The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1913-08-29
PUBLIC SCHOOLS mi
HEADED AWAY FROM
FARMS TO CITIES
TIE TURN OF THE LANE Is
REACHED AND AGRICULTURE
is RECOGNIZED.
NEWSPAPERS GIVEN CREDIT
The High Cost of Living Has Forced
the People to Begin to Think and
The Thinking Has Shown Where
The Trouble Lies.

The Trouble lies
nv Capt. T. F. Peck, Commissioner
Of Agriculture.
We import into Tennessee every
year wheat, corn, oats, hay, rye, bar
ley, apples, potatoes, milk, butter,
meats and cheese, all staple products
in Tennessee, and all can be produc-
ed right here in the State as well
and as cheap as they can be pro-
duced anywhere. The money paid
out that leaves the state runs into,
millions of dollars. Why should this
money leave the State when the pro-
ducts it pays for can be produced
better here?
Since earliest childhood we have
heard orators grow eloquent over
our matchless resources, the fertility
of our soils, the abundance and pur-
ity of our water. The luxurance of
the grass on our meadows, our fields
of golden grain, our heards of cat
tie, our focks of sheep. To hear
them one would think Tennessee
was a veritable Ell Dorado. New
cities and towns have grown up, all
increasing the consumption of farm
products and at the same time de-
creasing farm production because the
increased demand for labor was
largely supplied from our farms.
Then too, the public schools in the
past have educated the boys and
girls away from the farm instead of
to the farm. The country schools
have been neglected in a measure
The new, inexperienced teachers
have been sent to the country schools.
The boys and girls have had held up
to them as ideals men and women
who had become famous, in some OF
the professions and encouraged to
qualify themselves for professional
careers
Farmers, if they secured educa-
tional advantages for their children,
had to move to the towns and will
ages. The boy and girl neither had
chance to see or hear anything to
encourage them to stay on the farm.
1t is not to be wondered at that they
wanted to set away from the farm
and it is easy to understand why W.
are importing so much that we
should be producing in Tennessee,
and that, before another five years,
we will be producing in Tennessee.
You have heard it said, There is
no lane so long without turn" We
are rounding the turn. The high
cost of living is helping us. The
faithful few have been working long
for better agriculture. They have
succeeded in interesting few in diff
ferent portions of the State. Those
. few have been improving their land
and practicing modern, scientific
methods. Now with the prevailing
high prices and their increased pro
duction they are prospecting.
The newspapers always in the fore
front of progress, are lending their
aid in popularizing agriculture as q
vocation and in the dissemination OF
information valuable to the farmer
The railroad managers are awake to
the value of progressive agricul
tural section along their lines and
are lending every possible intelligent
aid to the development of the farm
land along their lines.
Those at the head of the public
school system of the State have
changed their policy and now en-.
courage the teachings of agriculture
and domestic science. The progress
sve farmer is now regarded as the
shrewd man of business. The comic
supplements of the Sunday papers
no more caricature the farmer as
the hay sed and country pumpkin
The leaders in agricultural develop
ment are eliminating the theorist
and putting in his place the teache'
and lecturer who talks practical
common sense in language the farm
er can understand.