The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1911-06-06
KAMsxS+coMMENT
City MEN on. rHE FARM.

CITY MEN ON THE FARM
j. H. Arnold, scientist in the bureau
OF plant industry at Washington, says
IL is possible for men without previous
experience in farming to make a sue
cess OF the work. In a bulletin he tells
the story of lawyer who, at the age
OF 6O, tackled farm in the Shenan-
doah Valley of Virginia and made not
merely living, but a competence, for
his family of ten.
1t is a fact well demonstrated by
statistics that more men succeed at
Farming than at any other vocation.
lure is the primary industry, and al
most everybody traces back to the SOIL
directly or indirectly.
But it is another fact. not so gen
orally known and appreciated, that
city men without previous experience
cultural development and have created
the finest forms of country life in the
last generation. This has been parti-
cularly true of settlements Ike Greeley,
Colo, and Riverside, Cal, both monu-
mental achievements, important not
only for what they did for them
selves, but still more for W hat they in
splred among others Each was a
mother colony" in its state, and each
had lusty brood of offspring, which
IN some respects began where their
progenitors left off AND improved
upon the original.
These city men raised irrigation
from a crude method to fine art'
in it's way. At Greeley they took the
common old potato and, searching the
world for seed and Information, de-
veloped it into famous and profitable
product. At Riverside they made or
ange-growing truly commercial en-
Fterprise for the first time on the Paci-
f1c coast. They also invented new ways
OF marketing that taught business men
a wholesome respect for farmers.
1t is extraordinary, when you come
to think of 1t, that the man whose
brains have been sharpened on the
city grindstone should be resourceful
and even creative when he sets his
hand to the work of tilling the soil.
nor can one fail to acknowledge, on re-
Election, that even what he does not
know is something of ar asset when.
as in the arid West, he comes to deal
with conditions new and strange to
English-speaking men.
At any rate. it is fact that many
city men are doing exceedingly well in
farming, even teaching old farmers
new tricks.-Wichita Beacon.
%
WHERE ARE WE AT''
In this age of freaks and foolish
ness we scarcely know where we are
at. 1t would keep a man performing
like a monkey in a circus to follow
the suggestions of those who claim to
be the lights of land. A new theory
is born every thirty minutes. In the
morning paper we find DR.. So and So
advocates eating our meals dry and we
take dinner accordingly. We read in
the evening paper that another DR.. So
and So. advises drinking water with
our meals and. we wash down our sup
per with water. Along comes the raw
food fool declaring we should eat
things raw and right on his heels the
fellow clamoring for better cooking. So
we are kept busy jumping from dry
grub to soup and from soup to raw
dog and from raw dog to roast meat,
and so on to the end of the chapter.
And likewise with our apparel. One
fool says we should wear nothing but
a tooth brush and a smile. and an
other says we are killing ourselves
with scant clothing. And where we
play the fool at it is wheE we pay any
serious attention to any of these
cranks and crack-brains. Eat what
we blooming please, wear what we
feel like wearing and sa.- nothing
about harem skirts and such like
Beaver Valley Booster.