El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1910-09-07

"
farm youth for better farm manage
ment We have inherited our system
of education that looked TO the farm
for the best material 10 reinforce the
professions and the industries. Edu-
cation has therefore. prepared young
people for everything but farm life
Educating the Farmers.
Twenty million pieces of literature
relating to the farm were sent out
from the department of agriculture
during the last fiscal year. The state
agricultural colleges all contribute TO
the volume of printed matter relating
TO the farm.
irrigation and dry land farming,
new bread and fodder plants, the
growing of sugar beets last year TO
make our 500. 600 tons of sugar, the
prospect of using the carbon dioxyle
of our atmosphere to make all our
sweetening. the development of rice
on the gulf coast to equal our con-
sumption, the study Of tobaccos Of
home growth to save the nations
money. the exploration of the old world
for plants to increase the food Of the
people and add to its variety; these and
p thousand other activities that affect
agriculture the people read about and
approve.
There are well known methods Of
farm management practiced by our
best farmers that brings good results
and well known methods and prac-
tees that reduce fertility and render
operations on the farm improbable.
IF our country is to grow and de-
veIop as patriotic people hope. we mus:
conserve the fertility of our soils. and
= init M
only on our farms but that which
falls upon the highlands and now flows
idly to the seas in all sections OF our
country
Too Many People in Cities.
Henry Wallace of Des Moines, Ia, an
editor, who was a member OF Roose-
velt's Country Life commission. said;
''The most real and vital question be-
fore the American people for the next
twenty years will be how to keep
enough skilled men on the farms to
grow food at a price which the people
in the towns and cities can afford to
pay The present high price of food
products in all the markets of the nation
furnishes conclusive proof that we nave
too many people in the cities-too few
in the country: too many eaters-too
few food producers.
1.-The problem for the city man is
also complicated, and that seriously, by
the fact that he does not now obtain
the farms products at the farm price.
or anything like it, but pays always a
third more, often twice as much
three timeS-sometimes four and five
times as much as the farmer receives.
1t is still further complicated by the
fact that the average city man is not
content TO live as his father lived or
.as he lived ten or twenty years ago.
He must have strawberries from Texas,
green peas from Florida; must have
| spring chicken, young and tender (from
cold storage, of course) in February;
must have other fruits out of season:
| must have the most tender cuts of
beef, not bought at the market house
but ordered by telephone.
The farmer is beginning to wake up
and finds to his surprise that his yield
per acre has been slowly but surely
declining for forty years. He finds that
he has squandered his forests of hard
wood and pine, and worse still. he has
/ burned up the humus Of the soil by eX-
! tensive cultivation. This farmer is a
! hard fellow to waken; when Roosevelt
and James Hill talk to him through
their megaphones, he rouses himself.
rubs his eyes, finally concludes that it
| is only a scare and then goes to sleep.
| One of the objects of this convention is
to waken both the town and the coun-
try to the facts of the situation, obvi-
/ Gus to every man who will open his
| eyes.
City People Live High.
IF the townsman is to live on his in
come, he must improve his system Of
distribution; he must get farm pro-
| ducts from the farm to the kitchen door
| cheaper than he has been getting them.
He must do~the marketing himself
rather than ordering by telephone.
which adds about 16 percent to the cost
| of his food. He must get rid of thu
| baby trusts which fix prices both for
town and city and vermin-like which
live off both the farmer and the con.
| sumner by their method of fixing prices.
He will have to be satisfied with less
food out of season, gathered before its
| time.
On the farmers side, we can add
some food for producing acres, mainly
| by irrigatfen-a slow process and linn
1 tied at best-and by drainage. Our
main hope is by increasing yields pei
acre. That means more intense farm
| ing by which we mean better cultiva-
| ton. crop rotation and live stock farm
| ing-intensive, yet diversified. Just
| here we are UP against the real thing
| for better farming means more labor
and skilled farm labor is not to be
had in sufficient quantities either or
/ the farm or in the home.
The rapidly increasing agricultural
| intelligence among farmers which en-
1 ables them to use the little skilled Ia
| Dor they can secure to the best advan-
| tage and repair wasted fertility will do
much in the way of eventually lowering
| the prices of farm products in the city
| This nation cannot maintain its high
1 Dda I'd of oix-iliZa he ri
| from the country to the towns can be
| in some way arrested. The cities use