The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-02-08
Frisco Will Teach City People
How to Farm.
Conduct High Schools for In
struction of Weary Urbanites.
is "BACKTO THEFARM
Frisco Would Relieve Population
Of Skyscrapers.
Other Items of General Interest
in Railroad Circles.

A great railroad system is to reach
out from teaching farmers how to farm
and showing settlers where to buy land
to the novel experiment of instructing
city people in the art of ti1ling the soil
and raising the gentle dairy COW.
The experiment, said to be with
out precedent in the entire country, will
begin this month when the Frisco sys-
tenn starts in ST. Louis a free night
school of farming. By students of the
proposition the idea is regarded as hav-
ing great possibilities, and the success
of the school in ST. Louis will likely
mean its adoption by other railroads
tapping the west, and the founding of a
system of free schools teaching agricul-
ture in many cities.
Back to the farm" is, of course, the
slogan of the movement, and behind
this is the railroads desire to sell land
and settle the territory which feeds it in
the states of the southwest. The
Frisco's plan is an offshoot of the cam
paign of education and development
which the Missouri immigration COM
mission inaugurated last year with the
object of bringing settlers to the state
and teaching the farmers already here
how to make more productive their
farms in districts where modern farm
ing methods lag.
lie QdlIy Special, WHICH lIlS
grafton commission and the State Agri-
cultural college of Missouri will run
over the Frisco, starting from st. Louis
February Is, is a pioneer in several
such expeditions to be conducted this
year. Governor Hadley will accompany
the train and experts will talk on fruit
growing, dairying and scientific farm
ing at 81 stations in south Missouri
during a 700-mile tour.
John H. Curran, chief immigration
commissioner. is cooperating with the
new school, and Dean +. B. Mumford
of the Missouri Agricultural college has
assigned members of it's faculty to give
a course of lectures particularly
adapted for novices in farming. The
plan of the school is to deal entirely
how and what can be done with small
tract of land by intensive farming.
Particular attention is to be paid to
poultry raising, fruit growing. dairy
ing and truck gardening, and the pos
sibilities and problems that each pre-
to make a living at a new trade.
Promoters of the school make the
point that, although every third man
in st. Louis was brought up on a farm,
in the last decade that few of
the adopted city jewellers could really
a farm with the best results. 1t
Is not to this class, however, that the
school is expected to reach in the main.
of native urbanites. it is de-
clared, are weary of city life, and eager
to quit the smoke and skyscrapers and
strenuous life if they thought thsy
could make a living on a farm of
modest proportions.
It is to inform this class in what they
want to know that the school is de-
the man who has accumu-
lated a little money and wants to try
his hand on the soil. This class, by
bringing into application the business
acumen of the city man. makes the best
kind of farmers, the railroad land
agents claim.