would be a good rule that no house should stand nearer to the street
line than thirty feet, and that no fence should be made nearer to the
street than sixty feet. This would add very much to the largeness of
appearance of the whole village; would decorate every street with the
ornamental fronts of the houses and with their plants and shrubbery, and
would, at the same time, shut off from the ornamental parts every thing
belonging to the working department of the village life. Even the baker
and the shoemaker should conform to this rule, and their shops should be
made to help the neatness of appearance of the village.

The larger farmers, having the most cattle, would occupy the largest
lots, which would readily accommodate their larger needs. The more
ambitious of them would probably buy land, for night pasture or for
cultivation, from a ten-acre neighbor opposite their rear line.

The village population would be somewhat as follows: two clergymen, one
doctor, one teacher, one baker, one shoemaker, one tailor, two
store-keepers, one carpenter, one wheelwright, one blacksmith, one
dressmaker, one innkeeper, forty-four farmers: total, fifty-eight heads
of families. Probably, including hired laborers and servants, the
average would be six persons to each household. This would make the
population of the village about 350. No part of the whole scheme is more
arbitrary than this arrangement of its human element; and no part of it
would be more modified in different cases by the element of human
nature. Still, this sketch of the industrial division of the community
would probably be approximated in any purely agricultural village of
this size,--with such changes in the detail as would come from
individual enterprise or indolence.

Taking the whole area at 2,560 acres, and the population at 350
persons, we have an area of about 7-1/3 acres to furnish the support and
home of each member of the community,--an amount ample for the purpose.

Figure 13 suggests the arrangement of the central open space of the
village,--all of which should be in well-kept grass, except where roads
and paths are needed. Paths should be reduced to the least amount that
will furnish the necessary accommodation, and they should be kept in
neat condition. If no provision can be made for this, it will be better
to leave the people to beat their own tracks across the grass as their
needs direct. These beaten foot-paths are never unsightly (in small
villages), for the reason that they are never large, and that they are
only of such width as their regular use will keep clean: the grass
maintains its effort to spread, and grows always close up to the
necessary foot-way. Even in Hyde Park (London), where the people have
made short cuts across the broad lawns, the paths thus marked out, and
receiving no attention, are not only unobjectionable, but are a charming
feature of that beautiful pleasure-ground.

[Illustration: FIG. 13.--DIVISION OF THE CENTRAL OPEN SPACE OF THE
VILLAGE.]

The foot-path indicated for the village green will be demanded by the
more ambitious village improvers; but were I making an ideal village for
moderate and tasteful people, the road surrounding the green should
enclose only a level, close-cropped lawn, neatly trimmed at its edges,
surrounded by fine and simple trees, and traced here and there with the
foot-paths that honest use had marked out and made, and by the
suggestive diamond-shaped track and bases of the village base-ball club.
It should be perfect in grade, in outline, in regularity of planting,
and in mowing; but it should be a perfect lawn _plus_ the wear of
constant use and frequent pleasure.

The second example is taken from existing conditions in my own
neighborhood. The United States Coast Survey has furnished all the
necessary details save the _farm_ boundaries. The field boundaries and
roads are exact.

The tract is of the same size with the one just considered,--two miles
square. Its centre is in one direction about two miles from a small
village, and in the other about seven miles from a large town which
furnishes the chief market for its agricultural products, and is the
source of all (or nearly all) of its supplies.

[Illustration: FIG. 14.--PRESENT DIVISION AND SETTLEMENT OF TRACT IN
RHODE ISLAND, TWO MILES SQUARE.]

Figure 14 shows the present settlement of this area, the houses, about
sixty in number, being scattered over the whole tract, with no near
approach to a "neighborhood" at any point. These are practically all
farmers' houses, some trade being carried on here and there in
connection with the farm-work. A few of the houses belong to farms
which lie mainly outside of my lines. Deducting a fair proportion for
this, and others for the wheelwright, blacksmith, &c., we shall have
about the same number of farmers as in the former instance, say
forty-four; and, taking the same area for the village, we shall have the
same amount of farm and village property for their support.

Figure 15 shows a suitable division of property and the location of the
village, on a short cross street running from one to the other of the
main public roads, and extending a short distance up and down these
roads.

It would be a necessary condition precedent, that the whole property
taken for the village should be set apart for the purpose. This
requirement and the cost of moving buildings from the farms to the
village would doubtless be an serious obstacle to the immediate carrying
out of the plan. And thus the theory must long remain a theory only. No
sudden change of the sort could be made in practice.

[Illustration: FIG. 15.--THE RHODE ISLAND TRACT, WITH ITS BUILDINGS
GATHERED INTO A COMPACT VILLAGE.]

It would not be impossible, however, to bring about the end in time, if
a few of the larger proprietors could secure possession of the village
tract by exchange, and would dedicate it to the purpose, agreeing at any
future time to sell small lots for building at a fixed low rate. In the
instance under consideration, the village tract is thinly settled, and
so situated as to be available at moderate cost. If a church, a
schoolhouse, and a store could be established as a nucleus of the
village, the young couples of the neighborhood might incline to settle
there; and in time the settlement could be made so attractive--as
compared with the outlying farmhouses--as to lead to the concentration
of the whole population.

This part of the subject is, however, foreign to the present purpose. If
the _desirability_ of village life for farmers can be established, the
ways and means may safely be left to those interested in securing it.
The influences now at work to make the farmers' children seek a better
social condition, together with the necessity which confines them to
some form of agricultural work, must be depended on to secure the relief
suggested, unless some better relief can be found.

In this case, as in every other of village construction, the original
plan should include some quality or feature, which, while appropriate to
the modest end in view, will give character to the place.

Every village has in its situation, its uses, or its origin, some
characteristic which may be developed into a leading and an attractive
feature. Especially when the work is to be begun from the foundation,
and when there are no buildings to be torn down or removed, a consistent
and dignified result may be planned for at the outset.

The characteristic feature of the village we are now considering is that
it is to consist of a single long, straight street cut off at each end
by other roads. After removing one unimportant house, there remains no
obstacle to the laying-out of one straight street two hundred feet wide,
with either two or four rows of spreading elms. This street, two
thousand feet long, mainly in well-kept grass, with only the necessary
width of road and the requisite paths,--having perhaps a well-kept and
home-like private place opposite each of its ends,--would stamp the
village at once with an attraction which would have a constant
civilizing effect on those living under its influence.

Such a village street, entirely without costly ornamentation, and
requiring only the simplest care, would soon take on a look of
appropriate neatness and freshness; and, as the trees grew, it would
acquire a dignity and beauty which could in no other way be so well
secured.

The church and the schoolhouse, being placed in broad recesses opposite
the central point of the street, would gain importance from their
position; and, these main features being attended to, the _character_ of
the village would be fixed, and it would be difficult to make any
arrangement of its private places which would spoil its beauty. Neatness
and a reasonable care in the matter of house-gardening, the planting of
flower-beds, vines, etc., are all that would be needed.

With so wide a street, it would be as well to bring all house-fronts to
the street line, completing this line with simple fences, and paying
some attention to the ornamentation of the enclosed yards.

In this village, as in the other, all meretricious ornamentation should
be avoided, whether public or private. All money available for such
improvement should be spent in securing perfect neatness. In fact, the
two radical requirements of good taste in all such cases are an absence
of obvious money-spending, and the evidence of constant care and
attention. "Showiness" is common in every trumpery village in the land.
What we should seek in our farm-villages is the most modest simplicity,
shining with the polish of an affectionate care. Every spot should
breathe of homely influences and moral peacefulness.

