oor, tall or dumpy, tottering grandmothers or babies in
swaddling-clothes, they long for ampler pastures. Their brawny arms or
hoary heads must bedeck nothing less than the metropolis itself, and
perchance put shoulders to the wheel in the incessant grind of the urban
treadmill. Can you beat it? Unquestioned profit does not attend the
migration. It stands to reason that some of the very advantages sought
have been sacrificed on the altar of the drift cityward. Let us say you
have your individual domicile or the cramped and sunless apartment you dub
your habitation within corporate limits. Does that mean that the
privileges of the city are at your disposal, so that you have merely to
reach forth your hand and pluck them? Well, hardly! You certainly do not
reside in the downtown section, or if you do, you wish to heaven you
didn't. And you can reach this section only with delay and inconvenience,
whether in the hours of business or in the subsequent period devoted to
the glitter of nocturnal revelry and amusement.

But whatever the disadvantages of the city, the people who endure them are
convinced that to go back to the vines and figtrees of their native heath
would be jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. Why? Well, for one
thing, there is no such thing as leisure in the areas that lie beyond
those vast aggregations of humanity which constitute our cities. Not only
are there innumerable and seemingly interminable chores that must follow
the regular occupations of the day, but a thousand emergencies due to
chance, weather, or the natural cussedness of things must be disposed of
as they arise, regardless of what plans the rustic swain cherishes for the
use of his spare time. Urban laborers have contrived by one means or
another to bring about a limitation of the number of hours per diem they
are forced to toil. To the farmers such an alleviation of their hardships
is not within the realm of practicability. They kick about it of course.
They say it's a blooming nuisance. But neither their heartburnings nor
their struggles can efface it as a fact.

Again, the means of entertainment are more limited, and that by a big lot,
with the farmer than with those who dwell in the cities. It is all very
well to talk about the blessings of the rural telephone, rural free
delivery, and the automobile. These things do make communication easier
than it used to be, but after all they're only a drop in the bucket and do
little to sto