The Caucasian. (Shreveport, La.) 1900-192?, 1910-04-05

turaI Trades on a Farm In North
Carolina.
A gift of several hundred acres in
North Carolina for the establishment
and equipment of settlement and a
school of farming and allied trades for
boys was offered to his parish the 9th
er night by the Rev. DR.. Oscar Hay
wood, pastor of the Baptist Church of
the Covenant in West Thirty-third
street, New York city. His plan is to
take city born lads and boys of the
landless classes of the south to the
farm and to make practical farmers of
them Dr. Haywood announced his
plan to his congregation at musical
service for the benefit of the special
work for boys which is conducted by
the church. In announcing his gift he
said:
81 offer to the people of New York
city and my lifelong neighbors in
North Carolina several hundred acres
of land now cultivated as cotton
farm as the ground and foundation
on which to establish and equip set
Element and school of farming and
allied trades for boys, city born and
from families of the landless class in
the south. The farm is on the lower
border of the middle Piedmont section
of North Carolina. About one-fourth
of it is open to cultivation. the rest be-
ing carefully protected forest of all va
rieties of native trees.
s"The plan. which am carefully
working out and details of which will
be printed when ready, is to incorpe-
rate the best features of the schools in
which useful kinds Of knowledge are
taught, with systematic farming chief
ly emphasized, the idea being to re-
store the free and Independent life of
the one time plantation boy There
will be settlement of negro boys on
the farm under the supervision of ne
groes."
Reasons For His Enterprise.
One of the reasons which led him to
suggest the enterprise, DIR. Haywood
said, was the depletion of the farming
population in North Carolina and other
southern states.
THE sweetest country in the world,
originally rich in every propitious ele-
ment of climate and soil. once thickly
settled with well to do and thrifty
farmers, has been deserted by the
landowners and abandoned or turned
over to negroes, who occupy the farms
under lease or mortgage" the preacher
added. "When statements of the acre
age owned by negroes are published
as an evidence of their wonderful
tables of statistics as to the
area should be printed also
At the best not more than 20 per cent
of the land owned by negroes is free
from mortgage.
"a misplaced emphasis in current
methods Of education is misdireeting
the energies of the world The edu-
Gated man is lost in the country fer
all useful purposes. Boys do net re
turn to the farms when taken rra,n
them and put through college fer the
reason that the things they have leara.
ed cannot be utilized in that environ
ment."
DR.. Haywood gave as another rea-
son for his enterprise the impractical
methods of agricultural schools. Most
of them. he said, are found In or near
cities.
A student graduated from college
Of agriculture aud put to work On
farm where nature is ice and mud in
winter and rocks in summer. is n dis
idealist." DR. Haywood add.
ed. 'On that suburban. garden plot
called an experiment station, equipped
with nickel plated implements, he
plays gentleman's game of farm
Ing. With a shining steel share he
turns up a cataract of pulverized soil
without a problem of clod, clay OF
sand for solution, with just the proper
chemical constituency to make pump
AAAo 01AN P0lettOOo 4OA Tic
ind q reservoir hard by to which he
may resort when the heavens are
brass.
Would Begin With Young Boys.
The congested population of this
eity would find happy relief on the
abandoned farms of the south, where
The cost of living will turn to the prof
L of living The mature life native
10 the city will not leave it; hence
begin with the boys, taking them from
six years to twelve, and let them grow
up on the farm. They will never get
over it.
There is growing demand every
where for trained. practical. skilled
,arm Iaborers and superintendent.
Never did the farm call so loudly as
low. Thither science is turning with
soil making, forestry and
implements and its hand
maiden. art with architecture and
andseape gardening The south will
De the great center of agricultural de-
7eioDment for the next auarfnr Of q