The antagonism may be traced as early as the days of Varro, that learned Roman, from whose "De Re Rustica" the poet Cowper borrowed his familiar couplet "God made the country and man made the town."
While the identical idea of conflicting interests is frequently to be found in the sayings of the sages, Emerson voiced the true spirit of co-operation and interdependence when he pointed out that the city is recruited from the country.
A more modern writer wrote: "The country and not the city is the spring head of a nation's life.
The farm not only sustains the lives of all men, it also supplies the men themselves."
Unfortunately there is a section of society with outlook so narrowed that it can see good in nothing which does not appertain to city life.
Of such was the cynic Hazlitt, who, with spirit soured and ambitions thwarted, essayed the axiom, "There is nothing good to be had in the country; if there be, they will not let you have it."
It might almost be wished that Hazlitt could have lived in Dunedin in the year 1908, and have been privileged to visit the Winter Show, for then he must have been convinced of the utter falsity of the sentiment quoted.
For this week the Agricultural Hall, in the abundance and multifariousness of its exhibits, abundantly testifies, not only to the prolific nature of the products or Otago, but also to the enterprise and liberality with which they are displayed.
It is a matter of extreme difficulty - as the committee of the Agricultural and Pastoral Society knows only too well - to impart novelty and variety to each successive Winter Show.
Indeed, it is common with the superficially minded to complain "Oh, one show is as like another as two peas."
But this year the committee is certainly to be complimented upon the diversity of the exhibition which it has arranged for the instruction and entertainment of the thousands of visitors and residents who will throng the streets of the city from now right on to the end of the week. - ODT, 3.6.1908