[Illustration: FIG. 16.--PROPOSED ARRANGEMENT OF THE RHODE ISLAND FARM
VILLAGE.]

Figure 16 shows the general plan of the village. If other public
buildings are needed, they might very well be placed opposite the ends
of the main street.

It is not possible, in remodelling an old farming district, where
boundaries and roads are irregular, to apportion the division of land
among the population with especial reference to its distance from the
village; so, for example, that the small farmers, who have little
team-force, shall not have so far to go as the larger ones who are
better equipped; but, even in this case, the most distant farm will be
rarely a mile from the village, where all the farmers, their families,
and their work-people, and their flocks and herds, would be gathered
together, under the best circumstances for getting out of their lives as
much good as the need for earning a living by arduous work will allow
them to get anywhere,--more than they could hope to get in the isolation
of the distant farmhouse.

Having now considered the methods by which farmers may congregate their
homes and their farm-buildings, and live in villages, let us take up
the more important question of policy.

Which would be better for a young man, just starting in life with a
young wife,--to go to a distant farmhouse to found his home, or to
settle in a well-ordered farm-village under substantially the conditions
described above?

There is much more to be said, on both sides of this question, than
there is room to say here; but certain points are worthy of
consideration.

There is no doubt that in a strictly money-making aspect there is an
advantage in having the animals on the land from which they are fed, and
the men on the farm which they are to work. It is certain, also, that
the men and the women must be near the stables, that the early and late
work of feeding and milking may be promptly and regularly performed. If
the family is to live in the village, the cattle must live in the
village too. This involves the hauling home of all the hay and grain,
and the hauling out again of all manure,--no slight task. If the work is
all concentrated on the farm, under the immediate supervision of the
farmer, there will be a certain convenience and economy of time.

The same principle holds true in all other relations. The merchant would
find a certain advantage in living at his warehouse, the engine-builder
at his factory, the cotton-spinner at his mill, the carpenter at his
shop, and the grocer at his store. All of these have found that, so far
as may be, they get certain other and greater advantages in living away
from their business. One and all carry to their homes, at least
occasionally, books, papers, and plans for work that needs attention out
of the regular business hours.

The farmer alone--and in this country especially--disregards the
benefits of living away from his shop, and passes his whole life--day
and night--in close contact with his field of operations. He might, if
he chose, make his home nearer to other homes, taking with him so much
of his work as is not necessarily confined to the farm.

For his own sake, it does not make so much difference; but for the sake
of his wife and children it makes all the difference between life and
stagnation. The business needs which call him to town, and the habit he
has of passing his evenings at "the store," give him a certain
amount--and a certain kind--of social intercourse which keeps him from
absolute rust. The amount of society available for his family is not
usually great, and the dulness and confinement of farmhouse life need no
description.

The main reason for preferring village life is principally because it is
better for the women and children; but there are reasons, in the same
direction, why better social conditions would give the farmer himself
decided benefits. The life, too, would be more _attractive_ for both
boys and girls, and would be divested of that naked and dismal gloom and
dryness which now drive so much of the best farmer blood of the whole
country to work-benches and counters,--to any position, in fact, which
promises relief from the stifling isolation of the country.

While conceding that, just as a cabinet-maker would make more money if
he lived in his back shop, and had little thought from early dawn until
late evening except for his work, so the farmer may make more money if
he lives on his farm than if he lives at a distance, still it must be
said that the difference in profit is by no means so great as would be
supposed.

It may be fairly assumed, that, at least in the more thickly settled
farming regions at the East, the average distance at which farmers live
from the nearest centre of population that supplies their "shopping,"
and from church, is not less than three miles. The visiting acquaintance
of the family is nearly or quite as remote; and there is, altogether, so
much driving to be done, as to make it necessary to keep a decent
carriage and horses, and to supply a certain amount of extra horse
service. Indeed, among those who are tolerably well off it would be
moderate to set down the total services of one good horse as needed to
supply the family's demand for transportation.

Then, too, the need of the farmer himself to go to town to sell and to
buy, to get repairs and information, and (a much more generally
gratified taste than he would always care to confess to his wife) to
satisfy his craving after intercourse with his kind,--who shall estimate
the aggregate of all this travel, or even of that part of it which,
under the pretext of business, is really only an habitual going for
gossip? All of this driving is confined to no season; it is
perennial,--in good weather and in bad,--and it costs an amount of time
and money that few farmers would like to put down in black and white,
and charge to their expense accounts. It would form one of the most
serious items of their budget.

Did the farmer live in a pleasant and attractive village, among
neighbors and friends, nearly all of this driving would be saved. The
appliances for the family's pleasure-driving might be entirely done away
with, for the wife and daughters would gladly exchange the means for
occasional visiting and for distant shopping, for an agreeable circle of
friends near at hand and a good village store and post-office within
five minutes' walk. In such a settlement as is contemplated, most of the
business needs of the farmer would be amply supplied, and he would find
the companionship at hand even more satisfactory, because more familiar,
than that which he now finds in the town.

It is not worth while to calculate the cash saving that would come of
this reduction of road-*work. It is enough to consider it as an
important offset to the cost of carrying men and manure to the field and
of bringing crops to the village.

Under the present system the women have the worst of it. They have the
confinement and seclusion and dulness. Under the village system the men
would have the discomfort, and this is why it will be less easy to
secure its adoption; for the men control, and prefer _not_ to have the
heavy end of life's log to carry.

Under either of the plans given herewith, the greatest--not the
average--distance from the house to the farm would be about one mile,
and it would have to be travelled only during the working weather of the
warmer months, and during the good wheeling of winter. In summer, all
hands would have to set off early, and come home late, often carrying
their dinner with them as mechanics do; but when field-work did not call
them out, as during rains, or when the ground is too wet to be
disturbed, their barn-work and shop-work would be at home; and, all the
winter through, the only road-work to be done would be to send the teams
to haul out the manure, and to bring home the hay, which would be best
stored under "Dutch hay-barracks" in the fields when it was made. This
work would be systematic and simple; and it may fairly be questioned
whether it would not, in many cases, amount to _less_ than the cost of
the "driving" that is now done, and which in the village might be
foregone. Especially would this be the case when all the heavy farm-work
is done by oxen, which when idle, instead of eating their heads off like
horses, are accumulating valuable flesh. With sufficient ox-power to do
the work easily, the whole transportation of tools and men, and all the
hay-tedding and hay-raking, would be easily done by one horse, with
leeway enough to allow for a fair amount of business or pleasure travel.

So far as the presence of the farmer himself is concerned, it is to be
considered that if his farm and cattle are near his house in the
village, he will be within easy reach of them very often at times when
his visits to the distant town would take him away from them if they
were on the farm. In the village, during the whole winter, and in bad
weather at other seasons, he would have little necessity or temptation
to absent himself from home. Indeed, those who have had an opportunity
to watch the life of the exceptional farmers whose houses and barns and
stables are in a village cannot have failed to notice how much more
home-like and engaging is the whole farm establishment than it usually
is in the country. It is hardly too much to say that the few instances
that we have, as in the farm-villages of New England, show that these
village-living farmers are apparently more attentive to their home
duties than are their isolated brethren, at least in the matter of
tidiness.

To complete the comparison with the merchant or manufacturer, who takes
his papers or plans home with him for work out of regular hours, one
might say that the farmer who lives at a distance from his land, with
his flocks and herds gathered about his homestead, has such of his work
as needs early and late attention close at hand, while his regular
workshop, the farm, calls him away for certain regular hours and regular
duties.

