Dakota farmers' leader. (Canton, S.D.) 1890-19??, 1911-05-19
Up to the Western Farmer.


period of transition or change. Ihe
pioneer has come and gone; put up his
cheap house, which he regarded as MS
place rather than his home; paStured
his cattle on the prairie: put up
enough wild hay to barely carry them
through the winter: scratched the
soil enough to give him bread, and
lived free and easy outdoor life.
He had no road problem, for he traV-
eled around on the ridges. and when
it was necessary he bridged the sloughs
With old hay or manure. He had no
school problem, for until the country
began to settle up he had no school
house He had no very serious weed
problem, for the soil had only native
weeds and compa ratiVely few OF them.
He led care free life, a life suited to
his tastes, and when population came
in he moved on.
He was followed by the soil robber,
or rather the soil miner. His prob
| lem was to mine the stored fertility
of the ages, sell it as best he could, up
| to within the last ten years practical
ly at the cost of mining. The incom-
ing railroads helped him, for they
gave him a market. Improved agri-
cultural machinery helped him might
lily for it enormously multiplied his
power to mine.
His school problem was not very
serious, for he lived on his farm; fam
lilies were larger then than now,
hence schools were large, school teach
ers cheaper and educational require
ments lower He had road problem
which he did not solve nor seriously
try to solve. He skinned the cream
off the SOIL and when the cream be-
came thin he moved Off west, seeking
for new soils to skim, richer and more
easily worked mines. Speaking gen
orally, he became rich, and especially
in the last ten years he has been get
ting richer, not by farming or mining,
but by the increase IN the value or his
lands, an increase due not TO any
thing he did or failed TO do, but to
the growth Of great cities ana 1ac-
tories: in other words, to the increase
in the population Of the entire coun-
try on one hand, and to the approx
mate exhaustion of agricultural lands
on the other His prosperity was
thus greater than he deserved. lie
moved to town, creating three prob
lens: one of The town, one or the
school, and besides these the rent or
tenant problem.
With the first thing we have moth
ing to do; that is for the town only, a
problem or city taxes and city i'm
provements. The other two are still
unsolved. When the price OF lands
began to increase, and with it the
price of farm products, capitalists be-
gan to invest In lands for speculation
or for permanent Investment, and
this helped to accentuate the tenant
problem: and now, whether we think
so or not, we are up against it hard.
harder than we are apt to realize.
We can in the future do one OF
three things. We can continue NOV
ing to town and still more completely
sterilize the schools, renting the land
on one year leases and forcing the
tenant to get out of the land all he
can, mining it more completely by do
ing intensive farming, adding to the
acreage of the farm by the absorption
of the smaller holdings, as we are do
ing now and have been doing for the
last ten years. Or we can combine
still more farms, and farm them by
hired superintendent and hired labor.
Or we can 90 back to the farms our
selves. 90 more intensive farming,
and eventually divide them among
our heirs, when we can farm no more.
The irst mentioned course leads to
sarily to national decay, the actual
farmer, the man who does the work,
tending more and more to become
peasant. and untitled for the high
duties OF American citizenship. The
second is practical only in certain sec
tions and with certain crops, and
means shifting labor population and
low order of social life. The third
is the only practical solution. Wheth-
er we have the courage and the
breadth of vision to undertake 1t or
not Is the question. You ask, "What
shall we do to educate our children?
We would not ask the retired farm
er to go back to the country and de-
pend on the six pupil or the ten pupil
! school for the education of his child
ren. Farmers realize the state of the
schools, and that Is one reason why
they are fleeing from the schools of
the country, which they spend two
ffths of their taxes to maintain, and
| fleeing to the schools of the city.
There are few things more pathetic
in our whole civilization than this.
! The only way to maintain the fer
tility of our soils permanently is to
reorganize our entire school sytem: in
other words, to establish graded
schools not In the town, but out in
the open country. To this many
farmers make two objections. One is
the cost and the other is the amount
of travel it necessitates for the child
rem.
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