Evening journal. [volume] (Wilmington, Del.) 1888-1932, 1910-09-07
COUNTRY NEEDS
MORE WORKERS
This the Real Problem, COun-
try Life Commissioners
Tell COnServatiOniStS
IRRIGATION AS BOON
TO THE SOIL TILLERS

ST. PAUL, Sept. This was Farm
Afternoon at the National Conserva-
ton Congress. I'VE have too many
people III the cities; too few in the
country" said Henry Wallace, author,
editor, aud member of Roosevelts
country life commission, of Des
Moines, Ia, whose address on 1.-THE
Real Problem" was one a the feat
ures of the day.
THE great problem is how TO keep
enough skilled men on the farms to
grow food at a price which the peo-
pie i'm the towns and cities can afford
to pay.
"The city man does not now obtain
food at anything like the farm price.
He pays a third more, often twice as
much-three times. sometimes four
and five times as much as the farmer
receives. So long as we had virgin
soil TO rob we did not see the newt
able end but now that consumption
has overtaken production the city
wakes up and asks whence is to come
| its bread, and it's meats, at a price
at which It is able to purchase.
THE city must be told with brutal
frankness that there are too many
consumers Of farm products and too
few producers.
THE farmer, too, is beginning to
wake up, and finds that his yield per
acre has been slowly declining for 40
years The farmer Is a hard fellow
TO waken; when Roosevelt and James
Hill talk to him he rouses himself
rubs his eyes. finally concludes that
il is only scare, and then goes 10
sleep.
IF the townsman is to live on his
income ne must get farm products
moved from the farm to his kitchen
door cheaper than he has been get
ting them. He must do the market
\ ing himself rather than ordering by
telephone, which adds about 16 per
cent to the cost. He must get rid
Of the baby trust. which fix prices for
both town and city and, vermin-like,
live off the farmer and consumer
"On the farmers side he can add
some acres by Irrigation slow pro-
cess-and by reclamation. Better
/ cultivation, crop rotation and live
stock farming are necessary.
81 have known cases where farm
girls I'm Iowa were compelled to go
into the harvest field and proved bet
ter hands than many men who were
paid 81 per day This illustrates the
ineflCiency of naach of the labor
which the farmer is compelled to use.
| The farmer can seldom use the city
man. IL the farm-bOrn boys and
girls could be kept on the farm the
over-populating power Of the farm
breed of people would I'm time give us
the labor which the farmer needs.
1T is q burning shame that, with
the finest body of agriculture land in
the world, we excel in wheat grow
ing only the peasants of Russia and of
India, that we should grow less than
! one-half the wheat per acre grown
by England. France and Germany on
land that has been farmed a thousand
years.
THE most important thing is tC
make farm life satisfactory TO the
young and prevent them becoming
consumers instead Of producers. Col
man fit TO be a farmer is worth
more to the city Just now on a farm
than in the icty. Increased intelli.
gence means a reform in our rura
schools, converting them from poor
d town schools, moved out into tn,
b country, to a school that imhues tn,
pupils in their plastic stage with Z
love of farm life and fits them for it
lt means eventually the specialization
Of rural life, as distinct from cit!
= life.
This nation cannot maintain III
I high standard of civilization unless
the drift from the country to the cit,
can be stopped The cities use nj
! men and families as they use vi
horses. The country cannot STAN
much more Swimming of its cream
into the city. The trouble with tn
: people of the United States, both Il
!, city and In country, is that the con
q dluons of life have heretofore bee
too easy. The farmer has got rio
Y by mining the soil and harvesting tn
81 unearned product, rather than b
Al farming; the great cities largely b
Il favortism at the hands of corpora
tions.
1--WE are now nearing the end of on
tether We are facing the problei
q of how to keep enough people on tn
n farms to feed the cities at pric
~ which fhay oaf a ford IN nov