No student of these conditions expects or desires that the evolution shall be Acadian in its results. It is to be hoped indeed that country sweets shall not lose their delights; that the farmer himself may find in his surroundings spiritual and mental ambrosia. But what is wanted, and what is rapidly coming, is the breaking down of those barriers which have so long differentiated country from urban life; the extinction of that social ostracism which has been the farmer's fate; the obliteration of that line which for many a youth has marked the bounds of opportunity: in fact, the creation of a rural society whose advantages, rewards, prerogatives, chances for service, means of culture, and pleasures are representative of the best and sanest life that the accumulated wisdom of the ages can prescribe for mankind. CHAPTER IV THE NEW FARMER All farmers may be divided into three classes. There is the "old" farmer, there is the "new" farmer, and there is the "mossback." The old farmer represents the ancient regime. The new farmer is the modern business agriculturist. The mossback is a mediaeval survival. The old farmer was in his day a new farmer; he was "up with the times," as the times then were. The new farmer is merely the worthy son of a noble sire; he is the modern embodiment of the old farmer's progressiveness. The mossback is the man who tries to use the old methods under the new conditions; he is not "up" with the present times, but "back" with the old times. Though he lives and moves in the present, he really has his being in the past. The old farmer is the man who conquered the American continent. His axe struck the crown from the monarchs of the wood, and the fertile farms of Ohio are the kingdom he created. He broke the sod of the rich prairies, and the tasseling cornfields of Iowa tell the story of his deeds. He hitched his plow to the sun, and his westward lengthening furrows fill the world's granary. The new farmer has his largest conquests yet to make. But he has put his faith in the strong arm of science; he has at his hand the commercial mechanism of a world of business. He believes he will win because he is in league with the ongoing forces of our civilization. The mossback cannot win, because he prefers a flintlock to a Mauser. He has his eyes upon the ground, and uses snails instead of stars for horses. The old farmer was a pioneer, and he had all the courage, enterprise, and resourcefulness of the pioneer. He was virile, above all things else. He owned and controlled everything in sight. He was a state-builder. Half a century ago, in the Middle West, the strong men and the influential families were largely farmers. Even professional men owned and managed farms, frequently living upon them. The smell of the soil sweetened musty law books, deodorized the doctor's den, and floated as incense above the church altars.