business or that it take over private enterprise; but no government can
expect to throw back on the producer the responsibility of controlling
the middleman. I look for the present agitation to awaken government to
the necessity of doing what it is plainly its duty to do. In future, a
government that will not protect its people in those cases in which the
people, acting to the best of their individual and coöperating capacity,
cannot protect themselves, will be known as either a bad government or
an undeveloped government.
COUNTY AND LOCAL FAIRS
Much is said about the necessity of redirecting rural institutions. The
fairs are mentioned among the rest. I shall now indicate an experiment
that might be tried with existing county and local fairs, not only as a
suggestion for the fairs themselves, but as an illustration of how
completely it is possible to reconstruct an institution that is long
established in conventional methods.
I do not think a fair that carries only one or two weeks' interest
during the year is justifiable; but of this aspect of the question I am
not now speaking.
_Nature of the fair._
The county fair has not changed its general basis of operation in recent
years, and yet the basis of country life is changing rapidly. Many fairs
are doing excellent work and are worth to the people all that they cost
in effort and money; but the whole plan of the county fair is
insufficient for the epoch that we are now entering. I should not
discontinue the local fairs: I should make them over.
The fairs have been invaded by gambling, and numberless catch-penny and
amusement and entertainment features, many of which are very
questionable, until they often become great country medleys of acrobats
and trained bears and high-divers and gew-gaws and balloon ascensions
and side-shows and professional traveling exhibitors and advertising
devices for all kinds of goods. The receipts are often measured by the
number of cheap vaudeville and other "attractions" that the fair is able
to secure. And as these things have increased, the local agricultural
interest has tended to drop out. In some cases the state makes
appropriations to local fairs; it is a question whether the state should
be in the showman business.
I should like to see one experiment tried somewhere by some one,
designed to project a bold enterprise on a new foundation. It would
first be necessary to eliminate some of the present features, and then
to add a constructive program.
_Features to be eliminated._
I should eliminate all gate receipts; all horse trots; all concessions
and all shows; all display of ordinary store merchandise; all sales of
articles and commodities; and all money premiums.
_Constructive program._
Having taken out the obstructions, unnecessaries, and excrescences, I
should enter on a constructive program. I should then begin to make a
fair. I assume that the fact of a person living in a community, places
on him responsibilities for the welfare of that community. We should
make the county fair one of the organized means of developing this
welfare. Therefore, I should assume that every citizen in the county, by
virtue of his citizenship, is a member of the county fair and owes to it
an allegiance.
It would then devolve on the persons who are organizing and operating
the work, representing the fair association, to develop in him his sense
of allegiance and coöperation. I should not discourage any citizen of
the county from coöperating in the enterprise, or allow him to escape
his natural responsibilities, because he felt himself unable or
unwilling to pay an admission fee, any more than I should eliminate any
person because of religion, politics, color, or sex.
_The financial support._
Of course, it requires money to run a fair. I should like to see the
money raised by voluntary contribution in a new way. I should have it
said to every resident in the county that he and his family may come
uninterruptedly to the fair without money and without price; but I
should also say to him that money is needed, and that all those persons
who wish to give a certain sum would be provided with a badge or
receipt. I suspect that more money could be more easily raised in this
way than by means of gate receipts.
I should have this money collected in advance by means of an organized
effort through all the schools and societies in the county, setting
every one of them at work on a definite plan.
Of course, the state or other agency could contribute its quota of funds
as theretofore.
_An educational basis._
In other words, I should like to see, in this single experiment, a
complete transfer from the commercial and "amusement" phase to the
educational and recreation phase. I should like to see the county fair
made the real meeting place for the country folk. I should make a
special effort to get the children. The best part of the fair would be
the folks, and not the machines or the cattle, although these also would
be very important. I should make the fair one great picnic and
gathering-place and field-day, and bring together the very best elements
that are concerned in the development of country life.
I should work through every organized enterprise in the county, as
commercial clubs, creameries, coöperative associations, religious
bodies, fraternal organizations, insurance societies, schools, and
whatever other organized units already may exist.
It is often said that our fairs have developed from the market-places of
previous times, and are historically commercial. We know, of course,
that fairs have been market-places, and that some of them are so to this
day in other countries. I doubt very much, however, whether the history
is correct that develops the American agricultural fair from the
market-place fairs of other countries. From the time when Elkanah Watson
exhibited his merino sheep in the public square of Pittsfield,
Massachusetts, in 1807, in order that he might induce other persons to
grow sheep as good as his, and when the state of New York started its
educational program in 1819, the essence of the American idea has been
that a fair is an educational and not a trading enterprise. But whatever
the history, the agricultural fair maintained by public money owes its
obligation to the people and not to commercial interests.
