The daily telegram. [volume] (Clarksburg, W. Va.) 1901-1926, 1911-09-25

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years over Is per cent. we sent |
abroad last year only about one
third the number Of cattle we sent
ten years ago. There is not the
a1ieb4est INDIGESTION that this decline
win be checked. II checked at all,
It win be but temporarily, due to an
industrial crisis. Were 1t not for
the over 500 million dollars worth
of cotton that we send abroad each
year, the country would be drained
Of it's precious metals to settle our
foreign obligations. and we would
Inc on the verge of national bank
Iruptcy. Lands in England that have
been farmed Tor more than thous-
and years produce more than twice
as much wheat per acre on the aver
age as we do In the naturally better
lands ofzthe Mississippi valley. This
demonstrates the difference between
farming and merely mining the soil
fertility.
..This condition has been greatly
FASTENED by our statesmen. The,
gift of an empire Of land to rail-
roads to enable them to furnish
speedy and cheap transportation for
q vast continent, together with the
homestead law 50 excessively stimu-
lated agricultural production that
the farmer was often. and in fact
generally, until about twelve years
ago. forced to sell his products at
and often under cost of production.
This gave the world cheaper food
than it will ever see again. and
made possible the Wonderful growth
of great cities the world over.
1.-THE anxiety of the farmer 20
find a hose market instead of hav-
ing his prices fixed in foreign
market under competition led to the
continuance of the system of high
tariffs long after the reason for it |
had ceased to exist, thus wonderfully
stimulating the growth of the cities
of our own land, cities which with
all our boasted ability we have never
been able to govern decent1y- When
this undue stimulus is removed as
1T VIII and must be sooner or later
our manufacturers will have to take
the same medicine which sickened
the farmers in the res, sos and
SOS.
.Tnasmuch as there are no more
Mississippi velreys to be opened up
we are now near the turning of the
lane. we must from now henceforth
learn how to farm. We can not
greatly increase our acreage; Will
in fact be compelled by the return
OF normal climate conditions over
our western territory to reduce it.
The only thing left to do Is to grow
more grain per acre, better stock in
greater numbers per quarter section
Only in this way can we reduce the
cost of living.
"ourg great problem, as I said
to this Congress a year ago, is how to
produce food for our own people at
prices which they can afford to pay.
But how? Partly by putting more
brains into our farming. Many
farmers have more faith in moon
signs than in agricultural colleges
and experiment stations; more faith
in ordinary politicians than in col
lege professors and scientists; more
faith in yellow journals than in the
best agricultural papers.
THE farmer complains that he
can not employ the labor necessary
to grow full crops on his land.
There is just ground for his com
plant. The factory, the store. the
railroad, the trolley line outbid
him for the labor. even that which is
farm born and farm bred There
fore, the very root and kernel of our
modern farm problem is how to re-
tain on the farm all the boys and
girls born there. who are At to be.
farmers wives. This can be done onIy
by making farm life worth living.
"AIl over the country there is the
beginning of a great social and in
dustrial awakening. The farmer is
beginning to magnify his Office to
cut loose from partisan bias, and to
do his own thinking and act for
himself. He IS paying better sal
aries to his school teRcAc-~ md in
sisting that the teaching have some
relation to the life on the farm. He
is buying his own automobiles. and
paying cash for them. He is begin
ming to realize that farm life is es-
sentfally different from the life of
the town. The movement to organ