h required laborious effort by men and work animals.
That this development itself progressed rapidly is demonstrated by the
fact that while in 1810 the effort of nearly every person was required to
produce enough food to sustain the population, in 1910 the efforts of
one-third of the people were sufficient to provide food for the nation and
export vast quantities to other countries.

While the nation continued to grow rapidly in population and sought to
apply to ordinary practices the newer labor-saving devices, all was well.
It was inevitable, however, that the great industrial machine should
become over-developed, at least temporarily. Instead of machinery being a
servant of mankind it became an octopus that could not be checked.
Individual initiative, the wellspring of earlier developments in the
process, became atrophied. There came about such a high degree of
specialization in human effort as to make men dependent upon others for
work to do. Consequently, even a slight throwing out of gear of the
machine created unemployment, which reduced buying power for the
machine-made products and started a vicious downward spiral accompanied by
every form of economic distress.

When such partial or complete breakdown of the superstructure occurs,
thoughtful people are brought "down to earth," both collectively and very
intimately in thousands of individual cases. They begin to get back to
fundamentals and to seek means of becoming so reestablished as to avoid
future cataclysms. The family attracted to the city by the lure of high
industrial wages and by crowded avenues finds in such a breakdown that it
has lost its moorings.

In seeking means of reestablishment free of the terrifying complications
of industrial life, the mind turns to the country, to the soil, to growing
things that are not visibly affected by economic cycles. The open country
seems ready to welcome back her errant children graciously and to enfold
them within her protecting bosom. We cannot go back, however, to pioneer
days. Free land is not available and we have not the arts or the patience
to practice the means of livelihood of those days. To make the new or
renewed relationship with the soil a success, it is necessary to
understand that country life, too, has changed during industrial
revolutions. Mother Earth is now, as ever, a generous but exacting parent.
To try to reestablish relationships in a blind and haphazard manner is
likely to lead to further