It is not worth while here to enter into the details of the question.
They are of serious moment, and involve among other things the driving
of animals to and from pasture, _versus_ the raising of soiling crops to
be fed in the stall or yard. All of these questions have been
satisfactorily solved in the experience of many exceptional cases in
this country, and of the almost universal conditions obtaining in
Europe. They present no practical difficulty, and need constitute no
serious objection to the general plan.

The items of economical working and money-making being fully weighed,
the more serious considerations of the mode of life, and the good to be
got from it, demand even greater attention. It may seem a strange
doctrine to be advanced by a somewhat enthusiastic farmer, but it is a
doctrine that has been slowly accepted after many years' observation, a
conviction that has taken possession of an unwilling mind, that the
young man who takes his young wife to an isolated farmhouse dooms her
and himself and their children to an unwholesome, unsatisfactory, and
vacant existence,--an existence marked by the absence of those more
satisfying and more cultivating influences which the best development of
character and intelligence demand. It is a common experience of farmers'
wives to pass week after week without exchanging a word or a look with a
single person outside of their own family circles.

The young couple start bravely, and with a determination to struggle
against the habit of isolation which marks their class. But this habit
has grown from the necessity of the situation; and the necessities of
their own situation bring them sooner or later within its bonds. During
the first few years they adhere to their resolution, and go regularly to
church, to the lecture, and to the social gatherings of their friends;
but home duties increase with time, and the eagerness for society grows
dull with neglect. Those who have started out with the firmest
determination to avoid the rock on which their fathers have split, give
up the struggle at last, and settle down to a humdrum, uninteresting,
and uninterested performance of daily tasks.

In saying all this,--and I speak from experience, for I have led the
dismal life myself,--it is hardly necessary to disclaim the least want
of appreciation of the sterling qualities which have been developed in
the American farm household. But it may be safely insisted that these
qualities have been developed, not because of the American mode of farm
life, but in spite of it; and, as I think over the long list of
admirable men and women whose acquaintance I have formed on distant and
solitary farms, I am more and more impressed with certain shortcomings
which would have been avoided under better social conditions. If any of
these is disposed to question the justice of this conclusion, I am
satisfied to leave the final decision with his own judgment, formed
after a fair consideration of what is herein suggested.

If American agriculture has an unsatisfied need, it is surely the need
for more intelligence and more enterprising interest on the part of its
working men and women. From one end of the land to the other, its crying
defect--recognized by all--is, that its best blood, or, in other words,
its best brains and its best energy, is leaving it to seek other fields
of labor. The influence which leads these best of the farmers' sons to
other occupations is not so much the desire to make more money, or to
find a less laborious occupation, as it is the desire to lead a more
satisfactory life,--a life where that part of us which has been
developed by the better education and better civilization for which in
this century we have worked so hard and so well, may find responsive
companionship and encouraging intercourse with others.

It so happens that the few farm villages to which we can refer--such as
Farmington, Hadley, and Deerfield--have become so attractive by means of
their full-grown beauty, or have been so encroached upon by the wealth
that has come over the district to which they belong, that they are no
longer to be taken as types of pure country villages; nor do I recall a
single village in the land which is precisely what I have now in mind.

Assuming that a farming neighborhood--two miles, or at the utmost three
miles, square--had been so arranged as to have all of its buildings
(with the exception of hay-barracks in the fields, and cattle-shelters
in the pastures) in a village, let us consider what would be the
advantages in the manner of living which it would have to offer.

The social benefits, and the facilities for frequent neighborly and
informal intercourse, are obvious. To say nothing of the companionships
and intimacies among the young people, their fathers and mothers would
be kept from growing old and glum by constant friction with their kind;
and, in so far as a more satisfactory social relation with one's
fellow-men gives cheerfulness and the richness of a wider human
interest, in that proportion would the village life have a wholesome,
mellowing effect that is not to be found in the remote farmhouse, nor
even in the sort of neighborhood we sometimes find in the country where
several farmhouses are within a quarter of a mile of each other. The
habit of "running in" for a moment's chat with a neighbor is a good one,
and it gets but scant development among American farmers. This view of
the case will suggest itself quite naturally on the first consideration
of the subject.

If the first need of the rising generation--the men and women of the
future--is education, then the village beats the farm by long odds. The
country school-district, sparsely settled and chary of its taxes, is apt
to obey the law in the scantiest way possible. Three months school in
winter and three months more in summer, under the supervision--it can
hardly be called the instruction--of a young miss who is by no means
well educated herself, and who is entirely often without training as a
teacher, gathers together all of the school-going children of a wide
neighborhood. Big and little, boys and girls, are huddled together in a
sort of mental jumble, where the best that the most skilful manager can
hope for is to regulate the instruction and the discipline to suit the
average of the scholars. The best result attainable is to secure a good
amount of _schooling_: the word "education" would be quite misapplied
here.

In the village, the number of scholars would be sufficiently large to
warrant the establishment and to bear the maintenance of one good
school, with one, if not more, teachers, regularly employed, and worthy
to be called teachers rather than "school-marms." Pupils would be graded
according to their ages and acquirements, and a due use could be made of
the stimulus of competition. A real school, a real instrument of
education, would take the place of the noisy congregation of
uncontrolled boys and girls, who, in the country district-school, are
apt to acquire less of valuable learning than of the minor viciousness
that prevails among country children.

In this connection, I was forcibly struck with the announcement of a
German farmer once in my employ, whose reason for leaving me, after his
children had reached the ages of seven and eleven, to return to his
little village in Germany, was that it was impossible in this
country--and this, be it remembered, was in New England--to secure
satisfactory instruction for them. He thought that in their experience
at school here they had gained little beyond a familiarity with English,
and with a large admixture of "bad words" at that. At home they would
have, within the elementary range of a primary-school education, a
thorough training and a severe drilling which he could not hope for
here, and without which he was unwilling that they should grow up. I
have seen his village school in Germany, and the cloud of tow-headed
children who fill it; and I am prepared to believe that his preference
was not without foundation. Of course we have all the material for as
good or better schools in this country. What we need is longer terms,
better trained and educated teachers, graded classes, and better books
and appliances. These cannot be afforded in the small country
school-district. They can be had in their perfection in even a small
village; and this consideration alone, even if this were all, should be
a controlling argument in favor of village life.

But this is by no means all. Another great benefit is to be found in the
post-office near at hand, with its daily mail as an encouragement to
correspondence and to interest in the affairs of the outside world. A
village, such as is here pictured, could afford its weekly or
semi-monthly public lecture, furnishing a means for instruction and
entertainment, and for frequent gatherings. The church, too, would
probably be conducted in a more satisfactory way than is usual in the
country; and the conditions would be the best suited for fostering that
interest in the collateral branches of the church, the Bible-class, the
Sunday school, and the Dorcas society, by which the women of the
community get, aside from the other good that they receive and do,
advantages of a character somewhat corresponding to those which men get
from their clubs.

I should hope further, as an outgrowth from the community of living, for
a modest village library and reading-room. Indeed, if I could have my
own way, I should not confine the attraction and entertainment of the
village to strictly "moral" appliances. It would probably be wiser to
recognize the fact that young men find an attraction in amusements which
our sterner ancestors regarded as dangerous; and I would not eschew
billiards, nor even, "by rigorous enactment," the milder vice of social
tobacco. Better have a little _harmless_ wickedness near home and under
the eye of parents than to encounter the risk that boys, after a certain
age, would seek a pretext for more uncontrolled indulgences in the
neighboring town.