_Ask every person to prove up._
I should have every person bring and exhibit what he considers to be his
best contribution to the development of a good country life.
One man would exhibit his bushel of potatoes; another his Holstein bull;
another his pumpkin or his plate of apples; another a picture and plans
of his modern barn; another his driving team; another his flock of sheep
or his herd of swine; another his pen of poultry; another his plan for a
new house or a sanitary kitchen, or for the installation of
water-supplies, or for the building of a farm bridge, or the improved
hanging of a barn door, or for a better kind of fence, or for a new kink
in a farm harness, or the exhibition of tools best fitted for clay land
or sandy land, and so on and on.
The woman would also show what she is contributing to better
conditions,--her best handiwork in fabrics, her best skill in cooking,
her best plans in housekeeping, her best ideas for church work or for
club work.
The children would show their pets, what they had grown in the garden,
what they had made in the house or the barn, what they had done in the
school, what they had found in the woods.
I should assume that every person living on the land in the country has
some one thing that he is sure is a contribution to better farming, or
to better welfare; and he should be encouraged to exhibit it and to
explain it, whether it is a new way to hang a hoe, or a herd of
pure-bred cattle, or a plan for farmers' institutes. I should challenge
every man to show in what respect he has any right to claim recognition
over his fellows, or to be a part of his community.
I should ask the newspapers and the agricultural press to show up their
work; also the manufacturers of agricultural implements and of
country-life articles of all kinds.
I should also ask the organizations to prove up. What is the creamery
contributing to a better country life? What the school? The church? The
grange? The coöperative exchange? The farmers' club? The reading club?
The woman's society? The literary circle? The library? The commercial
clubs? The hunting or sportsman's clubs?
_Sports, contests, and pageants._
I should give much attention to the organization of good games and
sports, and I should have these coöperative between schools, or other
organizations, such organizations having prepared for them consecutively
during the preceding year. I should introduce good contests of all
kinds. I should fill the fair with good fun and frolic.
I should want to see some good pageants and dramatic efforts founded on
the industries, history, or traditions of the region or at least of the
United States. It would not be impossible to find simple literature for
such exercises even now, for a good deal has been written. By song,
music, speaking, acting, and various other ways, it would not be
difficult to get all the children in the schools of the county at work.
In the old days of the school "exhibition," something of this spirit
prevailed. It was manifest in the old "spelling bees" and also in the
"lyceum." We have lost our rural cohesion because we have been attracted
by the town and the city, and we have allowed the town and the city to
do our work. I think it would not be difficult to organize a pageant, or
something of the kind, at a county fair, that would make the ordinary
vaudeville or sideshow or gim-crack look cheap and ridiculous and not
worth one's while.
_Premiums._
If we organize our fair on a recreation and educational basis, then we
can take out all commercial phases, as the paying of money premiums. An
award of merit, if it is nothing more than a certificate or a memento,
would then be worth more than a hundred dollars in money. So far as
possible, I should substitute coöperation and emulation for competition,
particularly for competition for money.
It is probable that the fair would have to assume the expense of certain
of the exhibits.
_It is time to begin._
This kind of fair is not only perfectly possible, but it is feasible in
many places, if only some one or two or three persons possessed of good
common sense and of leadership would take hold of the thing
energetically. One must cut himself loose from preconceived notions and
probably from the regular fair associations. He must have imagination,
and be prepared to meet discouragements. He need not take the attitude
that present methods are necessarily all bad; he is merely concerned in
developing a new thing.
Because I should not have horse races in my fair, I do not wish at all
to be understood as saying that horse races are to be prohibited. Let
the present race courses in the fair grounds be used for horse races, if
the people want them. We have June races now, and they could be held at
other times of the year when persons who are interested desire to have
them. My point is that they are not an essential part of a county
agricultural fair. They rest on a money basis, and do not represent the
people. Neither do I say that all traveling shows and concessions are
bad; but most of them are out of place in a county fair and contrary to
its spirit.
If the horse races were organized for the purpose of developing the
horses of the county, then I should admit them; but I should give them
only their proportionate place along with other means of developing
horse-stock,--as of work horses, farm horses, draft horses, driving
horses.
_The fair ground._
An enterprise of the kind that I project need not necessarily be held on
a fair-ground of the present type, although that might be the best place
for it. If there is a good institution in the county that has grounds,
and especially that has an agricultural equipment worthy of observation,
I should think that the best results would be secured by holding the
fair at that place. This kind of a fair would not need to be inclosed
within a Chinese wall. Of course, there would have to be buildings and
booths and stables in which exhibitions could be made.
