rn, and entering generally upon that fatal disregard for the interest
of the rural population which is one of the accepted causes of the
decline and fall.

How that Old World tragi-comedy comes back to me when I talk to New York
friends on the subject of these pages! I am not, so they tell me, up to
date in my information; there is a marked revulsion of feeling upon the
town _versus_ country question; the tide of the rural exodus has really
turned, as I might have discerned without going far afield. At many a
Long Island home I might see on Sundays, weather permitting, the
horny-handed son of week-day toil in Wall Street, rustically attired,
inspecting his Jersey cows and aristocratic fowls. These supply a select
circle in New York with butter and eggs, at a price which leaves nothing
to be desired--unless it be some information as to the cost of
production. Full justice is done to the new country life when the
Farmers' Club of New York fulfils its chief function, the annual dinner
at Delmonico's. Then agriculture is extolled in fine Virgilian style,
the Hudson villa and the Newport 'cottage' being permitted to divide the
honours of the rural revival with the Long Island home. But to my
bucolic intelligence, it would seem that against the 'back to the land'
movement of Saturday afternoon the captious critic might set the rural
exodus of Monday morning.

These reflections are introduced in no unfriendly spirit, and with
serious intent. To me this new rural life is associated with memories of
characteristically American hospitality; but my interest in it is more
than personal. It is giving to those who cultivate it, among whom are
the helpers most needed at the moment, a point of view which will enable
them to grasp the real problem of the open country, as it exists, for
example, in the great food-producing and cotton-growing tracts of the
West and South. Both in the countries where the townward tendency of
the industrial age was foreseen and prevented, and in those in which the
evil is being cured, the impulse and inspiration which will be required
to initiate and sustain our Country Life movement came mainly from
leaders who were not themselves agriculturists.[10] Proficiency in the
practice or even in the business of farming is not necessary. What is
needed is a comprehensive knowledge of public affairs, political
imagination, an understanding sympathy with and a philosophic insight
into the entire life of communities