One might go on through the long range of incidental arguments--such as
lighted streets, well-kept sidewalks, winter snow-ploughs, and good
drainage, and a wholesome pride in a tidy, cosey village, until even the
most close-fisted of all our class would confess that the extra cost
would bring full value in return, and until he would recognize the fact
that the attractions of such a home as the village would make possible
would be likely to insure his being succeeded in his wholesome trade by
the brightest and best of his sons,--a result that would surely be worth
more than all it would cost.

But my purpose has been only to suggest a scheme which seems to me
entirely, even though remotely, practicable, and in which I hope for the
sympathy and help of the country-bound farmers' wives and daughters,--a
scheme which promises what seems the easiest, if not the only, relief
for the dulness and desolation of living which make American farming
loathsome to so many who ought to glory in its pursuit, but who now are
only bound to it by commanding necessity.

LIFE AND WORK OF THE EASTERN FARMER.

We are all familiar with the lavish praise bestowed--especially when
votes are to be secured--upon the "bone and sinew of the country;" but
the farmers themselves are very far from accepting as true, even if
sincere, the estimate of their qualities which the editor and the public
speaker so loudly profess.

The average farmer is precisely what any other average man would be who
had grown up under the same conditions. There is no mysterious charm
belonging to his occupation which removes him beyond the reach of the
influences by which all mankind are controlled. Coming from the same
original stock and inheriting the same peculiarities of race, he is
essentially the same as men in other vocations. The character of his
work, the necessities of his financial condition, and the social
surroundings amid which he has been reared, have had the same influence
in moulding his character that similar conditions have had in moulding
the characters of others.

Farming is in a certain sense the basis of all individual and national
prosperity; but the case would be more fairly stated were we to say that
farming happens to be the first step in an industrial process, many
steps of which are alike essential to civilization. The farmer produces
raw material, and without raw material the world must come to a stop;
but the butcher, the baker, the spinner, the weaver, and every artisan,
render as essential service in the development of this raw material into
the forms demanded by modern life, as does the farmer in growing it.

As a member of the farmer class, I hasten to disclaim for it any
_especial_ consideration given it because of its contribution to the
welfare of mankind. We are as useful as any other hard-working people,
no more and no less. We claim no higher appreciation for muscular effort
exerted in swinging the flail than for that applied to the wielding of
the hammer.

The controlling motive of a farmer in performing his work and carrying
on his business is the hope of material gain. He works for the money
that he expects to earn, and not with any conscious reference to the
service he is rendering to the world. In this capacity as a farmer he is
neither a philanthropist nor a patriot, only a man of business. If we
wish properly to estimate his character and his value as a factor of
modern civilization, we must not be misled by sentimental considerations
as to his relation with nature and his "noble" occupation.

The conditions of Eastern farming and of Eastern farm life are the true
index, as they are the true cause, of the character of the Eastern
farmer. These conditions are constantly varying, and their effect is
always modified by individual qualities.

It may be possible to strike such an average as shall afford a tolerably
good suggestion of the real character and condition of the farmer, and a
hint as to his future; that is to say, certain prevalent influences tend
to mark the type, and certain modifications of these influences may lead
to its improvement. Any attempt to portray the class as a whole would
be met by such a list of exceptions as would seriously affect the
result; but the following may be considered true in a large number of
cases, and applicable, with minor changes, to many more.

Let us take the case of an outlying farm in New England, of one hundred
acres,--a farm that has been in cultivation from the earlier settlement
of the country, and which is of the average degree of improvement, with
the usual division into arable, mowing, pasture, and wood land. It lies
two or three miles away from a considerable town or village, and its
chief industry is the selling of milk in the town. With an allowance of
two acres per cow for summer pasture, and of one and a half acres of
mowing-land for winter feeding, the cows it keeps number about a dozen.
For team-work on the farm and for road-work and pleasure-driving, there
are kept two horses and two oxen. In addition to these there will be a
greater or less amount of young stock and the usual swine and poultry,
and perhaps a few sheep. The farmer himself is the chief workman on the
place, and he has the regular help of a hired man or a grown son. An
extra hand during the working season is usual; but in winter the farmer
and his one assistant will do all of the work of feeding, milking,
delivering the milk, hauling out manure, etc.

A few years ago the housework was done almost entirely by the mother of
the family and her daughters, or by a girl taken to "bring up;" but
latterly the more troublesome element of an Irish girl in the kitchen
has become general, for the daughter of the farmer has aspirations and
tastes which disqualify her for efficient household drudgery. In spite
of all modern appliances, much of the work of the farmer's household
must be so characterized. The life of American farm women is, however,
not now under discussion: the subject is a fruitful one, and has
important bearings upon the development of the race; but what we are to
consider here is simply the work and condition of the farmer himself.
The milk-selling farmer--and this industry is one of the most
wide-spread in Eastern farming--is more regularly employed than any
other. Winter and summer his cows must be milked twice a day. Evening's
milk must be cooled and safely kept until morning; and morning's milk
must be ready for early delivery. It is usual for the farmer to rise at
three every morning, winter and summer, to milk his cows,--with one
assistant,--and to start as early as five o'clock to deliver his milk.
Returning about the middle of the forenoon, he is able to attend to the
details of barn-work in winter and field-work in summer, until half-past
two or three o'clock in the afternoon, less the brief interval needed
for the consumption of food. Early in the afternoon the cows must be
again milked, and the cans of milk must in summertime be set in spring
water for cooling. Then comes the feeding of the stock and the greasing
of axles, the mending of harness, the repairing of tools, and the
thousand and one odds and ends of the farmer's irregular work. In the
winter, save for the early rising and the work of cold mornings, life is
by no means hurried; and after a very early supper there is often a
stroll to the corner store or to a neighbor's house, for a little
wholesome idleness and gossip,--the latter not invariably wholesome. At
about the hour when the average reader of "The Atlantic" has finished
his after-dinner cigar, all lights are extinguished, and the farm
household is wrapped in heavy slumber; for such early rising as the
milk-farmer is condemned to must needs trench upon the valuable evening
hours for requisite rest and sleep.

In summer the conditions of life are immeasurably hardened. The farmer
himself is necessarily absent several hours every morning with his
milk-wagon; but, although he cannot lend a hand at the early field work,
this work must go on with promptness, and he must arrange in advance for
its proper performance. From the moment when he has finished his late
breakfast until the last glimmer of twilight, he is doomed to harrowing
and often anxious toil. There is no wide margin of profit that will
admit of a slackening of the pace. Land must be prepared for planting;
planting must be done when the condition of the ground and the state of
the weather permit. Weeds grow without regard to our convenience, and
they must be kept down from the first; and well on into the intervals of
the hay-harvest the corn-field needs all of the cultivation that there
is time for. Regularly as clock-work, in the late hours of the night and
the early hours of the afternoon, the milking must be attended to; and
the daily trip to town knows no exception because of heat, rain, or
snow. At rigidly fixed hours this part of the work _must_ be done; and
all other hours of the growing and of the harvest seasons are almost
more than filled with work of imperative need. These alone seem to make
a sufficient demand on the patience and endurance of the most
industrious farmer; but, aside from these, he is loaded with the endless
details of an intricate business, and with the responsibility of the
successful management of a capital of from fifteen to twenty thousand
dollars, upon the safety and the economical management of which his
success entirely depends; he must avoid leakage and waste, and make
every dollar paid for labor, or seed, or manure, or live stock, bring
its adequate return.

