El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1913-09-13

tary of agriculture. 1T is not so of thu
country school generally. Indeed. I be.
| IieYe our rural school is a national fail
/ ure- The largest part of the money
spent on education in this country goes
| 10 the cities. 1t sounds well when we
say that the United States has II
100000 school children that it has
! $SOO,OOO,OOO invested in school property
/ and that we spend more than million
| dollars a day for every day of the
! school year upon training our children
out when you come to the details as tO
I the country communities our voices
: sink and our faces blush.
The country school enrolment is
! more than 81 percent of the whole but
! its annual expenditures are less than
| 40 percent It has 81 out of evry 100
school children. and it receives only
| $50 out of every 500 appropriated. The
/ cost of teaching a child in the cities
averages $SS wear The money spent
upon him in the country averages only
SIS In other words the city child gets
almost three times as much for his edu-
cation as the country child.
Believes in Cooperation.
TIL esecretary believes in cooperation
among the farmers. He says that the
farmer has the biggest business on
earth il the amount of the product
that he gives to the world, and that
IN comparison with other big bust
nesses he gets the least out of it He
thinks this is largely due to the lack
know how TO buy nor how to sell. He
purchases in small quantities under an
expensive and Objectionable credit sys-
tenn, and everything he buys is from
organized capital which is often oper-
ated as a monopoly. Almost every
thing he sells is to organized capital
or il goes to middlemen or spectators
or to commission merchants whose
operations as semi-public agents are
almost unregulated.
The department of public markets
Will look into these matters. 1t will
be directed by experts who will in
vesdgate the conditions under which
the various products are sold and viii
give information to each locality. 1t
will deal with grading and packing and
with the position of the mlddlemen-- In
such matters, the secretary says, the
government can only suggest and show
the farmers how to go to work. It
cannot act as a marketer nor viii it
buy the produce of the farmers Il
Will only show him how to make the
most money out Of his goods.
As it is now, the secretary believes
that our farmers are raising enough to
make their business pay we'll He
wants to make country life more liv-
able, and at the same time to make
1t more profitable.
speaking OF the crops. 1 asked the
secretary as TO our food supply of the
future. saying that many people
thought the nation was in danger of
starving He laughed as he replied:
Thinks Famine Is Afar.
There is but little danger of that.
We are on the edge of our beginning in
productive agriculture. We have
enough land and enough good soil to
produce more than we shall need for
many years to come 1t is ridiculous
20 talk of a continent like this or a
hemisphere like this reaching the limit
of its production AS yet we have only
scratched the surface, and by Organi-
zaton and intensive agriculture we
can multiply our present output many
told. What we want is organization
and intelligent corporations: and that
on the part of the government of the
nation and the states as well as of our
individual farmers. If the more settled
states would take the matter in hand
they could stimulate their people into
producing enough livestock as a by
product 10 furnish a considerable part
Oh our supply If the farmers would
Cooperate they could do the same as