Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1911-12-08
GOOD FARM TALK.
Practice Is Better Than Theory,
Says James J. Hill.
GRADUATES CANNOT PLOW.
Get Their Degrees From the Aericul-
turaI Colleges, but Know Little of
Practical Work-Rieht Sort of Labor
Is Needed Badly.

Practical Work-Rieht Sort of Labor
Is Needed Badly.
Practical farming, the work of agri-
cultural colleges, the scarcity of COM
petent farm labor and other questions
were discussed freely by James J. Hill.
chairman of the board of directors of
the Great Northern Railway company,
in letter to David Brown, chairman
of the Spokane committee of the nation
al country life congress. Mr. Hill says:
always the first and most important
matter is to reach the individual farm
er and show him what he himself can
do on his land. The most highly edu-
Gated agricultural professor or teacher
when placed upon Il farm can do little
more, if anything, beyond adapting his
crop to the soil. To select good seed
and to properly cultivate the land-that
is all within the reach of the average
farmer.
"He can or should know what crop
his land is best adapted to raise He
can test his seed by taking a hundred
grains of each kind and planting them
in box of average soil and placing the
box in place where the sun will shine
upon it. The number of grains that
grow will give him the percentage of
good seed from which he will get re-
suits. He should use every particle of
barnyard manure as fertilizer, and he
should prepare his seed bed by thor
ough cultivation before planting, and
then it should be well narrowed.
..'Fhot is hot Io.
informed agriculturist could do under
the same circumstances. If the farm
er is successful in raising full crops !
think it is fair to assume that lie can
be trusted to improve all his home
surroundings and his social condition.
MANY of our agricultural schools
are more engaged in turning out teach
ers rather than farmers. In the agri-
cultural countries in Europe agricul-
tural education has further advanced
than with us. At the National Edu-
cational association meeting last year
n speaker said, 4 recently heard
young agricultural college graduate,
who had been placed in charge of a
farm, deplore the fact that he and
others like him could go through col
lege and receive a bachelors degree in
agriculture without learning how to
plow or dig ditch or harness a horse
or milk q cow
What will help a farmer most Is
clearly to enable him to help himself,
and this can be done by showing him
on his own farm. Manual training
would never amount to anything If
the pupil did not actually make things,
and the same applies to the cultiva-
ton Of the farm.
Our agricultural population forty
years ago was about so per cent of the
entire population of the country. 1t
is now less than one-third. Forty
years ago the agricultural population
had to raise food for their own mouths
and for one additional mouth. Now
we have to raise food for two addi-
tional mouths.
THE scarcity of good farm labor to-
day is felt by every farmer in the
country, and the want of it is COM
pelling him to limit his cultivation
practically to what can be done by
machinery. 1t is very difficult to get
farm labor. competent or willing, to
take proper care of live stock or milk
COW. Still. if you should ask any
labor leader in the country he would
tell you there is too much labor in the
country and that some steps should
be taken to restrict immigration of
that class. There are certain laws
that govern these questions regardless
of man made regulations, and as long
as wages are higher in the United
states than anywhere else people will
come here"