If I am right in believing that, of the English-speaking countries, the United States affords the best opportunity for such a consummation, most assuredly the present time is peculiarly auspicious. If Mr. Roosevelt's Country Life policy has not been received with any marked enthusiasm, American public opinion has been thoroughly aroused upon his Conservation policy. The latter cannot possibly come to fruition--nor even go much further--until the Country Life problem is boldly faced. In the Conference of Governors it was pointed out over and over again that the farmer, now the chief waster, must become the chief conserver. As such he will himself become a supporter of the policy, and will bring to the aid of those advocates of Conservation whose chief concern is for future generations, an interested public opinion which will go far to outweigh the influence of those who profit by the exhaustion of natural resources. To the country life reformer I would say that, as the one idea has caught on while the other lags, he will, if he is wise, hitch his Country Life waggon to the Conservation star.
With every advantage of time and place, the promotion of the movement which is to counteract the townward tendency will have to reckon with the psychological difficulty inherent in the conditions. They must recognise the paradox of the situation already pointed out, the necessity of interesting the town in the problems of the country. The urban attitude of mind which caused the evil, and now makes it difficult to interest public opinion in the remedy, is not new; it pervades the literature of the Augustan age. I recall from my school days Virgil's great handbook on Italian agriculture, written with a mastery of technical detail unsurpassed by Kipling. But the farmers he had in mind when he indulged in his memorable rhapsody upon the happiness of their lot were out for pleasure rather than profit. While the suburban poet sang to the merchant princes, Rome was paying a bonus upon imported corn, 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.