h the message, GO BACK! On one hand is written HIGH PRICES;
on the other POOR HEALTH.

With the recent improvement in city sanitation, which has perceptibly
lowered the death rate, the city is physically a safer place to live in
than it used to be; but slum sections are still reeking with contagion,
and through most of the city wilderness the smoke and grime is perpetual
and both pure air and clear sunshine are luxuries indeed. For most people
the crowded city offers little attraction for a home. The heart of great
cities has ceased to grow. The growing sections are the outlying wards and
the suburbs, for obvious reasons. The moral dangers of the city where the
saloon is usually entrenched in politics and vice is flagrantly tolerated
if not actually protected help to explain the fact that a continuous
procession of city families is seeking homes in suburban or rural towns
where the perils surrounding their children are not so serious.

_The Attractiveness of Country Life_

It is evidently true, as Dean Bailey suggests, "Even in this epoch of
hurried city-building, the love of the open country and of plain, quiet
living still remains as a real and vital force." The chance to live in the
open air, to do out of door work and enjoy consequently a vigorous health,
is a great boon which is coming to be more and more appreciated. "I intend
to stick to farm life," writes a Cornell agricultural student, "for I see
nothing in the turmoil of city life to tempt me to leave the quiet, calm
and nearness to nature with which we, as farmers, are surrounded. I also
see the possibilities of just as great financial success on a farm as in
any profession which my circumstances permit me to attain." Another
contented country boy writes, "I think the farm offers the best
opportunity for the ideal home. I believe that farming is the farthest
removed of any business from the blind struggle after money, and that the
farmer with a modest capital can be rich in independence, contentment and
happiness."

A variety of other significant reasons have been collected by Director
Bailey from boys who are loyal to their country homes. Many speak of the
profitableness of scientific farming, but the majority are thinking of
other privileges in rural life which outweigh financial rewards, such as
the fact that the farmer is really producing wealth first-hand and is
serving the primary needs of society. "I expect to make a business of
breeding live-stoc