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Well, obviously the Shire is Tolkien's utopian vision of the England that was, the countryside of his youth -- agrarian and nonindustrial -- before the advent of Sandyman's dark, satanic mill. Sandyman's mill and the noveau-riche Sackville-Baggins' modern incursions presaged the more overt industrialism and totalitarianism of Sharkey and his Ruffians: clear-cutting forests, slipshod shanties in place of traditional Hobbitish farm and disintegration of the nuclear family (or at least the bonds within the extended Hobbit families).
Samwise 'Appleseed' Gamgee and his coterie of martial hobbits (Pippin and Merry) returned conservatism, restored the old folkways and reforested the scarred hills during a renaissance that I am sure was Tolkien's heartfelt and vengeful hope for the overthrow of industrialized England.
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And your little sister's immaculate virginity wings away on the bony shoulders of a young horse named George who stole surreptitiously into her geography revision.
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