Aberdeen herald. [volume] (Aberdeen, Chehalis County, W.T.) 1886-1917, 1910-09-01

ieS NtlIttU W say DtIllIlu tlIc Ot litIS Is
that they are far more willing and in
deed eager 10 profit by expert and
technical knowledge the knowledge
thai can only come rs a result ot the
factories no great industrial concern
can nowadays be carried on save by
,he Hid OF - swarm of men Who nave
received Il high technical education III
chemistry. in engineering. in elertrici.
~ and in one or more of scores of spe-
cial subjects
The big business man. the big rail
WAY man. does not ask college trained
experts 10 tell him how to run his busi
ness. bur he does ask numbers of them
each to give him expert advice and aid
on some one point Indispensable to his
business. He finds this man usually
in some graduate of n technical school
or college in which he has been trained
for his life work
In just the same way the farmers
should benefit by the advice of the
technical men who have been trained
in phases of the very work the farmer
does. am not now speaking of the
man who has had an ordinary general
training. whether in school or college.
While there should undoubtedly be
such a training rs a foundation lex
tent differing according to the kind of
work each boy intends to do as mani.
it is nevertheless true that our educa-
tional system should more and more
be turned in the direction of educating
men toward and not away from the
farm and the shop.
During the last half century we have
begun to develop system of agricul-
tural education at once practical and
scientific. and we must go on devel-
Oping it. But after developing 1t 1t
must be used. The rich man who
spends a fortune upon fancy farm
with entire indifference to cost does
not do much good to farming; but. on
the other hand. just as little is done by
the working farmer who stoldly re-
fuses to profit by the knowledge of the
day, who treats any effort at improve
ment as absurd on it's face. refuses to
countenance what he regards as new
tangled ideas and cOntrivances and
jeers at all "book farming"
wish l could take representatives
of this type Of farmer down to Long
Island. where live. to have them see
what has been done. not as philanthro
py. but as plain business proposition.
by men connected with the Long Is.
land railroad. who believe it pays to
encourage the development of farms
along the line of that railway. They
experimental farms. cultivating them
intensively and using the best mod
ern methods not only in raising crops.
but in securing the best market for
the crops when raised.
The growth has been astounding
and land only fifty miles from New
York which. during our entire national
lifetime has been treated as worth
less. has within the last three or four
years been proved to possess a really
high value
Interest to Farm Life.
The farmer. however. must not only
make his land pay. but he must make
country life Interesting for himself
and for his wife and his sons and
daughters. Our people as whole
should realize the infinite possibilities
of life in the country. and every eff
fort should be made to make these
possibilities more possible.
From the beginning of time it has
been the man raised in the country
and usually the man born in the coun.
try-who has been most apt to rem
der the services which every nation
most needs. Turning to the list Of
American statesmen. it is extraordi-
nary to see how large a proportion
started as farm boys. But it is
rather sad to see that in recent years
most of these same boys have ended
their lives as men living in cities.
1t often happens that the good con-
ditions of the past can be regained not
by going back. but by going forward.
We cannot recreate what is dead; we
cannot stop the march Of events But
we can direct this march and out of
the new conditions develop something
better than the past knew. Henry
Clay was Il farmer. who lived all his
life in the country: Washington was a
farmer. who lived and died in the
country. And we Of this nation ought
to make it our business to see that the
conditions are made such that farm
life in the future shall not only de-
velop men of the stamp Of Washing
ton and Henry Clay. but shall be so at
tractive that these men may continue
as farmers. for remember that Wash
ington and Henry Clay were success
full farmers.
l hope that things will so shape
themselves that the farmer can have
a great career and yet end his life as
a farmer, so that the city man will
look forward to living in the country
rather than the country man to living
in the city.
Farmers should learn how to COM