The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1910-08-24

| 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 inn
prove French wool: "A cultivator at
the head of a sheep farm Of 5000 or
1000 acres would in a few years do
more for their woods than all the
tacademicians and philosophers will eff
feet in ten centuries 1t Is absurd to
think that any man who has studied
the subject only theoretically is fit to
direct those who practically work at
the matter. But, friends, / wish to
insist to you hereto you practical
men, who own and work your farms
that 1T is an pernicious absurdity for
the practical men to refuse to benefit
by the work of the student. The Eng
lish farmer have quoted, Young, was
a practical farmer, but he was also a
| scientific farmer. One reason why
| the great business men OF today--the
great industrial leaders-hava gone
ahead, while the farmer has tended to
sag behind the others, is that they
are farmers willing, and indeed eager,
to profit by expert and technical
knowledge-the knowledge that can
come as a result of the highest edu-
| cation. From railways to factories
| no great industrial concern can nova
| days be carried on save by the aid of
swarm of men who have received a
| high technical education in chemistry,
| in engineering, in electricity, in one or
more of scores of special subjects. The
big business man, the big railway man
does not ask the college trained ex-
perts to tell him how to run his BUSH
ness; but he does ask numbers of
each to give him expert advice and aid
on some one point indispensable to his
business. He finds this man usually
is some graduate of a technical school
or college in which he has been train
ed for his life work.
| Farmers Should Benefit.
TN just the same way the farmers
should benefit by the advice of the
technical men who have been trained
in phases of the very work the farm
err does. / am not now speaking of
the man who has had an ordinary
general training, whether in school or
| college. While there should undoubt-
| eddy be such a training as founda-
| ton (the extent differing according
to the kind of work each boy intends
| to do as MANI, it is nevertheless true
| that our educational system should
| more and more be turned in the direc-
ton of educating men towards, and
not away from, the farm and the shop.
During the last half century We have
begun to develop a system of agri-
cultural education at once practical
nd nd
veloping 1t. But, after developing it,
| II must he used. The rich man who
| spends a fortune upon a fancy farm,
with entire Indifference to cost, does
not do much good to farming; but,
on the other hand, just as little is
! done by the working farmer who
stolidly refuses to profit by the knowl-
edge Of the day; who treats any eff
| fort at Improvement as absurd on it's
face, refuses to countenance what he
regards as new tangled ideas and con-
trivances, and jeers at all book farm
| ing / wish / could take representa-
tives of this type of farmer down to
Long Island, where / live, to have
1 them see what has been done, not as
| philanthropy but as a plain business
! proposition, by men connected with
! the Long Island railroad, who believe
| it pays to encourage the development
| of farms along the line of that rail-
way. They have put practical men in
| charge of experimental farms, Guilt
waiting them intensiyely, and using the
| best modern methods, not only in
raising crops, but in securing the best
market for the crops when raised. The
growth has been astounding, and land
/ only fifty miles from New York,
which during our entire national life
| time has been treated as worthless.
has within the last three or four years
| been proved to possess a really high
| value.
Must Make Country Life interesting.
! The farmer, however, must not
| only make his land pay, bat he must
make country life interesting for HIM
| self and for his wife and his sons and
daughters. Our people as whole
should realize the infinite possibilities
of life in the country; and every eff
| fort should be made to make these
possibilities more possible. From the
! beginning of time 1t has been the man
raised in the country-and usually the
man born in the countrywide has
been most apt to render the services
which every nation most needs. Turn
| Ing to the list OF American statesmen,
1t is extraordinary to see how large a
| proportion started as farm boys But
is rather sad to see that in recent
years most of these same boys have
ended their lives as men living in Cit
| les.
| 1T often happens that the hood con-
ditions of the past can be regained,
not by going back, but by going for
ward. We cannot recreate what is
dead; we cannot stop the march of
| events; but we can direct this march,
and out of the new condition develop
something better than the past knew.
Henry Clay was farmer who lived
all his life in the country; Washington
was farmer who lived and died in
| the country; and we of this nation
ought to make 1t our business to see
that the conditions are made such
that farm life in the future shall not
only develop men of that stamp OF
Washington and Henry Clay, but shall
be so attractive that these men may
continue as farmers; for remember
that Washington and Henry Clay
We're successful farmers. / hope that
things will so shape themselves that
the farmers can have a great career
and yet end his life as a farmer; SO
that the city man wifi look forward
TO living in the country rather than
the country man living in the city.
Farmers should learn how to COM
off