I finally figured it out... American youth today.

[other memory]

A lot of what's posted in here seems pastoral to me.

I grew up on the edge of an industrial city that specialized in the large scale processing of food; a transitional area between industry and productive farm land. You'll hear the term "productive farm land" a lot in WI. From what I can tell it's not seen as a virtuous way of life or a profession with connections to the land anymore, it's seen as an industry and a means to an end. IE, the farmers support the information and commercial economy. Kind of sad. In southern WI there aren't a lot of pastoral farms. Most of them are the industrial kind. Not very pretty. Lots of huge machines inside of huge barns filled with more huge machines alongside 4 story silos. Today these kinds of farms are typically refereed to as "factory farms" because that's what they are, food assembly lines. Again, hardly pastoral. Don't get me wrong, there are still plenty of sightly farms in southern WI.

The people I grew up with who came from farming families were always the hardest working, but they were also the ones most eager to leave that lifestyle. It's hard work.

 

[Codger_64]

Farms were evolving even when I was a child. In fact, I participated in that evolution. Grandpa cleared the land we farmed with mules. Dad introduced tractors and two row equipment at the end of WWII. Then bigger tractors and four row equipment. Then twelve row equipment. And went from having hand labor walk through the fields chopping weeds to tractor mounted workers spot spraying eight rows in a pass, to full herbicide and pesticide spraying.

And at the same time, government farm programs were rewarding growth of acreage and efficiency in farming. And as costs rose, the only option was to increase volume of acres farmed and volume of yield per acre. And between the government ag programs and agbusiness, smaller farmers were forced out and absorbed. Only they could afford the latest high tech machinery, taxes and other overhead.

It wasn't utopia in the earlier days. And it was hard work. But it was easier too.