The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1909-07-24
THE FARMERS wAsrEFULNEss.
Lancaster (Pd.) Exdminer.

for the same, from the tariff to the
scarcity of farm labor lessening sup
ply and in many cases leading to an
abandonment of the farm.
In reference to this, George 7.
Powell, president of the Agricultural
Experts Association, writes letter
to the New York Sun from which we
quote the following, and which let
every farmer read and rural school
director and teacher also:
To the Editor of The Sun.
Siy-The recent editorials in the
Sun on the cost of living touch most
vitality the interest of great class of
products the farmers, and the still
larger class of consumers who are not
farmers. Severe criticism of the
farmers uneconomical ways of carry
ing on his business is hardly justified.
While it is true that large majority
of farmers adhere to old methods far
too much for their own and the pub
lie good, the fact should not be over
looked that the farmer gains most of
his knowledge through experience,
and follows precedent and the methods
and practices of his forefathers.
In all of his work he has never
had the first suggestion or help from
the educational system for which he
has always been taxed. Until very
recently there has not been rural
school in the State of New York or
in New England that has ever taught
boys and girls from the farm one
principle that could give them any
idea of the importance of an intelligent
treatment of the soil.
The result of this great defect in
our educational system in not teach
ing the natural sciences that are
closely related to the greatest pro-
ductive industry of our country is
that country boys and girls have
grown up in ignorance of the most
vital subjects connected with success
full life on the farm. They have in
consequence of inability to cope with
the conditions and demands of the
times left the farm in great numbers
and sought work in the cities.
While there are many intelligent
farmers who make a study of their
business and who receive help from
the excellent and very valuable work
of Our Department of Agriculture,
and of some of the State experiment
stations, yet vast numbers are not
reached by these agencies through
their bulletins and publications, and
many are doomed to be disinherited
by the farms upon which they were
born, and the soil of which from ig-
norance they have impoverished.
On many farms with hay yielding
not more than half a ton to the acre
and potatoes yielding little more
than the seed planted, with half of
the cows of the herd not producing
enough to pay for their cost of sup
port, and with increasing demand
from a growing population, the pro-
blem of the cost of living which faces
consumers becomes appalling. The
West with all Of its vast system of
irrigation development is swiftly re-
peating the history of the East, and
while 1t is at present piling up great
wealth from large crops that are be.
ing taken from new land, the process
of soil depletion is going on even at
a more rapid rate than has been the
case in the East. The time will soon
come when on account of the soil ex-
haustion of Western farms the pre-
sent large profits will be greatly re-
duced, when the land will depreciate
In value and rural population, as in
the East, will drift to the Western
cities.
The most urgent problem before
our nation today is not the tariff, i'm
portant as is the need of scientific ad-
justment of the tariff, but the preven-
ton of the great wastefulness In agri-
cultural methods that occurs every
where In the United States and the
dissemination of scientific information
that shall lead to soil restoration and
improvement.
A request has come to Columbia
University to establish branch of
teaching and training in agriculture,
plans for which have already been
most carefully considered. They EN-
brace the requirements of a large
farm where every modern and scien'
tific practice such as is necessary ir
the present times may be taught,
Short courses have been prepared
where scientific studies may be pur'
sued in connection with a most
thoroughly practical training on the
farm.
The plan for teaching includes
agricultural economics and system
of accounts, the greatest need in ag
riculture at present. Very few, even
of the best and most intelligent farm
ers, know anything definite abou
the cost of producing a quart of milk
a pound of butter, a dozen eggs,
bushel of potatoes or pound OF meat
The vast interests of agriculture ar
not to be promoted by organization
to force high prices upon consumers
but rather by the applications of sci
entifc methods that have brought t
other highly specialized industries tn
ability to increase production at
lessened cost, which at the same tim
bring reasonable profit to the pro
ducer. With this kind of teaching
by a thoroughly practical institutio
every class would be greatly benefited
the producer, the consumer and ever
transportation and trade interest.
The time has passed when boo
learning" on the farm is sneered a
or despised. And yet how is tn
farmer to obtain itl Some get
from the reports and bulletins of tn
National and State Agricultural De
partments and reports of experiments
stations. But such documents reac
the few and not the masses.
Others get information from agr
cultural papers or from articles sue
as the home newspaper presents froi
time to time. But every farmer dot