The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1906-01-17
PUT $4,000 BOY ON $4,000 FARM
From Maxwelr's Talisman.


Does not the increase in land values
in this country raise question of su-
preme importance with reference to
the opportunities of our coming gen
eration,-the young men who are now
growing to manhood and must soon
face the problem of providing home
and a living for family.
The price of land in all the states
where agriculture has become a we'll
established industry is now SO hlgn
that a young man coming OUT OF
school or college, with his LIE ana all
its problems before him, cannot, IN
anv reasonable time, in any occupa-
ton which is open to the average man.
earn enough under ordinary circum-
stanstances to buy farm Tor MN
self, so that he may own home lie
must be either a wage-worker or ten-
ant farmer.
Is there not a solution of this prob
lem which can be made to apply TO
every young man OF average industry
and capacity? And is not that solu-
ton to put the value and the power
of production from the land into the
boy himself, by a system OF right edu-
| cation, rather than in the land In
other words, to make this point clear
| one hundred and sixty acres OF land
| is none to much for man to have 10
furnish good living for himself and
family. under the ordinary methods OF
farming now prevailing in this cOun-
try. But what is the purpose OF work
ing that farm? Is it not, first that
the farmer may have home for him
self and his family, and second That
he may have an income sufficient 10
enable them to live in comfort, with
all the advantages of education ana
social environment which every clti-
zen of this country Graves ana should
have?
If that home and that income can be
Just as we'll produced from ten acres
of land as from a hundred and sixty
acres the amount of money necessary
to secure the acreage required to re-
duce from $4,000. the cost of 100
acres at 800 an acre, to $1,000, the
cost of ten acres at 500 an acre.
A young man with no capital except
industry and ordinary capacity can
hardly hope to earn Sl6, 900, or to in
any way save it as the reward OF his
own labor, during the earlier years OF
his life. He might, if more than ordlna-
rily industrious and economical, save
enough by the time he reaches middle
life to buy such farm, but he could
not do so within reasonable time
after he was ready to marry and es-
ia blish home; much less before or
at that time.
Now, instead of bringing together
sixteen thousand dollar farm and a
one thousand boy suppose that we re-
verse the combination and put SIX
teen thousand dollar boy on to one
thousand dollar farm. All that is
necessary to do that is to educate and
train every boy who is willing to
receive the training in the public
schools, from the kindergarten to and
including the country college, so that
he will become so skilled in the art
and science of close and intensive cul-
tivation of the soil, in the processes
of plant growth, in irrigation, soil
culture and fertilization, in the selec-
ton of the crops to grow, and IN the
methods, processes and systems OF
marketing them, that by intensive
farming of a ten-acre tract costing
81, 900 your sixteen thousand dollar
boy will be able to produce from ten
acres a greater profit by better and
more intensive methods of farming
than the average farmer now produces
from one hundred and sixty acres.
1t is no longer theory--it is an es-
tablished and unquestiOned fact-that
this is practicable, and that the only
element of doubt is in the farmer him.
self.
OF course the average farmer and
land owner imagines that the more
land he has the richer he is, and con-
sequently he bends all his energies to
crowding out his neighbors and add
ing as many acres as possible to his
own domain.
In the near future this greed for
land will gradually fade away, ano
farmers will find that with less LAND
and more cultivation they can make
more money, and that the smaller the
farm the better the roads will be, the
more good neighbors they will have
the better the schools and churches,