The ranch. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1902-1914, 1907-11-01
Our President on Farming.

Our President on Farming.
The national agricultural depart
ment should print and circulate as a
bulletin, that all farmers might read
it, the address delivered by President
Roosevelt at the semi-centennial cele-
bration of the Michigan agricultural
college. 1t is the truest and most
encouraging estimate yet placed upon
the Importance of the farm and the
farming population as factor in our
present civilization that has ever been
given the public, and farmers fami-
lies will find it stimulating reading.
If there is one lesson taught by his
tory, it is that the permanent great
ness of any state must ultimately de-
pend more upon the character of its
country population than upon any
thing else. No growth of cities, no
growth of wealth, can make up for
loss in either the number or the char
acter of the farming population. When
this nation began it's Independent ex-
iStence it was as a nation of farmers,
The towns were small, and were for
the most part mere seacoast trading
and fishing ports. The chief industry
of the country was agriculture, and
the ordinary citizen was in some way
connected with it. In every great
crisis of the past peculiar depend
ence has had to be placed upon the
farming population; and this depend
ence has hitherto been justified. But
it cannot be justified in the future if
agriculture is permitted to sink in
the scale as compared with other en-
We cannot afford to lose
that prominently typical American,
the farmer who owns his own farm.
GAS compared with a few decades
ago, the social or community life of
country people in the east compares
less well than it formerly did with
that of the jewellers in cities. Many
country communities have lost their
social conference, their sense of COM
interest In such communities
the country church, for instance, has
gone backward, both as social and
as a religious factor. Now, we cannot
too strongly insist upon the fact that
it is quite as unfortunate to have any
social as any economic falling off. 1t
would be calamity to have our farms
occupied by lower type of people
than the Woodworking, self-respecting,
Independent and essentially manly and
womanly men and women who have
hitherto continued the most typical
American, and on the whole the most
valuable element in our entire nation.
Ambitious native-born young men
and women who now tend away from
the farm must be brought back to it,
and therefore they must have social
as well as economic opportunities.
Everything should be done to encour-
age the growth in the open farming
country of such institutional and So
cial movements as will meet the de-
mand of the best type of farmers.
There should be libraries, assembly
halls, social organizations of all kinds.
The school building and the teacher
in the school building, should, through
out the country districts, be of the
very highest type, able to fit the boys
and girls not merely to live in, but
thoroughly to enjoy and to make the
most of the country. The country
church must be revived. All kinds
of agencies, from rural free delivery
to the bicycle and the telephone,
should be utilized to the utmost; good
roads should be favored; everything
should be done to make it easier for
the farmer to lead the most active and
effective, intellectual, political and
economic life"