The daily telegram. [volume] (Clarksburg, W. Va.) 1901-1926, 1911-09-25
TJNDREDS OF SEANlENl PERI ST. IN HOT FL=LA1
ROBBERS OF SOIL
FARMERS ARE NOW
Declares DR. Wallace, Presi-
dent of the Third Con-
servation Congress.

, KANSAS .GEAeAa G9GRNs -
all the leading champions of conser-
vation, $500 delegates, were here
when pr. Horny wallace, of Dies
Moines, called the first meeting of
the third annual Conservation Con
gress to order today {
president TAFT will deliver the
pricipal address tonight.
Declaring that many farmers of
the present day have more faith in
moon signs than in agricultural
colleges and experiment stations;
more faith in ordinary politicians
than in college professors AMI
scientists, more faith in yellow
journals than in the best aGricui-
tural papers. and that the nineteenth
century farmer was no farmer at all.
but a robber of the soil. Henry Wal
lace, president of the congress de-
Iivered an address today strongly
urging scientific farming as the only
means by which the cost of living
can be reduced. In part Mr. Wal
lace said:
at will be my object in this adj
dress not to discuss any phase OF
the conservation movement exhaus-
lively, but to outline briefly two
drifts OF population The drift from
the farm to the city, and the drift
from the city toward the land and
the work of this congress as related
thereto.
Even before the daily press had
begun the crusade back to the
land the movement toward the
land had already begun.
The land hunger is not peculiar
to any class of-peopIe nor to any
state. The merchant, the banker,
the railroad official of New York
and Boston, each longs for farm,
possibly merely as summer home.
but is willing to pay for it in invest
mcnt, in improvement and cost of
more than it is worth
in dollars or even will be. He, too.
is bitten with land hunger. Many
small business men of our cities,
who cannot hope to secure farm
ana live on It. invest greedIly in
acreage in the suburbs. The work
man in the factory aims to secure
two or three acres on which he can
build himself home.
Tine growth of largo cities has
ceased to be in the business or even
in the old residence sections. and is
entirely in the suburbs. The same
holds true abroad. If men can not
have country life in the country
they are constantly aiming to get as
much as possible of the country in
the city. While the steam railroads
tend to concentrate population. as
they have from the beginning, the
trolley lines tend to lure the people
back toward the country.
Latent in the heart OF nearly
every man, he he man of business.
clerk or other employee. or IaborinG
with his hands, there is a yearninE
desire to have piece of land to call
his own.
Alongside of this movement back
toward If not always to the farm
the counter movement from the farm
to the town which has been going
on for fifty years. continues with
increasing and accelerated force
Farmers all over the older West
move IN great numbers or retire to
the country towns: and notwith-
standing all this constant influx OF
population from the farms these
towns, as the late census reveals
have barely held their own and
have often lost In population. the
natural increase of the towns them
selves pouring into the larger towns
and cities, in which the majority
live with less comfort than the far
mars who remain on the farms. Vast
numbers of boys and girls fall
prey to alIuring vices of the city
and many of them eventually take
their places with the down and
out. Comparatively few succeed
and become well-to-do. The chill
dren of these few become wealthy;
their grandchildren usually spend
gniIy the fortunes they never earned
and naturally the family dies out, at
least so far as force and power are
concerned, in another generation or
at most two or three. The city
uses up men and families as 1t uses
nm horses. And this is true not only
in this but in the older countries
as VOL. All Ireland. for example
except Dublin and Belfast, has lost