In commonplace work of the day;
For I preach the worth
Of the native earth—
To love and to work is to pray.”
Liberty H. Bailey in Rural Manhood.
FARMER SMITH AND THE
COUNTRY CHURCH
FRED EASTMAN
Secretary Matinecock Neighborhood Association,
Locust Valley, N. Y.
Farmer Smith needs help. He needs it here and now. He is trying to keep his family supplied with food and clothes. He is struggling to give his children an education and at the same time to pay off the mortgage on the farm and to save enough to keep his wife and himself from want in their old age. All around him are those who are waging the same battle, but they give him little help. Each one fights alone, as his father did before him.
Twelve years ago Farmer Smith had a $5,000 farm. It yielded him an income of about $500. That was a return of 10 per cent. Today, because of the general rise in land values, that farm is worth $10,000. It yields him about $700. It is now only a 7 per cent investment. His profits have decreased. Moreover, his land is poorer than it was twelve years ago. Smith never learned how to farm intensively. He knows only the crude methods used by his father in the days of virgin soil. The years ahead give him no promise that he will be able to make even as much from his farm as he is making now.
The economic pinch has left its marks upon his social life. Many of his old neighbors have sold their farms and moved away. Some have left their farms in the hands of tenants who are robbing the land of its fertility. Community spirit has vanished. The old forms of recreation have lapsed with the passing of the settled population. No new forms have taken their place except in the towns, and these are usually of a character that would not be tolerated in the country. Smith’s boy is waiting his first opportunity to get off the farm. His has been a life of all work and no play, and while it has not exactly made him a dull boy, it has made him hate farming. Smith’s wife is leading the life of a drudge, and she swears her daughters are not going to live on the farm if she can help it. With the stagnation in social life has come stagnation in moral and religious life, for morals do not flourish in a stagnant community.