Life, 1923-08-16 · page 5 of 36
Life — August 16, 1923 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This satirical piece criticizes wealthy urbanites who adopt farming as a fashionable hobby. The poem's central complaint: millionaires purchase farmland, convert it to ornamental gardens, and abandon actual agriculture—removing productive acreage from use. The Latin epigraph and reference to "Stoddard King" suggests this targets a specific contemporary figure, likely a wealthy socialite or writer. The cartoon below depicts "Uncle Mac, a dog fancier, passes judgment on the baby"—showing a man with a dog in what appears to be an urban interior, seemingly commenting on the absurdity of city dwellers playing at rural life. The satire warns that such urban sprawl and abandonment of farming threatens the nation's agricultural foundation and self-sufficiency.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Horace Joins the Farm Bloc “fam pauca aratro ingera regie moles relinguent....” —Odes Il, 15. HE way that cctintry clubs e id Chey. plant a hundred kinds of trees And use up ground is most alarming; But not a solitary punkin; If they continie buying land They tear out all the corn and peas There wen't be any left for farming. And put a lot of fancy junk in. These millionaires do lots of harm— The country’s virtues all will go Without so much as beg-your-pardon When city fellows overcrowd it ‘They turn a selt-respecting farm When I was young, I'd have you know, Lsto a stuck-up formal garden. Our township wouldn't have allowed it. The nation’s in an awful way, With farms abandoned, cities swelling ; Now my place here—what's that you say?— Well, yes, I might consider selling. Stoddard King. comicbooks.com