in his instincts; he is in
perfect harmony with nature, and is nearly on a level, mentally, with
the wild animals he preys on, and which in their turn sometimes prey on
him.

4. Isolation, and the Rural Mind[108]

As an occupation farming has dealt largely, if not exclusively, with the
growth and care of plant and animal life. Broadly speaking, the farmer
has been engaged in a struggle with nature to produce certain staple
traditional raw foods and human comfort materials in bulk. He has been
excused, on the whole, from the delicate situations arising from the
demands of an infinite variety of human wishes, whims, and fashions,
perhaps because the primary grains, fruits, vegetables, fibers, animals,
and animal products, have afforded small opportunity for manipulation to
satisfy the varying forms of human taste and caprice. This exemption of
the farmer in the greater part of his activity from direct work upon and
with persons and from strenuous attempts to please persons, will
doubtless account very largely, perhaps more largely than mere isolation
on the land, for the strong individualism of the country man.

In striking contrast, the villager and city worker have always been
occupied in making things or parts of things out of such impressionable
materials as iron, wood, clay, cloth, leather, gold, and the like, to
fit, suit, and satisfy a various and increasingly complex set of human
desires; or they have been dealing direct with a kaleidoscopic human
mind, either in regard to things or in regard to troubles and ideals of
the mind itself. This constant dealing with persons in business will
account even more than mere congestion of population for the complex
organization of city life. The highly organized social institutions of
the city, moreover, have reinforced the already keen-edged insight of
the city man of business, so that he is doubly equipped to win his
struggles. The city worker knows men, the farmer knows nature. Each has
reward for his deeper knowledge, and each suffers some penalty for his
circle of ignorance.

Modern conditions underlying successful farm practice and profit-making
require of the farmer a wider and more frequent contact with men than at
any time in the past. His materials, too, have become more plastic,
subject to rapid change by selection and breeding.

The social problem of the farmer seems to be how to overcome the
inevitable handicap of a social deficiency in the very nature of