THE ORGANIZATION OF COUNTRY LIFE IN DENMARK
In Europe the man whose situation most nearly corresponds to that of the Negro in the Southern States is the peasant. I had seen pictures of peasants before I went to Europe, but I confess that I was very hazy as to what a peasant was. I knew that he was a small farmer, like the majority of the Negro farmers in the Southern States, and that, like the Negro farmer again, he had in most cases descended from a class that had at one time been held in some sort of subjection to the large landowners, the difference being that, whereas the peasant had been a serf, the Negro farmer had been a slave.
In regard to the present position of the peasant in the life about him, in regard to his manner of living, his opportunities and ambitions, I had but the vaguest sort of an idea. The pictures which I had seen were not reassuring in this regard. The picture which made the deepest impression upon my mind was that of a heavy, stupid, half-human looking creature, standing
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 in the midst of a desolate field. The mud and the clay were clinging to him and he was leaning on a great, heavy, wrought-iron hoe, such as were formerly used by the Negro slaves. This picture represented about my idea of a peasant.
In the course of my journey through Italy and through Austria-Hungary I saw a number of individuals who reminded me of this and other pictures of peasants that I can recall. I saw, as I have already said, peasant women sleeping, like tired animals, in the city streets; I saw others living in a single room with their cattle; at one time I entered a little cottage and saw the whole family eating out of a single bowl. In Sicily I found peasants living in a condition of dirt, poverty, and squalor almost beyond description. But everywhere I found among these people, even the lowest, individuals who, when I had an opportunity to talk with them, invariably displayed an amount of shrewd, practical wisdom, kindly good nature, and common sense that reminded me of some of the old Negro farmers with whom I am acquainted at home. It is very curious what a difference it makes in the impression that a man makes upon you if you stop and shake hands with him, instead of merely squinting at him critically in order to take a cold sociological inventory of his character and condition.
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Some of the pleasantest recollections I have of Europe are the talks I had, through an interpreter, of course, with some of these same ignorant but hard-working, sometimes barefoot, but always kindly peasants. The result was that long before I had completed my journey I had ceased to take some of the pictures of peasants I had seen literally. I discovered that the artist whose pictures had made so deep an impression upon me had sought to compress into the figure of a single individual the misery and wretchedness of a whole class; that he had tried, also, to bring to the surface and make visible in his picture all the hardships and the degradation which the casual observer does not see, perhaps does not want to see.
It was not until I reached Denmark, however, that I began to feel that I had really begun to know the European peasant, because it was not until I reached that country that I saw what the possibilities of the peasant were. Before this I had seen a man who was struggling up under the weight of ignorance and the remains of an ancient oppression. In Denmark, however, this man has come to his own. Peasants already own a majority of the land. Three fourths of the farms are in their hands and the number of small farms is steadily increasing. In Denmark the peasant, as a certain gentleman whom I met
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 there observed, is not only free, but he rules. The peasant is the leader in everything that relates to the progress of agriculture. The products of the coöperative dairies, the coöperative egg-collecting and pork-packing societies, organized and controlled by the peasants, bring in the markets of the world higher prices than similar products from any other country in Europe.
The peasants are now the controlling influence in the Danish Parliament. When I was there half the members of the ministry in power were peasants, and half the members of the cabinet were either peasants or peasants' sons.
Let me add that there is a very close connection between the price of the peasants' butter and the influence which the peasants exercise in politics. For a good many years, up to about 1901, I believe, the most influential party in Denmark was that represented by the large landowners. Forty years ago the peasants had all the political rights they now possess, but they did not count for much in political matters. At that time there were two kinds of butter in Denmark: there was the butter made in the creameries of the large landowners, called gentlemen's estates, and there was the butter from the small farmers. In other words, there was "gentleman's butter" and "peasant's butter."
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 The peasant butter, however, was only worth in the market about one half as much as that from the gentleman's estate. When the price of peasant butter began to rise, however, the political situation began to change. Year by year the number of coöperative dairies increased and, year by year, the number of peasant farmers in parliament multiplied. In other words, the Danish peasant has become a power in Danish politics because he first became a leader in the industrial development of the country.
Denmark is not only very small, about one third the size of Alabama, but it is not even especially fertile. It is an extremely level country, without hills, valleys, or running streams worth speaking of. I was told that the highest point in Denmark, which is called "Heaven's Hill," is only about 550 feet above sea level—that is to say about half as high as the tower of the Metropolitan Building in New York. As a result of this a large part of the country is windswept and, in northern Jutland, where the Danish peninsula thrusts a thin streak of land up into the storm-tossed waters of the North Sea, there were, forty years ago, 3,300 square miles of heather where not even a tree would grow. Since that time, by an elaborate process of physical and chemical manipulation of the soil, all but a thousand square miles have
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 been reclaimed. The result is that where once only lonely shepherds wandered, "knitting stockings," as Jacob Riis says, "to pay the taxes," there are now flourishing little cities.
Another disadvantage which Denmark suffers has its origin in the fact that more than one third of the country consists of islands, of which there are no less than forty-four. In going from Copenhagen to Hamburg the train on which I travelled, in crossing from one island to another and from there to the peninsula, was twice compelled to make the passage by means of a ferry, and at one of these passages we were on the boat for about an hour and a half.
