The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-06-01

the effort to secure the mastery of produc- ton Great strides toward this end have already been taken over the larger part of the United States; much remains to be done. but much has been done and the debt of the nation to the various agencies of agricultural improvement for so great an advance Is not to be overstated. But we can not halt here. The benefits of high social organization include such ad- vantages as ease of communication, bet ter educational facilities, increased com fort of living. and those opportunities for social and intellectual life and intercourse, of special value to the young people and to the women, which are as yet chilly to be had In center of population. All this must be brought within the reach of the farmers who live on the farms, of the men whose labor feeds and clothes the towns and cities.
 Farmers Cooperation.
 Farmers must learn the vital need of cooperation with one another. Next to this comes cooperation with the govern 1nent and the government can best give its aid through associations of farmers rather than through the individual tarm- CT; for there is no greater agricultural problem than that of delivering to the farmer the large body of agricultural knowledge which has been accumulated by the national and state governments and by the agricultural colleges and schools. Nowhere has the government worked to better advantage than In the south, where the work done by the department of agri- culture in connection with the cotton growers of the southwestern states has been phenomenal in It's value The farm- CTS in the region affected by the boil weevil, in the course of the efforts to fight it have succeeded in developing a most scientific husbandry. so that in many places the boil weeyil became bless in gin disguise. Not only did the industry of farming become of very much greater economic value in it's direct results but it became immensely more interesting to thousands of families. The meetings at which the new subjects of interest were discussed grew to have distinct social value. while with the farmers were joined the merchants and bankers of the neighborhood. It is needles to say that every such successful effort to organize the farmer gives great stimulus to the admirable education work which is being done in the southern states, as elsewhere, to prepare young people for an agricul- tural life It is greatly to be wished that the communities from whence these stu dents are drawn and to which they either return or should return could be cooper atively organized; that is, that associa- tions of farmers could bs. organized, pri- marily for business purposes, but also with social ends in view. This would mean that the returned students from the institutions of technical learning would find their environment prepared to profit to the utmost by the improvements in technical methods which they had learned.
 Must Combine.
 The people of our farming regions must be able to combine among themselves. as the most efficient means of protect ing their industry from the highly or ganized interests which now surround them on every side. vast field is open for work by cooperative associations of farmers in dealing with the relation of the farm to transportation and to the distribution and manufacture of raw ma terials It is only through such combina- tion that American farmers can develop to the full their economic and social power. Combination of this kind has, in Denmark, for instance, resulted in bring ing the people back to the land, and has