Probably no occupation in the world can compare with farming in the
opportunity that it offers for the _losing_ of money. Nothing is so
enticing as slate-and-pencil farming. Ten acres of land can be ploughed,
manured, and planted with corn, and the crop can be well cultivated and
harvested for so many dollars. Such land with such manuring and
cultivation may be trusted to yield so many bushels of corn to the
acre; and, after making due allowance for chance, the balance of the
calculation shows a snug profit. In like manner we may figure out a
corresponding return from the hay-fields, from the root-crops, from two
or three acres of potatoes, and from a patch of garden-truck for which
the neighboring village will furnish a good market. Then the poultry
will return a profitable income in eggs and in "broilers;" and
altogether it is easy for an enthusiastic person to show how interest on
invested capital and good compensation for labor are to be secured in
agriculture.

But when the test of practice is applied to our well-studied and proven
scheme; when we see how far our allowance for "chances" has fallen below
what is needed to cover the contingencies of late springs, dry summers,
early frosts, grasshoppers, wire-worms, Colorado beetles, midge, weevil,
pip, murrain, garget, milk-fever, potato-rot, oats-rust, winter-killing,
and all the rest; when we learn the degree of vigilance needed to keep
every minute of hired labor and team-work effectively employed; and when
we come finally to the items of low markets and bad debts,--we shall
see how far these and similar drawbacks have undone our arithmetic, and
how often our well-contrived balance must be taken into the footings of
the other column of figures.

The regular work of the farmer, as indicated in the foregoing sketch of
his occupations, and as perceptible to the summer boarder who watches
his work from the piazza, although arduous and exacting, may be quite
compatible with a happy life; and, when we estimate the promise of the
occupation as offering a pleasant livelihood, no able-bodied man need be
deterred by it. But when we add this long list of contingencies, and
consider the ceaseless anxiety that they bring, we may well hesitate
before adopting such a life for ourselves or desiring it for our
children. No true estimate of the developed character of the farmer can
be formed without giving due value to this uncertain factor in the
calculation.

Instances are hardly exceptional where a clear natural intelligence, an
indomitable courage, and great industry, have turned themselves into a
real source of mental and moral strength. Success achieved in spite of
such drawbacks is all the sweeter and all the more inspiriting because
of them. But if we take the case of the average farmer with average
human weaknesses, we cannot fail to see, that, however well he may have
borne up against the more obvious requirements of his work, he has been
warped and cramped, and often made in many ways unlovely, by the hard
and anxious toil through which his halting success has been attained.

In nearly every other occupation than farming, the hardest worker finds
a daily relief from his toil, and from the suggestion of toil, in a home
that is entirely apart from his industry. However arduous and anxious
and long-continued the work, there comes a time when it is laid aside,
and when the workman goes into a new sphere, where the atmosphere is
entirely changed. His home is a place of rest and pleasure, or at least
a place of change. The pen and the hammer are left in the counting-room
and in the shop; and, however far the home may fall below his desires
and ambition, it is at least free from the cares of the day's
occupation.

The American farmer has no such relief. His house is a part of his farm;
his fireside is shared by an uncongenial hired man, his family circle
includes too often a vulgar and uninteresting servant; and from one year
to another, his living-room being the kitchen and work-room of the busy
farmhouse, he rarely knows what it is to divest himself of the
surroundings of his labor and business, and to give himself over to the
needed domestic enjoyment and recreation. It is this feature of his
life, more than any other, which seems objectionable. If it is
objectionable for him, it is infinitely more so for his wife and
daughters, who, lacking the frequent visit to the town or occasional
chat with strangers, and the invigorating effect of open-air work, yield
all the more completely to depressing cares. They become more and more
deficient in the lightness and cheerfulness and mental gayety to which
in any other occupation the chief toiler of the family would look for
recreation at his own fireside.

So far as interest in his business is concerned, the farmer's condition
is in every way elevated when he devotes himself to some improved form
of agriculture, or to some special industry which gives him better
compensation for his work. This benefit by no means generally results
from an attempt at "scientific" agriculture, nor is the adoption of a
special industry by any means generally successful. Failure in either of
these directions is disheartening and discouraging to those who are
watching his example. There are many well-tried improvements upon the
old methods of our fathers which are universally adopted, especially in
the direction of the use of better implements and more judicious care in
the application of manure. But the average agricultural newspaper, while
doing great good, has naturally led enthusiastic men to see a chance for
ameliorating their condition by the adoption of processes which are not
suited to their circumstances, or which they themselves are not
qualified to carry out. It is this that has led to the outcry--much more
prevalent a generation ago than now--against "book-farming." On the
whole, whatever may have been the influences of agricultural writers
upon the fortunes of their early converts, they have vastly modified and
improved all modern farm-work, and have greatly benefited the more
recent farmer.

The conditions of the industry are hard, chiefly because the business of
farming is a laborious one, and one in which an enormous population is
working, with dogged industry, for a moderate reward. However
enterprising and intelligent a farmer may be, when he goes to market to
sell his crops he finds himself in active competition with men who are
working for their bare subsistence.

Much is said about the competition of the farmers of the rich West as a
serious obstacle to success at the East. This is the case only in so far
as the Eastern farmer attempts to compete with the Western in the
production of crops which will bear storage and long transportation. As
a business proposition, it seems clear that this drawback is to be
overcome only by the cultivation at the East of such products as it is
not within the power of Western competition to supply, or only such as
our situation and the good quality of our land will enable us to produce
at low cost. Milk, fresh butter, and hay are the three most promising
staples, for which so large a demand exists as to furnish employment for
the whole farming population. Hay from its bulk does not bear a very
long transportation. Milk will always bring a higher price when
produced near to the point where it is to be consumed. Butter-making is
not an especially profitable industry if we depend upon the average
grocery-store demand; but it is possible for any farmer at the East, who
will take the trouble to make and to retain a good reputation for his
dairy, to secure a price enough higher than that of the regular market
to constitute a good margin of profit.

So far as relief in Eastern farming is to be achieved with no material
change in the character of life and work, it must apparently be sought
in these directions. In his relation to Eastern civilization, past,
present, and prospective, it may fairly be questioned whether the
influence of the Eastern farmer is increased since the general
introduction of railroads; and we are justified in looking with some
anxiety to the relative position which he is to hold hereafter.

There are well-known influences at work which are not promising. The
desire of the sons and daughters of the farmer to obtain some other
means of livelihood, and the too frequent yielding to this temptation on
the part of the more intelligent of these young persons, is the most
obvious danger to the future of the industry.

Much has been said of the dignity and independence which come of the
ownership of land; but it is possible that this influence has been
over-estimated, and that our ideas of it have been derived more or less
from our European traditions. Perhaps, after all, we ought to and do
attach the most importance to that which is the most rare. In England,
where the ownership of land carries with it a certain social dignity,
and where the mere possession of money has a less marked influence in
this direction, there is no doubt that the title-deeds to broad acres
constitute a certain sort of patent of nobility. In this country, where
land is plenty and cheap and where large fortunes are rare, a farmer
gets consideration less for the amount of land that he himself owns,
than for the sum-total of the mortgages which he holds upon his
neighbors' land. That is to say, it is better to be rich in money than
in land; and instances are comparatively rare, even among those who are
cultivating their ancestral acres, where the farm would not be gladly
sold for a sum of which the income would secure a better and easier mode
of life. The farm is not regarded with especial affection: it is mainly
regarded--along with its stock and tools--as an instrument for making
money.

