The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1907-02-14
BOOK FARMING HAS A
PLACE IN NORTH
DAKOTA
Value of Institutes and Labor
atory Tests is Now Cen
orally Recognized.
SCIENCE HAS HER PLACE
Now Requires Mental as Well
as Physical Force to Farm
Successfully.
SCIENCE HAS HER PLACE
(By $. f. Mercer.)


It has only been few years since
farmers institute workers in North
Dakota were called Book Farmers"
Some of the first institutes held in
different towns were very poorly at
tended owing to the prejudice against
connecting education and science with
farming. Strange as it may seem.
sentiment had become diffused among
the people denying the right for far
mer to use his head. The only exer-
else delegated to the farmer was the
use of his hands and feet. All his
mental powers must remain inactive.
Farming did not require the use of
mental faculties to make 1t progress
sive industry. Such was the senti-
ment, to a large extent in North Da-
kota few years ago. A combination
of circumstances and influences has
materially changed the situation, but
there is still surprising number of
farmers opposed to Book Farming"
Gradually, the hedge between practic-
al and scientific farming and ignor-
ance, is being covered with yellow
leaves and broken down. This very
noticeable change is due to the I'M
firing efforts of intelligent farmers.
The work has not been done by book
worms, but by farmers who have held
the plow handles and "pailed the
cow" as the provincialist would say.
A very enterprising and progressive
idea was that of Mr.. J. J. Hill, presi-
dent of the Great Northern railroad,
when he established free excursions
to the A. G. college at Fargo. While
the free excursions brought out con-
siderable of the mean and ungrateful
traits of mankind, untold good has
come from it. Farmers who had taken
little interested in farm education,
brushed the cobweks from their eyes
and many of them now are among our
most successful and enterprising far
mers. Mr.. Hill is not only a great
railroad man, but he knows something
about farming. Prior to the time of
starting the farmers excursions, the
institutes had not made that head
way that one would naturally expect.
At the same time, the advocates of
advanced methods Of farming were
getting busy. Prof. Worst, Prof. Boil
ley and in fact all the professors of
the college got into the arena and
worked overtime to promote cause
that is of vast Importance to the pros
perity of the state. Here and there
few Book Farmers" as they were
called, went so far as to pay the ex-
pense of holding institutes, out of
their own pockets. All this pioneer
work has resulted in doubling the
energy and interest in scientific farm
ing. 1t may be little early to say
scientific farming" but we are grad
ually working up to it. In the early
days of North Dakota, the farmer who
had made money by farming and
carrying a number of side lines was
considered the only authority on the
question of progressive farming. The
farmer without good bank account
must keep still. Every farmer was
measured by the amount of money he
made. 1t is still largely so in all the
professional and industrial affairs of
life.
Thomas L. Dick contributed a
greater legacy to the world than the
trio; Rockefeller, Sage and Gould
ever could contribute. dick is used
because that he could not buy a set
of his own books when he died). Be-
cause of a gradual lessonIng of the
opportunity to make money quick by
combining speculation with farming
there is gradual change of sentiment
along this line. The idea that in
telligent methods and the moderate
use Of hands and brain are the found
atoms upon which success must
come to the farmer is fast taking
the place of stubborn indiffer-
ence. Book Farming" never ex-
listed in North Dakota. 1t existed
only in the Imagination of
few drones. The number of splen-
did farm papers circulated through
out the state; the professors Of the
Minnesota and North Dakota expert
mental stations: the foresight of
James J. Hill and the cooperation of
goodly number of farmers have
knocked the Canadian thistles out of
"Book Farming"