The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-05-31
THREE THINGS FOR WHICH
 ADMINISTRATION STANDS
Governor Conner Proud of What Has Been Accomplished in the Enlargement of the Educational Institutions of the State-Other Policies Are Temperance
 and States Rights.
BY HERVEY w. LAIRD.

their education and culture. The idea seems to be to send out into the country territory speakers, something after the plan inaugurated a year ago by Con gressman Hobson, and in this way stir up those people who are away from the active centers to an appreciation of their duty, as well as their privilege, in the matter of learning what they and their children should know.
 Mr Wilkinson has already begun work in which he hopes to interest those who have charge of any funds that may come from this any other source. He is preparing to have organized in the rural territories farm clubs composed of boys from F to 21 whose object will be to study scientific agriculture. investigate the improvements and innovations of the agricultural interests, and to fit them selves in every way possible for scientific farming that the question of the fu- ture will be, not how little can be got ton from great bodies of land, but how much can be secured from small tracts. In other words. it is hoped with the spread of information there will come a period in the history of the country when the rural citizens and their families will reach as high a state of culture infor- nation and refinement as is possible in the cities and towns
 The trouble has been that under old methods farmers have undertaken to tend large bodies of land which naturally require the maximum amount of physi- cal activity. The new idea is to con fine the cultivation to small tracts, and to make through a process of ntensifi- cation, these smaller tracts yield vastly more than the larger under old condi- tions. It is realized that to bring this about the younger generation must be educated to the necessity of thinking farms, as well as working farms, or a restatement of the old proverb that working with ones head is vastly more profitable than working with ones hands alone
 Soil Survey.
 What is required as the best prospect for effective service along this line Is the soil survey, which is now being con ducted Knowledge of what the land contains and what crops are best suited to special localities will go a long way towards making the soil thoroughly pro- ductive. The maximum of output can thus be secured. In order to impress this upon the minds of the people, Commis- soner Wilkinson has in anticipation number of meetings and institutes, and a series of showings at the state fairs by which he will be able to demonstrate that there is great economy. and marked profit In scientific tilling of the soil.
 J. J. Doster. professor of secondary education at the University of Alabama. has devoted a great deal of his time and attention to the situation in the rural districts. and he has encouraged the de- pertinent officers in the proposition to or ganize these boys farm clubs.
 II is also a fact that all of the large educational institutions in the state are lending whatever aid possible towards the promotion of agricultural education
 As a whole the entire activities of the state seem to be in some measure, greater or less. devoted to the solution of this proposition for the betterment and edu- cation of the agricultural territories of the state. believing that the common- wealth will grow and prosper more rapidly with this worked out than as a result of any other line of policy.