Riding or driving through Denmark to-day is like riding through Illinois or any other of the farming regions of the Middle Western States, with the exception that the fields are smaller and the number of men, cattle, and homesteads is much larger than one will see in any part of the United States. I have heard travellers through Denmark express regret because with the progress of the country, the quaint peasant costumes and the other characteristics of the primitive life of the peasant communities, which one may still see in other parts of Europe, have disappeared. One of my fellow-travellers tried to make me believe that the peasants in Europe were very much happier in the quiet, simple life
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 of these small and isolated farming communities, each with its own picturesque costumes, its interesting local traditions, and its curious superstitions.
This seems to be the view of a good many tourists. After what I have seen in Europe I have come to the conclusion, however, that the people and the places that are the most interesting to look at are not always the happiest and most contented. On the contrary, I have found that the places in which the life of the peasants is most interesting to tourists are usually the places that the peasants are leaving in the largest numbers. Emigration to America is making a large part of Europe commonplace, but it is making a better place to live in.
The reorganization of agricultural life in Denmark has come about in other ways than by emigration, but it has left very little of the picturesque peasant life, and most of what remains is now kept in museums. I noticed in going through the country, however, two types of farm buildings which seem to have survived from an earlier time. One of these consisted of a long, low building, one end of which was a barn and the other a dwelling. The other type of building was of much the same shape, except that it formed one side of a court, the other two
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 sides of which were enclosed by barns and stables.
Upon inquiry I learned that the first type of dwelling belonged to a man who was called a husmaend, or houseman; in other words, a small farmer whose property consisted of his house, with a very small strip of land around it. The other type of dwelling belonged to a man who was called a gaardmaend, or yardman, because he owned enough land to have a gaarde, or yard. In Denmark farmers are still generally divided into huse and gaarde; all farmers owning less than twenty-four acres are called "housemen," and all having more than that are called "yardmen," no matter how their buildings are constructed.
As a matter of fact, it is not so long since conditions in Denmark were just about as primitive as they are now in some other parts of Europe. Jacob Riis, whom I learned, while I was in Denmark, is just as widely known and admired in Denmark as he is in the United States, says that he can remember when conditions were quite different among the homes of the people. "For example," he said, "I recall the time when in every peasant's family it was the custom for all to sit down and eat out of the same bowl in the centre of the table and then, after the meal was finished, each would
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 wipe the spoon with which he had dipped into the common bowl, and without any further ceremony tuck it away on a little shelf over his head.
"To-day," he added, "Danish farmers wash their pigs. The udders of the cows are washed with a disinfecting fluid before milking. When a man goes to milk he puts on a clean white suit."
Not only is this true, but the Danish farmer grooms his cows, and blankets them when it is cold. He does this not only because it is good for the cow, but because it makes a saving in the feed. Although Denmark has more cattle in proportion to the number of inhabitants than any other part of Europe, I noticed very few pastures. On the contrary, as I passed through the country I observed long rows of tethered cattle, feeding from the green crops. As rapidly as the cows have consumed all the green fodder, usually four or five times a day, a man comes along and moves the stakes forward so that the cattle advance in orderly way, mowing down the crops in sections. Water is brought to the cows in a cart and they are milked three times a day. All of this requires a large increase of labour as well as constant study, care, and attention. In other words, the Danish peasant has become a scientific farmer.
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One difference between the farmer in Denmark and in other countries is that, whereas the ordinary farmer raises his crops and ships them to the market to be sold, the Danish farmer sells nothing but the manufactured product, and as far as possible he sells it direct to the consumer. For example, until about 1880 Denmark was still a grain exporting country; in recent years, however, it has become a grain importing country. Grain and fodder of various kinds to the value of something like twenty-five millions of dollars are now annually purchased by Danish farmers in Russia and neighbouring countries. The agricultural products thus imported are fed to the cattle, swine, and chickens and thus converted into butter, pork, and eggs. The butter is manufactured in a coöperative dairy; the pork is slaughtered in a coöperative pork-packing house; the eggs are collected and packed by a coöperative egg-collecting association. Then they are either sold direct, or are turned over to a central coöperative selling association, which disposes of the most of them in England. The annual exports to England amount to nearly $90,000,000 a year, of which $51,000,000 is for butter, nearly $30,000,000 for bacon, and the remainder for eggs.
As a gentleman whom I met in Denmark put
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 it: "If Denmark, like ancient Gaul, were divided into three parts, one of these would be butter, another pork, and the third eggs." It is from these things that the country, in the main, gets its living. There are in Denmark, as elsewhere, railways, newspapers, telephones, merchants, preachers, teachers, and all the other accessories of a high civilization, but they are all supported from the sale of butter, pork, and eggs, to which ought to be added cattle, for Denmark still exports a considerable amount of beef and live cattle. The export of live cattle has, however, fallen from about $21,000,000 a year in 1880 to about $7,000,000, but in the same period the excess of butter, bacon, and eggs has risen from something like $7,000,000 to over $70,000,000. Meanwhile the raw production of the Danish farms has increased 50 per cent. and more, the difference being that, instead of producing grains for the manufacture of flour and meal, the Danish farmers have turned their attention to pro............