Life — November 18, 1920 — page 7: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# Analysis of Life Magazine Page This page features a satirical poem titled "Ballad of Unimportant Places" by E. O. James, accompanied by a sketch showing rural farmers discussing soil analysis. The cartoon illustrates the poem's opening line: "NOW, FATHER, THE FIRST THING TO DO, OF COURSE, IS TO HAVE A CHEMICAL ANALYSIS MADE OF THE SOIL." The humor mocks agricultural modernization—specifically, the growing trend of applying scientific methods and chemical analysis to farming. The joke appears to be that farmers are adopting overly technical, academic approaches to simple farming work, suggesting this is impractical or unnecessarily complicated for rural life. The poem itself satirizes various small, unremarkable American towns that "never amounted to much," treating their obscurity as a subject for mock-serious verse. The combined effect ridicules both rural pretension and the disconnect between urban scientific thinking and actual farm life.