In every fair there should nowadays be an assembly hall in which
lectures, exhibitions, simple dramas, worth-while applicable moving
pictures, and other entertainment features can be given.
_My plea._
My plea, therefore, is that some one somewhere make one experiment with
a county fair designed to bring all the people together on a wholly new
idea. The present basis is wrong for this twentieth century. The old
needs are passing; new needs are coming in. I should have the fair
represent the real substantial progress of rural civilization, and I
should also have it help to make that progress. It should be a power in
its community, not a phenomenon that passes as a matter of course, like
the phases of the moon.
I do not expect all this to materialize in a day; but I want to set a
new picture into my readers' minds.
THE COUNTRY-LIFE PHASE OF CONSERVATION
The conservation movement is the expression of the idea that the
materials and agencies that are part of the furniture of the planet are
to be utilized by each generation carefully, and with real regard to the
welfare of those who are to follow us. The country-life movement is the
expression of the idea that the policies, efforts, and material
well-being of the open country must be highly sustained, as a
fundamental essential of a good civilization; and it recognizes the fact
that rural society has made relatively less progress in the past century
than has urban society. Both movements are immediately economic, but in
ultimate results they are social and moral. They rest on the assumption
that the welfare of the individual man and woman is to be conserved and
developed, and is the ultimate concern of governments; both, therefore,
are phases in a process of social evolution.
These are the twin policies of the Roosevelt administration, an economic
and social movement for which that administration will be first
remembered after the incidents and personalities of the time have lost
their significance.
Not only the welfare but the existence of the race depends on utilizing
the products and forces of the planet wisely, and also on securing
greater quantity and variety of new products. These are finally the most
fundamental movements that government has yet attempted to attack; for
when the products of the earth shall begin to disappear or the arm of
the husbandman to lose its skill, there is an end to the office of
government. At the bottom, therefore, the conservation and country-life
movements rest on the same premise; but in their operation and in the
problems that are before them they are so distinct that they should not
be confounded or united. These complementary phases may best work
themselves out by separate organization and machinery, although
articulating at every point; and this would be true if for no other
reason than that a different class of persons, and a different method of
procedure, attach to each movement. The conservation movement finds it
necessary, as a starting-point, to attack intrenched property interests,
and it therefore discovers itself in politics, inasmuch as these
interests have become intrenched through legislation. The country-life
movement lacks these personal and political aspects, and proceeds rather
on a broad policy of definite education and of redirection of
imagination.
_These subjects have a history._
Neither conservation nor country life is new except in name and as the
subject of an organized movement. The end of the original resources has
been foreseen from time out of mind, and prophetic books have been
written on the subject. The need of a quickened country life has been
recognized from the time that cities began to dominate civilization; and
the outlook of the high-minded countryman has been depicted from the
days of the classical writings until now. On the side of mineral and
similar resources, the geologists amongst us have made definite efforts
for conservation; and on the side of soil fertility the agricultural
chemists and the teachers of agriculture have for a hundred years
maintained a perpetual campaign of conservation. So long and
persistently have those persons in the agricultural and some other
institutions heard these questions emphasized, that the startling
assertions of the present day as to the failure of our resources and the
coördinate importance of rural affairs with city affairs have not struck
me with any force of novelty.
But there comes a time when the warnings begin to collect themselves,
and to crystallize about definite points; and my purpose in suggesting
this history is to emphasize the importance of the two formative
movements now before us by showing that the roots run deep back into
human experience. It is no ephemeral or transitory subject that we are
now to discuss.
_They are not party-politics subjects._
I have said that these are economic and social problems and policies. I
wish to enlarge this view. They are concerned with saving, utilizing,
and augmenting, and only secondarily with administration. We must first
ascertain the facts as to our resources, and from this groundwork
impress the subject on the people. The subject must be approached by
scientific methods. The "political" phase, although probably necessary,
is only temporary, till we remove impedimenta and clear the way.
It would be unfortunate if such movement became the exclusive program of
a political party, for then the question would become partisan and
probably be removed from calm or judicial consideration, and the
opposition would equally become the program of a party. Every last
citizen should be naturally interested in the careful utilization of our
native materials and wealth, and it is due him that the details of the
question be left open for unbiased discussion rather than to be made the
arbitrary program, either one way or another, of a political
organization. Conservation is in the end a plain problem involving
economic, educational, and social situations, rather than a political
issue.
The country-life movement is equally a scientific problem, in the sense
that it must be approached in the scientific spirit. It will be
inexcusable in this day if we do not go at the subject with only the
desire to discover the facts and to arrive at a rational solution, by
non-political methods.
