Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1911-10-19

IL uCEO5 OE CCHEEE LlOA IO06F
conserve conservation. There is an
immense waste Of talk and time and
crude unconstructive thought on this
subject. Too many men are crying,
10, Salvation lies in this direction,
Or that" Too many are talking with
an Interior purpose of personal gain
in nOtoriety or politics. Forests,
mines and water powers claim the
principal part Of the thought and at
tentiCn when they are not the para
mount subjects of conservation we
consider. 1t is too easy to generalize
or denounce or set up impractical
standards Of action by men who have
not constructive, practical thought
TO offer, whereby the desired things
we might wish for may be obtained.
But here stands a great necessity,
a glazing mistake, the result of gross
ignorance on the part of the farmers
of the American nation for many
generations. They have wasted their
heritage. They are continually
wasting it. Eighty-three millions Of
people are depending today for food
on the wisdom, the skill, the con-
serving good sense of 100000 of
farmers. By another decade 100, 00G,-
coo will face the same dependence.
The cry goes up from this vast
army of consumers against the high
cost of living. The contingencies of
the seasons, serious as they are often
times, are enough for producer and
consumer to face. But we are con-
fTonted with the most serious danger
of all in the wasting of fertility, the
steady decline in the productive pow
er Of our arabic lands. Here stands
the question: An increasing demand
and necessity for food and a steady
decline in our lands of the power to
produce food. How long shall that
reproach to our intelligence con-
tinue?
Before that great and overwheIm-
ing necessity all other questions of
conservation pale into insignificance
The commissioner of agriculture
CT the state of New York asserts that
IAAcAL otEAtC tO4lG has IOoL p 1Oo ,OOVs uVU
in thirty years in the decline of farm
values. In my native county of Madi-
son in that state l can buy farms to-
day for $40 to $50 an acre that once
sold for 800 an acre. The same IS
true of the famous old western re-
serve in Ohio, of many sections in
Indiana, and proportionately SO in
the southern portion of Illinois. Who
hath wrought this fearful destruction
of the original productive power of
the state and nation? The farmer.
Why? Because of his ignorance of
the principles of fertility and of the
methods that belong to intelligent
agriculture.
Until very recently the forces of
education, all under the control of
the states, have done nothing to edu-
cate the farmer to a better under
standing of his duty to himself, his
calling as a farmer, and the millions
who must depend upon him for food.
The people have gone mad, so to
speak, in the pursuit and worship of
sO-called higher education, and neg
lected the basic subsidiary schools
where the main body of farmers must
be trained, if trained at all, into an
understanding of what they are
about. You know, as every man
knows, that the country district school
is the only school where 80 per
cent of all the farmers of the land
have received or will receive for
many years to come the schooling
they will get. The teachers of the
state and the political forces of the
state are solely responsible for the
character of the country school.
There has been but little vital push
ing force among the teachers for the
uplift of the country schools. The
politicians have given it the go-by
because as yet there are no votes in
it as an issue. The farmers do not
believe in it as a vital energizing
principle in their midst for their own
enlightenment and that of their chill
dren concerning the things that make
for the betterment of agriculture.
Do you for a moment suppose that
all of this appalling waste Of fertil-
ity that exists and consequent de-
sEuction of farm values, would have
taken place if the country district
school had been organized to teach
the farm children the elements of
fertility as science and common
sense knew them to exist? We must
then charge upon the past and pres
ent system of education the respon-
sibility for this ignorance that has
wasted the productive power of the
nation.
We fatter ourselves that we of the
middle west are to be saved from
this tide of destruction because God
has given us a soil of such marvellous
fertility. But our farmers are just
as great spendthrifts OF this God
given heritage as were the eastern
farmers. The trouble lies in our lack
OF knowledge, real helpful knowl-
edge.
Think of the millions of acres of
corn stalks IN the great corn pro-
ducing states Of Illinois, Missouri,
The Rz.e1a e.. IA