rapidly uses men up; families run out, man becomes
sophisticated and feeble. A fresh stream of humanity is always
setting from the country into the city; a stream not so fresh flows
back again into the country, a stream for the most part of jaded and
pale humanity. It is arterial blood when it flows in, and venous
blood when it comes back.

A nation always begins to rot first in its great cities, is indeed
perhaps always rotting there, and is saved only by the antiseptic
virtues of fresh supplies of country blood.

* * * * *

But it is not of country life in general that I am to speak, but of
some phases of farm life, and of farm life in my native State.

Many of the early settlers of New York were from New England,
Connecticut perhaps sending out the most. My own ancestors were from
the latter State. The Connecticut emigrant usually made his first
stop in our river counties, Putnam, Dutchess, or Columbia. If he
failed to find his place there, he made another flight to Orange, to
Delaware, or to Schoharie County, where he generally stuck. But the
State early had one element introduced into its rural and farm life
not found farther east, namely, the Holland Dutch. These gave
features more or less picturesque to the country that are not
observable in New England. The Dutch took root at various points
along the Hudson, and about Albany and in the Mohawk valley, and
remnants of their rural and domestic architecture may still be seen
in these sections of the State. A Dutch barn became proverbial. "As
broad as a Dutch barn" was a phrase that, when applied to the person
of a man or woman, left room for little more to be said. The main
feature of these barns was their enormous expansion of roof. It was
a comfort to look at them, they suggested such shelter and
protection. The eaves were very low and the ridge-pole very high.
Long rafters and short posts gave them a quaint, short-waisted,
grandmotherly look. They were nearly square, and stood very broad
upon the ground. Their form was doubtless suggested by the damper
climate of the Old World, where the grain and hay, instead of being
packed in deep solid mows, used to be spread upon poles and exposed
to the currents of air under the roof. Surface and not cubic
capacity is more important in these matters in Holland than in this
country. Our farmers have found that, in a climate where there is so
much weather as with us, the less roof you have