Village Improvements and Farm Villages

by George E. Waring

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.