The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-03-07

Besides the financial assistance which 1t renders, a great deal of work Of the society is of an educational nature, or 10 use a now popular term, ''up-lift work" Affected as he is by all the ills that rse general farming population in our coun- try Is heir to, the Jewish farmer is in ad- dition confronted by problems peculiarly his own. Poorly eequipped as to farm ing knowledge he had no means of &C., quiring it except through costly experi- ence. The agricultural press, the govern ment publications, and the farmers in- stitutes are, owing to his ignorance of English, of little benefit to him. To re- move these handicaps, the society started The Jewish Farmer, an agricultural monthly in Yiddish: established agricul- tura1 scholarships for the farmers chill dren; and appointed an itinerant agricul- tural instructor to visit the farmers pe- riodica1ly and lecture to them on agricul- tural topics
 However, one of the most important of the educational agencies inaugurated by the Jewish Agricultural and Industrial Aid society last year is the encouragement of the farmers in the various communities to organize for the common good-Sometnfng on which President Roosevelt has laid the greatest stress. Two or three of the old- est and more progressive communities have organizations already more or less active. Others made the attempts to or ganize which proved abortfve for the want of guiding hand. The stimulus given by The Jewish Farmer and the itinerant az ricultural instructor was just what was needed, and in the space of a few mon.as about 20 new associations were formed While these associations are primarily ag- rfcultural, aiming at the improvement of agricultural and material conditions, they also readily enter into the social educa- tional. and religious lives of their mem bers, thus being potent foctor in making life on the farm more livable.
 With some twenty fairly well directed associations similar in their aims and ambitions, and with The Jewish Farmer as an instrument for the interchange of views between them, the desire for per sonal contact and closer relationship was quite natural and the convention in New York was the outcome New York was chosen because of it's central location and because most of the Jewish farmers are originally New Workers which gave them an opportunity to visit their old haunts, and, I suspect, to exult over what they had escaped. It was held in that clear ing' house of the Jewish immigrant-The Educational Alliance. l
 The convention attracted widespread at- tention and the press throughout the country hailed 1t as an s'epoeh in the his- tory of Israeli and "of almost inter- national interest" The delegates, too, have provoked general admiration The Brooklyn Eagle in it's editorial had this to say:
 If the spirit of the men on the farms is reflected in the enthusiasm of these delegates. there is no dlettantefsm, and no downheartedness, among these farm CTS; no yearning such as has often been attributed to them, to get away from the soil and seek to become merchants. They are proud to be where they are. They wish only to improve their condition as fsrmers."
 The deliberations of that convention were well conducted and thotoughly bus- nesslke. The farmers came1 together for