The Green Forest tribune., 1909-08-13
DREAMS OF FUTURE FARMING.
When Scattered Farmers Are Brought Closer Together.

Sometimes it is permitted to editors and farmers alike to dream dreams with the hope that in the future they may come true.
 The editor of Home and Farm dreams of a time when the extension of the trolley lines, the improvements of railroad service and the establish ment of postal savings banks, the adoption of parcels post, the use of electricity and the use more and more of concrete in building will have made life on the farm com fortable, cheerful and social, will have brought the scattered farmers into close contact with each other and with the world.
 Great changes do not come sudden ly in the social organization of any body of people One does not at first realize the inevitable results following some simple invention. Few persons could have foretold the influence of the invention of the cotton gin upon southern agriculture, or the invention of the reaper and mower upon agri- culture in the grain regions in the
 
 north and west.
 We have as yet in the south not fully secured the benefit of the free rural delivery. The country has not yet utilized that branch of the public serv- ice as it should do. It will not get the full benefit of it until we have at least limited parcels post, so that the farmer can telephone to his mer- chant at the crossroads or the near est town to send by the next free ru- ral delivery some small package of goods that he needs at once We trust, moreover, that there will be general use of electricity on the farm in the near future. As yet it is not available to any great extent, but in time it will be made available, and electricity will do a great deal of the work that we now look to the horse to do.
 Then there is the concrete for build ing purposes. It ought to do much to protect the farm houses and farm barns from fire. Properly utilized it will do much to reduce the labor need ed to keep the dairy and the barn and the kitchen and the walks about the house neat and clean.
 Moreover, we dream of the time when country schools will be so good that tthere will be no necessity for farm CTS with large families moving into town to educate their children. This ought not to be a long look ahead There should be graded schools through the rural districts with a central high school, and arrangements ought to be made by farmers through cooperation for the transportation of the children of the neighborhood to central schools which can be much more effectively organized than the widely scattered schools with one teacher for all grades.
 Then there are the roads that are to be improved so that the cost of transportation may be greatly re- duced and the pleasure of intercourse greatly increased.
 These are the things we hope for, and these are the things that Home and Farm is constantly striving to pro- mote. We do not get impatient nor do we get discouraged. We know these things are coming, but we know they can only come slowly. They will come by doing to-day's work a lit tie better than we did it last year. cultivating our fields a little more in- telligently, marketing our crops more | cautiously and more profitably. Then we hope for great improve ments in farm labor and in farm fam | lilies by the spread of the temperance | movement. We need not wait for pro- | hibition to preach and practice tenn perance, to educate the children in the | knowledge of the value of temperate habits and explain to them the in- | jury wrought by alcohol on the indi- vidual, on the family and on society. | By so doing we will raise a new gen. ] eration of children who will scorn to he drunkards and will live strong. | pure and upright life, free from the weakness and contamination of intox- | icating beverages.
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