The American farmer is distinguished from the English farmer chiefly by
having his capital invested in the land which he cultivates, rather than
in the tools and live stock and working capital needed to carry on his
business. As a general rule the farmer's whole fortune is invested in
his land. Often his farm is mortgaged, and he has little loose money
with which to improve his system of work. The necessity for making a
living and paying interest, without sufficient capital for the best
management, makes the life of the farmer too often a grinding one. If he
is skilful and industrious and prudent, he may hope with certainty to
free himself from debt, and to accumulate a respectable support for his
old age.

When we consider any class of working people, as a class, this is
perhaps all that we can hope for under any circumstances. The unhopeful
thing about it all is that while farmers work less hard than their
fathers did, and while they get a better return for their work, the
surroundings of their life have not improved as have those of men
engaged in other industries, so that although actually much better off
than their ancestors were, they are relatively less well off in the more
attractive conditions of other classes of workmen; and this deficiency
is driving away the children on whom they ought to depend for assistance
and for succession.

In the abstract, farming is a dignified occupation, and in proportion as
it borrows aid from science it becomes more dignified. So far as the
casual observer can see, it combines more of what is desirable than does
any other pursuit. While it promises no brilliant reward, it insures a
steady, reliable, and sufficient return for the capital and labor
invested in it. It promises a sure provision for old age, and it secures
the wholesome pride that comes of the ownership of visible property.
Indeed, look at it and argue about it as we may, it is not easy to see
why it is not the best occupation for a wholesome and intelligent man.

Those who know the condition of the art intimately, and who have studied
the influences of its work and its life upon those who are engaged in
it, recognize serious drawbacks which must in some way be removed unless
it is to fall away still more from its original character, and is to be
given over to German and Irish immigrants, who, during one or two
generations, will be contented with what it has to offer. It is
difficult even to theorize as to the means of relief, if farming must be
considered, first of all, as a means for obtaining a livelihood and for
making money; and no effort to improve the situation of the farmer will
be successful which does not keep this prime necessity always in view.
It is easy to see how the condition of any farmer's family might be
improved by a large additional income; but there is no obvious source
from which this increase is to be drawn, nor will he adopt any scheme
that will endanger the income that he now receives.

If we could convert the farmer into a chemist and physiologist, and give
him the satisfaction that comes of controlling the combinations of
physical and chemical materials according to laws which he understands,
and of securing his results with scientific accuracy, we should
accomplish our purpose; for no man with such scientific knowledge,
realizing its relation to his daily work, could fail of an enthusiastic
fondness for his profession. But the worst of it is that all efforts in
this direction have generally ended in producing a "smatterer," whose
theories are baffled by constant disappointment, and whose worldly
prosperity is lessened by his mistaken experiments.

Successful farming implies, first of all, steady and dogged hard work,
coupled with prudent and watchful skill. When the hopes of enthusiastic
agricultural reformers are considered with the practical eye of cold
common sense, they must inevitably be condemned to disappointment. In so
far as they constitute an incentive towards improvement, they work great
good; but the success of the future is to be attained too often through
the distressing failure of the present. The art is an experimental one,
and the temptations to extend experiments are enticing. Unfortunately,
novel processes depend for their success upon contingencies which are
likely to be disregarded at the outset; and, however much any
improvement may be destined to prosper after its application shall have
been practically tested and modified, it is altogether likely that its
first introduction will result in failure. The mere money losses coming
of these failures are not so serious; but the discouragement and
disappointment that they entail exert the gravest influence where what
is chiefly needed is the encouragement of success.

It is something to know the direction that improving effort should take;
and it seems to be generally conceded that what American agriculture
needs, at the East and at the West, but especially at the East, is _an
improvement in the character of its personnel_. There is everywhere
ample opportunity for the profitable and successful introduction of
modified processes and of new industries. There is, too, hardly an
instance where the processes and industries now pursued are not
susceptible of great improvement of detail. There are few farms so well
managed and so successful, that if given into the hands of better, more
intelligent, and more enterprising farmers, they would not produce
better results. The father is working according to his light, and is
directing his work by such intelligence as his natural capacity and his
training have given him. His brighter son, with more natural
intelligence, with a better education, and less trammelled by
traditions and prejudices, might so modify the same industry as to make
it more certain, more profitable, and in every way more satisfactory.

The change that is now taking place, especially in New England, is
toward the greater economy of living, and the harder work and closer
management of business, that comes with immigrant proprietorship; and
this element is by no means to be depended upon for the improvement of
our farming. It may result in a more money-making agriculture, but it
will supplant our best political element by the introduction of what has
thus far seemed to be one of the worst.

Look at this question as we will, it is difficult to see how else than
by improving the race of American farmers we are to accomplish any
result whose good effect will be radical and lasting. This brings us
around to that threadbare subject of the vague discussion of
agricultural writers: "How to keep the boys on the farm."

The devices recommended for accomplishing this result have thus far
failed of their object. The average farmer boy is not a sentimentalist,
and he is not likely to be moved by the sort of talk so often lavished
upon him. To use a vulgarism, he has an extremely "level head." He fails
to realize the attraction and the dignity which are implied by what he
is told of the nobleness of his father's calling, of the purifying and
elevating influences of a daily intercourse with nature. He is not to be
caught with this sort of chaff. His cultivation has not been of that
æsthetic character that he has an especial drawing toward nobleness, or
purity, or elevation. Nature, as he knows it, shows at times an
unattractive side; and he fails to recognize precisely what is meant by
Mother Earth as a source of dignity. To him Mother Earth is an exacting
parent, calling for constant and regular toil, and whipping him on day
by day with weeds to be hoed, dry gardens to be watered, snowdrifts to
be shovelled, and an almost endless round of embarrassments to be
overcome. As for the purity and simplicity of the farmer's life, he
knows very much better than to pin his faith to it. To him the farmer's
house is too often a place where the mother is overworked, tired,
wearied with constant annoyance, and made peevish and fretful. The
conversation of hired men and young neighbors and brothers is not
marked by refined delicacy and simplicity, as he understands these
terms. At the end of all our preaching he will say, at least to himself,
that this is probably the sort of talk that we consider appropriate to
the occasion, but that, if we knew what he knows about farming, we
should see how little effect it is likely to have. If he sought our
motive in saying it, he would conclude that we were interested in
keeping up the supply of farm labor; and that so far as _he_ was
concerned, since he must work for a living, he would work at some other
industry if he could get a chance, and leave those who were less
fortunate to work on the farm.

The more sentimental and more influential considerations governing in
this matter were very well set forth by Dr. Holland in a paper on Farm
Life in New England, published in "The Atlantic Monthly" some twenty
years ago. While acknowledging the frequency of bright exceptions to the
rule, he does not hesitate to set it down as a rule that the life
described is in every way a hateful one; where every member of the
family, from father to child, is driven by the lash of stern necessity,
and where many conditions which are deemed requisite in the life of all
other classes of the same wealth are comparatively rare; where the
expectant mother of the child is worked without stint to her last day,
while the mother of the colt is relieved from all hard toil and treated
with consideration throughout the last months of her time; where, in
short, whether from interest or from a mistaken idea of necessity, hard
work long hours, poor food, and dismal surroundings are the rule of the
farmer's household.

