Aberdeen herald. [volume] (Aberdeen, Chehalis County, W.T.) 1886-1917, 1910-09-01
COLONEL TALKS
TO UTlCANS,
Gives Advice 70 Farmers nCy
to Go Happy,
CONSERVATION HIS KEYNOTE


Giants of Business World--tlo home
Life Should Be Much appier-Take
the Condition of the Hired Man and
His Wife Into Consideration.
Utica. \. Y. Aug 23.--There are no
two public questions of more vital i'm
portance to the future of this country
than the problem of conservation and
the problem of the betterment of pub
lie life. Moreover these two problems
are really interdependent, for neither
of them can be successfully solved
save on condition that there is at least
a measurable success in the effort TO
solve the other. In any great country
the prime physical aSSet-the physical
asset more valuable than any other
is the fertility of the soil. All our
industrial and commercial welfare. all
our material development of every
kind. depends in the last resort upon
our preserving and increasing the fer
tility of the soil.
This. of course, means the conServa.
ton Of the soil as the great natural
resource. and equally. of course. it fur
thermOre implies the development of
country life. for there cannot be a per-
manent Improvement of the soil if
the life of those who live on it and
make their living out Of 1t is suffered
to starve and lanSuish to become
fn6 tut nrir
the type of life lived elsewhere.
We are now trying to preserve. not
for exploitation by individuals. but for
the permanent benefit of the whole
people. the waters and the forests. and
we are doing this primarily as
means of adding to the fertility of the
soil. although in each case there is a
great secondary use both of the wa.
ter and of the forests for commercial
and industrial purposes. In the same
way it is essential for the farmers
themselves TO try to broaden the life
of the man who lives in the open coun.
try. to make it more attractive. to give
1t every adjunct and aid to develop
ment which has been given to the life
of the man of the cities
Therefore. friends. the conservation
and rural life policies are really two
sides of the same policy. and down at
the bottom this policy rests upon the
fundamenlal law that neither man nor
nation can prosper unless in dealing
with the present he steadily take
thought for The future
Probiem Old Ono.
In one SENSE this problem with
which we have to deal is very. very
old. Wherever civilizations have hith-
erto sprung up they have always tend.
ed to go through certain stages and
then to fall. No nation can develop Il
real civilization without cities. Up to
a certain point the city movement is
thoroughly healthy Yet it is strange
and lamentabe fact that always hith
erto after this point has been reached
the city has tended to develop at the
expense of the country by draining
the country OF what Is best in it and
making an insignificant return for this
best.
In consequence in the past every civ
iliZatiOn in its later stages has tended
really to witness those conditions un-
der which 1.-The cities prosper and the
men decay" There are ugly signs that
these tendencies are ut work in this
nation Of ours. But very fortunately
we see now what never before was
seen in any civilzation-an aroused
and alert public interest in the prob
lem. Il recognition of its gravity and
desire to attempt it's solution.
The problem does not consist merely
in the growth of the city. Such
growth in itself is good thing and
not a bad thing for the country. The
problem consists in the growth of the
city at the expense of the country. and
even where this is not the case in so
great an equality Of growth in power
and interest as to make the city more
attractive than the country and there
fore apt to drain the country of the
people who ought to live therein.
The human side of the rural life
problem is to make the career Of the
farmer and the career Of the farm la
borer as attractive and as remunera-
tive as corresponding careers in the
city. Now. | am well aware that the
farmer must himself take the lead in
bringing this about. A century and a
quarter ago the wise English farmer
Arthur Young. wrote of the efforts to
improve French wool:
"A cultivator at the head of sheep
farm of 5000 or 1000 acres would in
a few years do more for their woods
than all the academicians and philoso-
piers will effect in ten centuries" 1t
is absurd to think that any man who
has studied the subject only theoret-
ically is fit to direct those who prac-
aically work at the matter. But.
friends l wish to insist to you here,
to you practical men who own and
work your farms. that it is an equally
pernicious absurdity for the practical
man to refuse to benefit by the work
OF the student.
The English farmer I have quoted
Young-was a practical farmer. but he
was also a scientific farmer.