Life, 1906-03-22 · page 3 of 20
Life — March 22, 1906 — page 3: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes urban attitudes toward farming and rural life. The illustration shows a schoolteacher instructing children about agriculture while apparently disconnected from actual farming reality. The poem critiques a "prudent farmer" who maintains offices on Wall Street rather than working the land, and who treats farming as a financial investment rather than genuine agricultural work. The satire targets the disconnect between city-based speculation about farming and the actual labor involved. The piece mocks genteel urban pretensions about rural life—suggesting wealthy urbanites dabble in farming as a status symbol or financial scheme while remaining ignorant of real agricultural practice. The children's classroom setting emphasizes how this romanticized, impractical view of farming gets perpetuated through education.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
The Prudent Farmer. LL. farmers who have grown discreet Have offices on William Street— Or Rroad will do— And farms accessible and gre Where air is pure and water cl And with a view. 1 a SE This city life's not everything Of which a poet likes to sing. It cramps a man, And drives him hard and wears his nerves. He wants no more of it than serves To push his plan, A share of it won't hurt him much. It profits him to keep in touch With other guys. To mark the upshot of their strife And yet some of it for his wife Is not unwise But to be a/teays hunting loot What sort is he that that can suit ? Out on the cuss ! Ding-dong downtown and rush about, ANOTHER INVESTIGATION, And ding-dong back. Perpetual rout And ceaseless fuss! To such the ticker's baneful click Sounds sweeter than the rippling creek, Or eke the birds. The office buildings’ tottering height Reats hills in his distorted sight. He passes words! The disconnected farmer man Has this defect about his plan, That average fields Exact attentions more profuse Than profitable, to produce Reluctant yields, If you would long the country praise Don’t live too much on what you raise, That way’s not best. Rut let the city do its share ; The country furnish sun and air, The town the rest. Or mix your crops. Like one T knew Who planted roots that duly grew, And went to town, And laid him in a thousand sh. Of Anaconda, be from b For salting down, He phosphatized his roots. T Uncommon well, ‘The stocks lay hid Waiting advance, Till, roots and stocks becoming dear, He made a hundred thousand clear On those two plants. Farming’s a gamble. 1 de That roots will always act that way, But when they do, It's apt to be because combined With city products of a kind To pull them through. So every farmer that’s discreet Hangs out his sign on Nassau Street— Or Pine or Wall— And what the farm denies his sweat He works his wits in town to get, Nor grieves at all, E.S. Martin, comicbooks.com