St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1913-12-17

Back to the Soil

|
annual report
Increased tenancy, absentee own.
ership, soils still, depleted and ex-
plotted, inadequate business meth
DDS, the relative failure to induce a
great majority of farmers to apply
existing agricultural knowledge, and
the suggestions of dependence on
foreign nations for. food supplies
warn us of our shortcomings and
incite US to additional efforts
and incite us to additional efforts
to increase production. The report
states that there Is no ground for
thinking that we have yet approx
mated the limit of our output from
the soil, but that we have just be-
| gun to attack the problem, and have
not reached the end of the pioneer.
| ing stage and only in a few locali-
ties have developed conditions where
reasonably full returns are secured.
We have Enthusiastically reached the
| period where we must think and
plan.
Increased farm tenancy and abb
sentee ownership are bad symptoms
in any country. A nation of tenant
farmers would be another ireland.
England today is suffering from this
cause, Sin spite of her wonderful in
dustrial and commercial success,
and one of her serious problems is
to restore the land to the cultivators
thereof without, in imitation of the
French in their Revolution, cutting
off the Kings head.
The United States is a very long
way from the agrarian condition of
France before the Revolution, or
Ireland before the land purchase
laws, or the England of today, but
when our secretary of agriculture
calls attention to increased tenancy
and absentee ownership, one is re-
minded to say that certain disquIet-
ing agricultural tendencies would be
mere quickly checked if many of
the people who urge the farmers to
raise more foodstuffs and improve
their methods of production would
themselves go back to the soil, TAX
ing their sons with them, and pro-
duce something.
We are still hardly out of the |
pioneer stage in this country, as
the secretary indicates, but we can
not get out of it any too soon so far |
as conservation of soils and intensive
methods of production are concerned.
Al bottom, however, the country
must have a fairly cOntenteG as
we'll as prosperous population on the
farms, if the farms are to be culti-
waited to their maximum efficiency,
and the conditions of farm life
must be made attractive enough to
keep their owners on them. Secre-
tary Houston's QUESTIONABLE among
the farmers wives of the United
States was a stroke of statesman
ship.
IN large measure, the exodus from
the farms in the past so years has
been due to the revolt of mother.
Nor was it merely the drudgery of
farm life she rebelled against. Make
the women of the farms more con-
tented with what "ural life can
offer in the way of advantages to
their children and the problem of !
farm tenancy and absentee owner
ship will solve itself.-[Springfleld
;
Outside Views of Vermont l
1t is sometimes well to go away !
to get the news. While the editor I
Of The Banner was in attendance on
the Atlantic Deeper Waterways con- {
yention at Jacksonville, Florida, he I
met Governor Miller of Delaware. {
Gov Miller is a business man who /
has travelled in every state in the l
Inion. In conversation with the edo I
ter of The Banner, Governor Mill {
Ter stated that of late years he had {
found Vermont a most delightful I
state in which to spend a summer S
vacation for the reason that YER f
mont roads are better than those of 4
other states. In continuation, Gov
ernor Miller said that most of the
states now have some good roads, :
1ut that he believed that the general
average in Vermont is better than ;
n any other state. A gentleman ;
rom Massachusetts, who was an at !
eEdant at the same convention, said
hat he had been familiar with the !,
'oads of all the New England states :
since the auto came into general =
Use, and, that while Massachusetts :
md Connecticut were building more :
main line macadam roads than YER :
mont, the general road improve !
nent from year to year is more
marked in Vermont than in any 9th :
II New England state. This same
Massachusetts, gentleman added :
hat Vermont will have to provide +
letter hotels to get the amount of =
ummer business which its attrac- !.
ions would naturally bring. He par y
icularly criticised the hotels of =
Bellows Falls, st.
ohnsbury, and Newport, and COM
lended the hotels of Woodstock,
Burlington, Brandon and
Manchester. He stated that his par
Y tried to stop in Bennington over n,
unday, but could not get rooms te
nd so went on to WIlliamstown. ii
Banner. il
Theodore N. Vail
Experience has taught the Ameri- II
In public that if efficient service, -.
civil, uninterrupted and -
aluable to the social and CONNER =,
al life of the community, is to be
,tained the telephone must be re- -
lrded as a natural monopoly, the -
lie operation of the monopoly to RI ri
tempered and it's activities con- a.
oiled for the protection of the pub az az
, by government supervision and ~,
gulation.
This conclusion has been reached de-
ter a bitter experience of rival tel -