The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1910-10-22


reading matter cheap, a hundredfold
more information is obtained bv
reading alone, than is impaired by
all the schools and colleges, and all
the institutes and demonstrations
J combined
How Reading Pays.
In the dozen States which com
prise our territory, not more than
1000 farmers institute are held each
year; two or three thousand boys
are in our agricultural schools, and
few other thousands are reached
| by the various forms of demon
stration work. Those reached by
these agencies are reached most er-
fectively and profitably. but every
week, fifty-tWO times Il year, The
Progressive Farmer and Gazette
| reaches upwards of 200, 900, counting
only two readers to each household
it enters.
Does this reading pay? Let Us
take for illustration, a modern dis
| covery which has lone so much for
| dairyng, the BabcOck test for butter
fat. Who made this discovery? Did
the practical dairyman give this to
his business? No. it came from the
scientist in his laboratory and was
given to the world through books,
bulletins and papers. Not one in
thousand now familiar with this
great discovery heard of it first in
school or college.
Again. let us take the question of
plant foods and fertilizers, especially
commercial fertilizers, through which
by spending $5O,OOO,OOO annually
we are able to maintain our crop
production although our soils have
been depleted because of our ig-
norance of agricultural knowledge.
Who made this development pos
sible? The chemists, starting with
Liebig and coming down through
the modern laboratories. In no
sense is the farmer--even the prac-
tical farmer-responsible for this
development. How has this knowl.
edge been spread By word of
mouth or by schools? No, it has
reached the masses through the
printing press and the reading habit
Was it the practical dairyman who
found out why milk sours and by
pointing the method of handling to
delay this. added millions to the
| wealth of the dairymen, or was it
the bacteriologists in his laboratory.
How has this knowledge been made
the common property of the masses
By the agricultural press in the vast
| majority of instances. 1t is useles to
multiply illustrations, for the con-
! clusion IS inevitable that if the mass
| es are to become educated it must
be through the extension of the read
ing habit.
Get An Education Through Reading.
Does reading pay apart from the
| pleasure and profit which must come
to any human being in communing
with the best thinkers of all ages in
all lands? Can the boy or girl on
the farm get an education through
reading?
The writer knows of scores of
men making "a success of farming
today. and who have good work
ing knowledge of the facts and prin-
ciples underlying modern agricul-
tural practice, who never received a
single lesson in school bearing on
this subject. BY reading they have
acquired an agricultural education
superior to that possessed by the
recent graduates Of any agricultural
J college. BY this we do not wish to
bellttle the value of a college edu-
cation. This writer would give four
Years of his time right now, although
nearing 80 years Of age, for a four
years course in an agricultural col
leg" If he could do SO with only the
sacrifice of his time. and yet he has
acquired working knowledge OF
agriculture which enables him to
do his daily editorial work solely by
reading, interpreted through the ex-
perlence Of a bOyhood spent on the
farm.
TO the parents of the boys and
girls on the farm, and to those BOYS
and girls themselves, we wish to
make an earnest appeal for the for
nation of the reading habit. 1t will
be worth more than $500 a year in
your farming, but if not in all cases
IN greater material wealth, always
in the pleasure which it will bring.
| Progressive Farmer
|