_The soil is the greatest of all resources._
The resources that sustain the race are of two kinds,--those that lie
beyond the power of man to reproduce or increase, and those that may be
augmented by propagation and by care. The former are the mines of
minerals, metals, and coal, the water, the air, the sunshine; the latter
are the living resources, in crop and live-stock.
Intermediate between the two classes stands the soil, on which all
living resources depend. While the soil is part of the mineral and
earthy resources of the planet, it nevertheless can be increased in its
producing power. Even after all minerals and metals and coal are
depleted, the race may sustain itself in comfort and progress so long as
the soil is productive, provided, of course, that water and air and
sunshine are still left to us. The greatest of all resources that man
can make or mar is the soil. Beyond all the mines of coal and all the
precious ores, this is the heritage that must be most carefully saved;
and this, in particular, is the country-life phase of the conservation
movement.
To my mind, the conservation movement has not sufficiently estimated or
emphasized this problem. It has laid stress, I know, on the enormous
loss by soil erosion and has said something of inadequate agricultural
practice, but the main question is yet practically untouched by the
movement,--the plain problem of handling the soil by all the millions
who, by skill or blundering or theft, produce crops and animals out of
the earth. Peoples have gone down before the lessening fertility of the
land, and in all probability other peoples will yet go down. The course
of empire has been toward the unplundered lands.
_The soil crust._
Thinner than a skin of an apple is the covering of the earth that a man
tills. The marvelously slight layer that the farmer knows as "the soil,"
supports all plants and all men, and makes it possible for the globe to
sustain a highly developed life. Beyond all calculation and all
comprehension are the powers and the mysteries of this soft outer
covering of the earth. For all we know, the stupendous mass of materials
of which the planet is composed is wholly dead, and only on the surface
does any nerve of life quicken it into a living sphere. And yet, from
this attenuated layer have come numberless generations of giants of
forests and of beasts, perhaps greater in their combined bulk than all
the soil from which they have come; and back into this soil they go,
until the great life principle catches up their disorganized units and
builds them again into beings as complex as themselves.
The general evolution of this soil is toward greater powers; and yet, so
nicely balanced are these powers that within his lifetime a man may ruin
any part of it that society allows him to hold; and in despair he throws
it back to nature to reinvigorate and to heal. We are accustomed to
think of the power of man in gaining dominion over the forces of
nature,--he bends to his use the expansive powers of steam, the energy
of the electric current, and he ranges through space in the light that
he concentrates in his telescope; but while he is doing all this, he
sets at naught the powers in the soil beneath his feet, wastes them, and
deprives himself of vast sources of energy. Man will never gain dominion
until he learns from nature how to maintain the augmenting powers of the
disintegrating crust of the earth.
We can do little to control or modify the atmosphere or the sunlight;
but the epidermis of the earth is ours to do with it much as we will. It
is the one great earth-resource over which we have dominion. The soil
may be made better as well as worse, more as well as less; and to save
the producing powers of it is far and away the most important
consideration in the conservation of natural resources.
Unfortunately, it is impossible to devise a system of farm accounting
that shall accurately represent the loss in producing power of the land
(or depreciation in actual capital stock). The rising sentiment on the
fertility question is just now reflected in the proposal to ask Congress
and the states to make it a misdemeanor for a man to rob his land and to
lay out for him a farm scheme. This is a chimerical notion; but the
people are bound to express themselves unmistakably in some way on this
subject.
Even if we should ultimately find that crops do not actually deplete
land by the removal of stored plant-food in the way in which we have
been taught, it is nevertheless true that poor management ruins its
productivity; and whatever the phrase we use in our speaking and
writing, we shall still need to hold the land-usurer to account.
_No man has a right to plunder the soil._
The man who tills and manages the soil owes a real obligation to his
fellow-men for the use that he makes of his land; and his fellow-men owe
an equal obligation to him to see that his lot in society is such that
he will not be obliged to rob the earth in order to maintain his life.
The natural resources of the earth are the heritage and the property of
every one and all of us. A man has no moral right to skin the earth,
unless he is forced to do it in sheer self-defense and to enable him to
live in some epoch of an unequally developed society; and if there are
or have been such social epochs, then is society itself directly
responsible for the waste of the common heritage. We have given every
freeholder the privilege to destroy his farm.
The man who plunders the soil is in very truth a robber, for he takes
that which is not his own, and he withholds bread from the mouths of
generations yet to be born. No man really owns his acres: society allows
him the use of them for his lifetime, but the fee comes back to society
in the end. What, then, will society do with those persons who rob
society? The pillaging land-worker must be brought to account and be
controlled, even as we control other offenders.