a contest for the champion rural and city baby.

The mountain boy, because he is no longer isolated by rugged roads,
meets his city cousin on common ground.

The scene has changed along the once rugged creek-bed road. In place of
the saddle hung on a wall peg on the front stoop for passersby to view
and perhaps envy, a new saddle once the joy and pride of the mountain
lad, today there is a spare tire and there is an auto in the foreyard or
in the garage, a garage which is often bigger than the little cabin
itself.

The mountain farmer is being taught by skilled leaders to help himself.

Even if the mountaineer's farm is on a forty-five-degree slope there is
hope for him today, thanks to the Farm Security Administration. A
workable plan for soil rebuilding was the first step. To reclaim wet
land the mountain man digs drainage ditches. Stone, heretofore hidden in
the mountain side and unused, is now utilized for building barns and
houses. On fourteen acres a man and his family, including a couple of
grown sons and their families, can today raise a living and be
comfortable. With a loan of $440 from the Farm Security Administration a
once unproductive miserable farm can be made liveable and productive.

The farmer of the hill country is being trained to put to use the things
at hand.

Second-growth timber is coming on and is conserving the productive
qualities of the hillside soil which was drained away by ruthless
cutting of timber a quarter century ago. Today the farmer is taught to
treat his farm and pasture land with lime and phosphate, a thing unheard
of in the early days. And the greatest of all his blessings today, the
mountain farmer will tell you, is the good road.

Why then should he want to leave the mountains he knows and loves so
well?

It was tried by the young folks, but finding themselves ill fitted for
work at coal camps or steel and iron mills or factories or industrial
centers, they returned eagerly to the hills, at least during the first
five years of the thirties.

To this day, though some have remained in the mill towns, it is not
uncommon to hear the womenfolk--whose men have provided them with modern
conveniences, a frigidaire, a gas range, an electric washer and iron, a
spigot of running water--say, "Wisht I had back my cellar house, my
cedar churn, the battling block to make clean our garments. All these
here fixy contrapshuns make slaves of my menfolks at public works to
earn enough c