Tazewell Republican. [volume] (Tazewell, Va.) 1892-1919, 1912-02-08
THE HIGH COST
OF LIVING.
A Countrywide Effort to Educate the
People to Better and More Scientific
Methods Of Farming.

- N'"'"O'
Speaking of the United Ststes, in
1857, Lord Macauley, one of the great
est men of his time, said:
"As long as you have a boundless ex-
tent of fertile. unocupied land, the la
boring population will be far more at
ease than the laboring populatinn of the
Old World; but the time will come when
New England will be as thickly popu-
lated as Old England; you will have
your Manchesters and your Birming-
hams, and in these Manchesters and
Birminghams hundreds of thousands of
artisans assuredIy will be sometimes
out of work. Then your institutions
will be fairly put to the test"
This prophecy met with ridicule at
the time, yet in three score years the
fulfillment approaches. Well may we
ask, Is wheat bread the staff of life
to become luxusy rather than a sta
pie? The present generation must an
swer.
President Taft speaking on the sub
ject, in his address at Kansas City,
September 25th, said:
1.-The welfare of the people is so de-
pendent on improved agricultural con-
ditions that it seems wise to use the
Welfare Clause of the Constitution to
authorize the expenditure of money for
improvement in agricultural education,
and leave to the States and private en-
terprise general and other vocational
educ alton.
ut is now proposed to organize a
force of three thousand men, one to
every county in the United States, who
will conduct experiments within the
county for the edification and education
of the present farmer and of the young
embryo farmers, who are being edu-
Gated. 1t is proposed that these men
shall be partly paid by the county,
partly by the State and partly by the
Federal Government, and it is hoped
that the actusl demonstration on the
farms in the county-Dot agricultural
stations or schools somewhere in the
State-but in the county itself, shall
bring home to the farmers what it is
possible to do with the very soil that
they themselves are engaged upon.
''It is ordinarily not wise to unite ad-
ministration between the county, State
aud Federal Governments, but this sub
ject is one so all compelling, it is one in
which all people are so much interested.
that cooperation seems easy and the
expenditure of money for a good pur-
pose so free from difficulty, that we
may properly welcome the plan and try
it"
James j. Hill, president of the Great
Northern Railway, says with reference
to teaching the farmers intensive farm
ing:
My experience is that there is only
one way to get the farmer to take up
the better methods Of agriculture, and
that is to show him. You must get
right down on the ground with them,
forget your Latin and biological names,
and just talk common sense and show
them results. Your plan contemplates
this, and it will work; there is no ques-
tion aboutit. Keep down to the ground
and you are all right"
Census returns show that during the
decade ending with 1910 the population
of this country increased 21 per cent.
This should necessarily mean a CORE
spending increase in needs for consump-
tion. But the improved farm acreage
increased only Az per cent. This 2l
per cent increase of population wes not
evenly distributed. Urban population
increased 24.9 per cent, while the rural
portion, from which the producers of
food come, increased Ill per cent, OF
less than one-third as much as the ur-
ban.
In 1910 agriculture composed 7S per
cent of all gainfui occupation; in 1906
the percentage had been reduced to 81
per cent. Probably the full census re-
turns for 1910 will show a further de-
cline.
1t Is thus more apparent than it was
a year ago that the question of raising
prices food stuffs, or of increased cost
of living becomes more acute each year
In the first place, while the population
increased over 21 per cent in the decade
covered by the last census, the farm
area, or the area of cultivated land gen
orally, has increased only a little over 4
per cent. The productivity has increas-
ed, but not nearly enough to take care
of the additional millions of consumers.
There is need of more farms, to begin
with. More men and women ought to
be engaged in agricultural pursuits ano
shun overcrowded professions and oc-
e equations.
One way to do this would be to en-
courage the immigrants who like Ital.
ians and Turks, are good agricultural
laborers, to settle on the land or in ru-
raj communities, instead of cities, and
use their farming skill instead of vast
ing il and danandinor on caeuol ;obs