Okolona messenger. (Okolona, Miss.) 1900-current, 1911-04-27
BACK TO THE FARM PROBLEM
Professor Bailey Says Man Probably
Will Find It Most Satisfying
Business If Location Good.

OF all the problems that confront
humanity, none has received more at
t%ention, perhaps, than that involving
the wisdom of the movement, or agita-
tRn, to encourage men of the city to
go back to the land for a living. 1t
is a question that will not be put
down. It hobs up every day, and
with especial frequency in the agri-
cultural college, where boys and girls
are making out the programs for the
future. 1t is hard to answer, too, be-
cause no two men are likely to go at
a task in the same way. One city man
might make good and another, In the
next field, fail miserably. 1t is a big,
big problem,
Some of the most successful coun-
trymen l know were city folk, and
many Of the most disastrous failures
were also city folk" says Prof, Lib
erty H. Bailey of Cornell, in Country
Life in America. IF my reader knows
farming and is country-minded, he
may go OF a farm with assurance, II
he is not too old and If he has suff-
cient capital. He probably will find it
o most satisfying business, If he Sc
cures a good location. He must ex-
pect many dlscouragements, for the
things that can happen on a farm are
beyond all imagination, particularly il
the place Is left more or less in the
hands of a hired man or a tenant.
: Wells will go dry; pigs will lie down
and give up the ghost; eggs will re-
fuse to hatch; sheep will have them
selves killed by dogs; plows will go
to smash; horses will acquire the
; heaves or run nails into their feet;
: trees will infest themselves with San
Jose scale; the cellar will freeze and
! the roof will leak; sickness will In
u wade the hired mans family; and nc
end of tools and things will take them
selves into parts unknown or vanlsf
. into thin air; and the pe%rpleXity o.
1t Is that the books and the period
- icals do not give recipes for all thes'
= torrents and troubles. My city en-
thusiast will reply that the uneH
p pected happens in town as well as /
~ country; l know it, but l want hir
also to understand that 1t happens
~ country as we'll as in town, and tina
- he must lay by a capital stock {
y patience, good temper, and read
money.
- 81 care nothing where the farmer
born-whether in city or in the cou
try or on the sea-if only he is real
a farmer. To be really a farmer Is
be farm-minded and to know the bus
ness; and the way to learn to be
~ farmer is to practice it, and viii
practicing 1t to call to his aid all got
advice in books and otherwise. I
10 should learn the business from a go'
farmer, or If he has the time al
tie money to spend, he may teach hi
self, but he is likely then to have
very long course of study and a We
incompetent teacher. The more scho
of ing he has-particularly in an az
a cultural institution-the sooner a
his the more fundamentally should
ian learn, and the better should be
lys results; but he must really learn he
Ter. nevertheless. One a never run
ect farm by admiring 1t and by readi
ess about It. Nothing Is easier than
ing figure a profit on a paper farm; {
has only to choose a product Il
pom yields heavily and sells for a h
eve price. then estimate the cost Of CHI
Of land, and the thing is done"