The progressive farmer and southern farm gazette. (Starkville, Miss.) 1910-1920, 1910-05-28

no" pussy the horses, Mrs. Farmer Jones can talk
with her sister ten twenty miles away lust as
II they were face to face. The farmers too own
the lines In most cases-puttng up their own
poles and stringng their own wire, a cooperative
company controlling the system. Usually each
FARMER has one share of stock for each phone he
uses, and the average cost per phone on these
party lines is only about IS year.
But what we OF the South need most to consider
Is the big fact pointed out by Dean Russell of the
wisconsin Agricultural College, namely that iso-
Iation is admittedly the crux of the rural prob
lem, and that the solution lies in smaller farms
bringing the people closer together. When we get
all our farmers educated each man owning his
own farm of 40 to so acres. intensvely cultivated
the world has ever known.
or course. our problem in the South is harder,
because for social purposes only members of ones
own race count. II there are 40 persons on a
square mile. and one-half of them are negroes, So
cially considered. it is the same as If the section
had only 20 persons pers quare mile. This is one
reason why our Southern white people must well
come immigration from the North and West The
Farmers Union has acted wisely in discouraging
indiscriminate European immigration but these
hustng enterprising Western farmers will do us
good II they come to us. They will get us to us
Ing more two and three-horse plows, for example
and immigration OF this sort must be our main
hope in relieving the tenseness of our race prob
lem So long as the proportion of negroes is as
large as 1t is now. neither race can do as we'll as
1t ought. and there is great encouragement in the
fact that while our negro population will grow
only by their actual increase. our white popula-
ton will grow by their natural increase plus a
great immigration.
For this immigration is bound to come South
just surely as water seeks it's level Land ia
cheaper in the South-one-half to one-third the
price of land of the same fertility in the West
and the climate is better. man of distinction
who was in western Canada few months ago and
then visited Texas, says land in Texas is worth
only one-third much as in the Canadian wheat
country. although the Canadian wheat settler
must be watchful not to get snowbound and starve
to death in winter. Right here in Wisconsin the
snow was seven feet deep this winter and you
couldn't see the ground from December to the LIST
OF March. Its too cold up there for me-" an
Iowa man who had come to Arkansas told me the
other day. II wouldn't go back If they gave me
farm" This cold. moreover. is not matter
of personal comfort alone but with forests too
scarce to supply firewood and coal at 50 a ton to
haul from the nearest railroad station, it cuts
big hole in farm profits when the farmer and his
family alone are considered. But there is the
stock. too-and everybody knows that stock in
cold weather must consume certain quantity of
food simply to keep up animal heat.
What money the Western farmer would give for
our long growing season. for the great variety Of
for nd Mt woc onrIu oil