Since that time there have been noticeable modifications, involving the
introduction of more or less tastefulness, because of the cheap
literature and cheap music of these later days. But, much as these have
done to affect the individual characters of the younger members of the
family, they have only aggravated the evil, so far as farm-work is
concerned, by creating a desire, born of knowledge, for the pleasanter
manner of life which the town has to offer. The young girls whom one now
sees about railway stations in the most distant part of the country are
dressed after the instructions of "Harper's Bazar" and "Peterson's
Magazine;" and they know more than their older sisters did of the
difference between their own life and that of their city cousins. They
are certainly not to be blamed if they long for some vocation in which
they can more freely indulge their growing ideas of luxury, and gratify
their growing desire for better dress and more interesting
companionship.

All that has here been said is seriously true and important. The
circumstances described are so generally prevalent as to constitute,
with constant minor variations, an almost universal rule. Where we are
to look for relief, is the most serious problem. Relief must be found,
or the character of our farming class must assuredly degenerate. In one
way or another we must change, in a radical degree, the conditions of
the farmer's life. We can perfectly understand why it should be
distasteful to any young person of ordinary ambition or intelligence;
and we know, from the constant flocking of farmers' sons and daughters
to even the least attractive employments of the town or village, that
this distaste is everywhere a controlling one.

It is easy to say that the farmer's life must be made more cheerful,
attractive, and refined, and less arduous; but it is by no means easy
to see how the improvement is to be brought about. The cardinal defect
is the loneliness and dulness of the isolated farmhouse. Intelligent and
educated young women, brought up among the pleasantest surroundings,
marry young farmers, and undertake their new life with the determination
that, in their case at least, the more obvious social requirements shall
be met. During the earlier years after marriage they adhere to their
resolution, and are regular in attendance at the church and public
lecture; and they keep up, so far as possible, social intercourse with
their neighbors. But as time goes on, as the family increases, as toil
begins to tell on health and strength and energy, they drop out, little
by little, from the habit of going abroad, until often for weeks
together they never exchange a look or thought with any human being
outside of their own households. Aside from the overworked members of
their own families, their companionship is confined to hired men who
smell of the stable, and to hired girls with whom they are yoked in the
daily round of household duties.

Having given much consideration to the subject, I have come to believe
that the agriculture of Continental Europe is far more wisely arranged
than ours; for there, almost as a universal rule, isolated farm-life is
unknown. The reward of the cultivator is less, and his labor is at least
as great. The people are of a very much lower order, and are lacking in
the cultivated intelligence which distinguishes so many of our own
farming class. Women and even young girls perform rude labor in the
field and in the stable; and those aspirations which are born of a
universal diffusion of periodical literature are almost unknown. At the
same time, when the hard and long day's work is over, there comes to all
the inexpressible relief and delight of the active social intercourse of
the village, where the tillers of the country for a mile around have
gathered together their homes and their herds, and where the most
intimate social life prevails.

Observation even indicates that the habit of out-of-door labor has had
no injurious effect upon the women of these villages. The "nut-brown
maid" grows too fast into the wrinkled-brown woman; but better a
sunburnt and weather-beaten cheek than that pallor that comes of
anthracite and in-door toil. Better the broad back and stout limb of the
peasant mother than the hollow chest and wasted energy of the American
farmer's wife.

I by no means intend to say that our own farming class is not far
superior to the peasantry of Europe; but I do believe that if a good
system of village life for farmers could be adopted here under the
modifying influences of the more refined and intelligent American
character, we should have gained a most important step in advance. We
have in New England many villages almost exclusively of
farmers,--villages where the old-time settlers gathered together for
defence against the Indians, and for the protection of houses and stock
and store from river floods. These villages are as different as it is
possible to conceive from the ordinary European cluster of unattractive
cottages, lining both sides of a street which is filled for one-half of
its width with manure-heaps. It may be naturally assumed that any
adaptation of the village system among us would be governed by the same
refining influences which have made our few existing agricultural
villages so beautiful and attractive.

That which most distinguishes American people is the general spread of
education among them; but it is, after all, an education which soon
reaches its limit, and, so far as the district-school of a
sparsely-settled country neighborhood is concerned, it goes little
beyond the simplest rudiments. An inexperienced young miss holds school
for not more than one-half the year in an unattractive and inconvenient
room, in which are gathered together most of the boys and girls of the
school-going age from all the farms about. The books and other
appliances of instruction are inadequate. There is no grading of the
pupils, and the frequent change of teachers prevents the possibility of
experienced instructions. Even in the meanest peasant village of
Germany, a village always prolific in children, an inexorable law
compels all between the ages of five and fourteen to attend regularly
the teaching of a master, an officer of the state, who has generally
adopted his profession for life, and who adds to a certain specified
degree of capability the advantages of long experience.

No thoughtful person can fail to be convinced, after a due consideration
of the argument in its favor, that, if the social influences
inseparable from village-life could be secured to the American farmer,
the greatest drawback of his life would be done away with. It remains,
unfortunately, a serious question, how far such a radical change is
practicable. There is little doubt that the family would naturally drift
into some more costly style of living; and the necessity for hauling to
a distant home all the crops of the fields, and of hauling out the
manure made at the homestead, would add somewhat to the expenses of the
business.

In the case of the individual farmer now cultivating land upon which he
lives, it is not unlikely that he would find a certain pecuniary
disadvantage in the change. But, as a broad question of the future
benefit of our agriculture, it must be conceded that whatever will tend
to make the occupation more attractive cannot fail, by enlisting the
services of more intelligent minds, to insure its very decided
improvement. As the case now stands, the farmer's son will become a
clerk or a mechanic rather than remain a farmer, because clerks and
mechanics live in communities where there is more to interest the mind,
and where, too, the opportunities for enjoyment and amusement are
greater. The farmer's daughter will marry the clerk or the mechanic
rather than a farmer, because she knows the life of a farmer's wife to
be a life of dulness and dearth, while she believes that the wife of the
clerk or mechanic will be condemned to less arduous labor, and will have
much more agreeable surroundings. I have no means of judging what may
have been the experience in Deerfield, Mass., for instance; but I am
confident that many a mechanic's daughter, and indeed many young women
of much higher position in life, would consider her lot a fortunate one
in becoming the wife of a farmer whose homestead lay on the beautiful
street of this old village.

All that is here said is, to a certain extent, mere theory; but the
subject is one that has not thus far met any practical solution, and in
which, therefore, nothing except theorizing is possible. The broad fact
is that the farming class in this country is degenerating by the
withdrawal of its best blood; and still more serious injury is being
done to it by the introduction of the lower class of foreigners. It may
well be doubted whether it is possible so to modify the manner of life
of the isolated farmhouse as to make it materially more attractive to
American boys and girls. All that can be done is to rob it of its
isolation by withdrawing its people, and placing them under better
conditions of life.

In a word, the only way that seems to offer to keep the boys on the farm
is to move everybody off of the farm, bringing them together into snug
little communities, where they may secure, without abandoning the
manifest advantages of their occupation, the greater social interest and
stimulus which they now hope to enjoy by going into other callings whose
natural advantages are less. That such a course as this would restore
the farmer to his former position as a leading element in Eastern
civilization, cannot be questioned. That he will retain even the
relative influence that he exercises to-day, unless some radical change
is made, is at least very doubtful.

In considering the questions here suggested, we must never lose sight of
the fact that the controlling element is economy. The farmer exists
because he is needed. The world demands the products that he produces,
and the world must needs pay him a living compensation for them. No
change will be possible which disregards this; and all who know the
present circumstances which control the reward of the farming class know
that these circumstances would be inadequate to maintain him in a life
of greater ease, while calling for greater expense. This gives the added
embarrassment that we must not only change the mode of life, but must
also increase the ratio of profit, if this is possible. This is possible
only through a reduction of the area cultivated, the cultivation of this
reduced area in a more thorough and profitable way, and the turning of
farming industry into channels better adapted to securing a profitable
return.

