Little Falls herald. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1889-1950, 1913-09-26
nENntAR r; & Ar : ) MINNIE & 81


Duluth News-T Tribune Denmark has
q .5 population Of z, $50 ego in 1855
square milesa popu.atioD most en-.
tirely agricultural.
Minnesota has populat ton Of 22,,O75,-
O7S in 83,365 square miles. ls , 4 I, 81 .s4
If Minnesota were gathering pro
portionately as much riches from its
soil as Denmark, it would have a pop
ulation of more than fourteen millions
seven times as many people as there
arc now. And it could be done, by fol
loving Denmark s example, without
adding a single soul to the city pop
ulatiOn.
Much Of Denmark s soil is poor, and
none Of it is highly productive. 1t is
nos to be compared with Minnesota s..
Barring few rocky acres, Minnesota $
soil is much better, and its worst is
about as good as Denmark s best.
Yet this ''bread and butter state :,
in 1910 produced only l23,ool ,olo
pounds of butter, and Denmark, after
feeding it's own people, in 1911 e2-
ported 229,32O,OOO pounds of butter,
besides 252, 252, 900 pounds of bacon. j..
And all of Denmark is north =. OF
latitude SIS, which is so far north that
on this continent it cuts through
Hudson bay; though Denmark's eli
mate is moderated by it's lowness and
b.! the sea which all but surrounds 1t.
The soil, as we have said, is not very
good and for seven months OF the
year the climate is very bad.
What makes the difference! Here
arc the things that do it:
Cooperation;
Intensive farming; -
The better uses Of better dairy cows;
The coming Of the bacon pig;
And. above all, the wide use OF
agricultural education.
The average Danish farm has but
niretv-three acres. There are many
farms Of six acres.
Saws the Breeders Gazette:
Denmark is covered with what might
be called agricultural high schools.
Their terms and courses are so arrang'
ed that the boys and girls get their
educations and yet are kept in close
contact with work. They read and
study and work on the farms. Educa-
ton is compulsory. The boy begins his
farm work as soon as he can handle a
spade or feed the chickens, and his
school education goes right along with
his work. 1t is to the high school that
the Danish farmer owes most.
The wealth of the Danish farmer
lies in his healthy, active body
trained to useful work. it lies in his
intimate knowledge of his own affairs
ard in an education that gave him to
belleve that to make clover grow is
a work in which one may well take
honest pride, to which one may we'll
givc deep serious thought. He has
been taught that the cow, marvellous
and intricate machine that she is, is
we'll worth not only his deep study but
his constant and loving care as we'll.
Not disdaining any knowledge OF
books, the Danes are nevertheless
taught and led to see that the things
nearest are the things of highest value,
that right Of man is to labor, to think,
to sing, to laugh, and to nave hum
bic. reverent attitude toward nature
and the soils, plants flowers, fruits and
animals. With that attitude men will
succeed, put them anywhere, on sand
bank, on a peat bog. So it is that the
Danes are making farms where were
heaths and wastes but yesterday.
Iialnen Dy THIS duai system OF Cne
books Of the school and the plain
teaching of outdoor work the Danish
farmer has emerged into a nearly ideal
rural existence.
The Danish farmers knowledge of
history is extensive, he reads modern
literature and knows what is going
Oh in the United States as well as
what. is happening in Europe. Yet he
works with his sons and daughters in
the fields and among the cows and is
happy. He has been taught the dig
nitv and worth of labor and at the
same time his mind has been stored
with the things that make the edu-
Gated man.
IS there not great lesson here for
Minnesota?