The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-05-22
COUNTY WORK
 OF THE Y. M. c. A.
Kindling Social Life in Ru- ral Districts-Regenerat- ing Decayed Country Towns = Developing Ru- ral Recreation.

Henry Israel, Secretary, County Worh
 Department of International Com
 mittee of Y M. c. A.
 Exclusive Service The Survey Press
 Bureau.)
 It was an old New England com n1unity of about 1,700 people. From II had come great men. Like so many other towns it became a victim or the old agriculture and fell into oecay. The soil of the surrounding sectlon ID thin and apparently unproductlve. Only the trunks of apple trees are left as monuments to a once sreo' apple producing district.
 To this village with its churches' post office, isolated store, all present ing a monotonous, gray, weather peat en apeparance for want of paint, came a county secretary, the employed or f1cer of a county committee Wnose business is to survey the needs ol the community and to call attentlon to the fact that there is a social llIe in the place and to cooperate with all of it's existing institutions.
 An analysis of the soil proved that it had lost none of its old virtue so far as apple growing was concerneo: The Agricultural College was asaeu to cooperate, philanthropic citizens were enlisted and land secured Wn1cn was planted with several thousand young apple trees. A dozen Or so ol the older boys to whom the secretary had given some idea of country nIe as it might be. were fired by the pos, abilities of the future and pleogeo their life and service to a new coii- munity. L..
 With the economic awakening of the town has come a like advance ment along all lines. The u1ural church has felt the stimulus of this new blood and the entire community was brought together on constructive program.
 rural life is cooperative. It fur- nishes a platform for all the towns in a county to come together through a county committee. Under its d1rec- tion and that of a county secretary and other experts in educational work the schools churches, granges, meo1- cal societies, boards of trade, civic improvement associations, Sunday schools and various boys organiza- tions learn to work together. The as- sociation in it's rural work recognizes the need for the conservation Of the natural resources and in order that the boys and young men may be con tent to stay on the land, demonstra- tions are conducted showing the pos
 
 work it is necessary to secure the help Of experts at experiment stations and agricultural colleges. One day courses are set up in various communities. The county secretary accompanies the ex- pertS from town to town. In some or the regularly organized counties as many as fourteen to sixteen rural cen- ters are organized. Corn growing, poultry raising and fruit growing con- tests are arranged and classes and demonstrations organized in potato raising, dairying, reforestration and horticulture.
 The boy in the country needs to have in addition to his school educa- ton a more intimate knowledge of the natural sciences. Practical rather than academic information is impart- ed through simple talks on astronomy biology, botany, zoology, geology and mathematical subjects related to the farm and to the home. This training covers cost accounting, measurement of garden plots, the height of trees and other necessary practice in math- enatics.
 It is agreed that the country needs a social life The inherent organiza- tion germ of the Y. M. c. A. is so- cial It takes isolated communities and brings them together under the county work plan. It brings individ- uals together in groups and villages join in play, in intercomunity debates, intercommunity agricultural contests and intercommunity church move ments and many programs of social activities are carried out, involving neighborhoods, homes and families, boys and girls.
 The great need of agrarian represen- tation in governmental afafirs is ap- parent. We are dominated by urban aggression The better acouaiptauce of 25,000 young men and boys in or ganized rural societies with the mem- bers of their State Legislatures and the congressional representatives, who are invited to address them upon mat ters of vital current interest, will do much to spread a, knowledge of gov ernmental affairs as they relate them selves to rural interests. The conduct of town meetings in which bills are introduced and discussed, involving the value of telephone franchises, of