To discuss a modification of the whole system of farming would involve
far more detail than is possible in this paper, since such a discussion
must include the consideration of features which would change with
changing locality; but, by way of illustration, we may take the
previously supposed case of a farmer owning one hundred acres of land,
and milking a dozen cows, selling the milk as before in the distant
town. Assume that he and his neighbors within a radius of about a mile
are living in a central village, from which his land is one mile
distant. During the working season, say from the middle of April until
late in October, he must, with his teams and assistants, spend the whole
day on the land. The cows are milked and all stable work done before
breakfast, and some one drives them out to pasture. The men remain
a-field until an hour before sunset. They must be content with a cold
dinner, as is the usual custom with mechanics and laborers. The cows are
driven home in time for the evening milking, and are put into the
barnyard at night with green fodder brought home by the returning teams.
After the "chores" are done, and a hearty and substantial supper is
eaten,--the principal meal of the day,--all hands will be too weary for
much enjoyment of the evening, but not so weary that they will not
appreciate the difference between the lounging places of a village and
the former dulness at the farm. Other farmers in the neighborhood will,
many of them, also be milk producers; and, as the stables are near
together, they will naturally co-operate, sending their milk to market
with a single team, employing the services of a single man in the place
of five or six men and teams heretofore needed to market the same milk.
I have recently received an account of this sort of co-operation, where
the cost of selling was reduced to a fraction over eight cents for each
hundred quarts.

This arrangement will have the still further benefit of allowing the
farmer to remain at home and attend to his more important work, leaving
the detail of marketing to be done by a person especially qualified for
it and therefore able to do it more cheaply than he could do it in
person. During the working season there will be enough rainy weather to
allow the work of the stable, the barnyard, and the woodshed to be
properly attended to. There will of course be sudden showers and
occasional storms, and other inconveniences, which will make the farmer
regret at times that he lives at such a distance from his field work;
but he will find more than compensation in the advantages that come
naturally from living in a village.

For his wife and children the improvement will be absolute; and it will
be no slight argument in favor of the change, that both in doors and
out of doors a better class of servants will be available, because of
the better life that can be offered. It will be easier to secure the
services of laborers who are married and who live in their own houses,
and so avoid the serious annoyance to the household that attends the
boarding of hired men.

To make this radical change in any farming neighborhood as at present
constituted, would be impracticable. It would probably take a generation
to convince the farmers of a community of its advantages; it would cost
too much, even if not entirely impracticable, to move the house and
stables to the central point; and it would involve such a change of
habits of labor and of living as must necessarily be the work of time.
However, if the principle commends itself to the leading men of the
neighborhood, and especially to young men about to marry, the nucleus of
a village may be established, and sooner or later the present or the
coming generation will find a way to come into the fold.

If we assume that by this or some other means the more intelligent of
the young men are induced to remain farmers, it is interesting to
consider in what way their greater intelligence is to be made to tell on
their work so as to secure the necessary improvement. It would not be
unreasonable to suppose that young men of the class we have in mind,
those who now seek occupations which afford a better field for their
intelligence, and who seek them because of their intelligence, would
establish such centres of discussion and interest in improved farming as
would not only mitigate the worthless gossip now so common at the
country store, but would awaken a real enthusiasm in better processes
and systems.

Not only would there be this tendency toward improvement; but where
farmers are close neighbors, and are able to conduct their interests in
such a way as to help each other, there would naturally grow up some
sort of co-operative business. By the establishment of a butter-factory
or cheese-factory, or by the common ownership of a milk-route, or where
tobacco is grown by the undertaking of its manufacture as an employment
for winter, or by the raising of honey or of poultry, or by the
establishment of some valuable breed of live stock with a reputation for
excellence that will cause it to be sought for from abroad, or by some
other combination, they would secure profitable business.

Of course all the farmers in New England cannot within the next ten
years move into villages; but what is suggested is that the farmers of
some one community should try the experiment. Their success might induce
others to follow the example; and little by little, in proportion to the
promise of a good result, more and more would seek the advantages which
the system would offer, so that sooner or later the benefits which are
now experienced in village life in Europe might be felt here in the
higher degree which greater intelligence and greater freedom would be
sure to produce.

While advancing these suggestions, with much confidence in their
practical value, I would by no means confine the outlook for Eastern
farming to this single road to success. Co-operative industry may be
largely adopted among farmers living at some distance from each other.
The cheese-factory has become an institution. The better quality of the
product when made in large quantities, and the better price that its
quality and the improved system for marketing have secured, constitute
a very decided success in our agriculture. Butter-factories are coming
into vogue with a promise of equally good results.

A very good substitute for the co-operative management of a milk route
is in very general adoption throughout New England, where some single
farmer who devotes himself to selling milk buys the product of his
neighbor's dairies for a certain fixed price, taking upon himself the
labor, the risk, and the profit of marketing. The co-operative breeding
of live stock cannot as yet be said to have become well established, but
its possibilities of success are considerable. A community can afford to
buy and keep a thorough-bred horse, or bull, or boar, or buck, which
would cost far too much for the means of a single owner, and thus
gradually give to the stock of the whole neighborhood a superiority that
will secure it a wide-spread reputation and insure good prices. Let us
keep always in view the important principle of making two blades of
grass grow where but one grew before; but let us remit no effort which
may tend to make one blade worth what two were worth before.

Incidentally, there may be combinations to secure good outlet drainage
for tracts of land belonging to different owners, and later a provision
for the general irrigation of these lands.

It is not to be hoped, that, either as a whole or in its details,
agricultural improvement is to be advanced with any thing like a rush.
Farmers are generally "conservative" in the worst sense of the term.
They have during the past generation adopted many improvements and
modifications in the methods of their work, the mere suggestion of which
would have been scouted by their fathers; but they are themselves as
ready as their fathers were to scout any further new suggestion, and it
is only by iteration and reiteration that the shorter steps of tentative
experiment can be urged upon their acceptance.

In reviewing what is written above, the thought arises that the one
impression that it will surely produce will be that its writer fails to
appreciate the better influences that cluster around the better class of
farmers' homes. Such an inference would be quite unjust. Knowing as I do
the intrinsic worth and the charming qualities of very many of these
households, I appeal to the best of the thoughtful men and women whom
they include, to confirm my statement that they find many elements of
their life to be pinching and hard, and that however admirable they may
now be, they would be in no way injured, but in many ways improved, by
more frequent intercourse with their equals, and especially with their
betters.

That the picture I have sketched of the average farmer's family is not
overdrawn, I appeal to every country clergyman and physician to bear
witness. The truths suggested are patent to all. They are set forth in
no spirit of hypercriticism, and with no other view than to help to
ameliorate the condition of those to whom they refer. Knowing the farmer
more intimately than does the average editor or orator, I am confident
that my estimate of his character and of his life will strike him as
being more just, if not more honest.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

~A FARMER'S VACATION.~ Sketches of Travel in Europe; with a very complete
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~WHIP AND SPUR.~ Papers reprinted from the "Atlantic Monthly,"--largely
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~THE ELEMENTS OF AGRICULTURE.~ A work of Practical Science for Farmers.
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~DRAINING FOR PROFIT, and DRAINING FOR HEALTH.~ Complete Directions for
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IN PRESS. _THE BRIDE OF THE RHINE; Two Hundred Miles in a Mosel
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