Western Carolina Democrat and French Broad hustler. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1913-1915, 1914-11-26
NEEDS OF RURAL LIFE AND
WHAT GOVERNMENT is DOING.
Farmers Need to Apply What Experts
Have to Give; Development of Pro-
pie and Farms Necessary.


/
Following are tiDaeIy extracts from
the address OF the. Secretary of Agri-
culture recently delivered before the
National Dairy Show ASSOCIATION at
Chicago with reference to the leeds
ot rural life:
! 1t is a truism that the advancement
of farming and the betterment of ru-
raj life lie at the very root of our
prosperity and strength as a Nation
! Today, all the people, urban and rural
alike, are keenly interested in the sup
/ ply of the necessaries of life, and re-
cognize the supreme Importance of
making agriculture efficient and profit
able and rural life comfortable, health
full, pleasurable, and attractive. More
attention and more intelligent think
ing have been directed to the study OF
! the fundamental problems in rural
economics in the last few years than
| in any preceding decade, and it may
be safely asserted that in the last two
years more significant legislative
measures have been enacted or push
i ed farther to the stage of competition
than in any similar period in the his
/ tory of the nation. 1t is vastly signit1-
cant that attention is no longer ex
ciusiVely directed merely to the pr1
mary problems Of production. The
center is interest, as a matter Of fact,
has needed to shift, and the rural life
problem has begun to be conceived.
as it should be-as a very broad and
ccmplex one.
| Up to the last two or three years.
unquestionably attention was directed
| too exclusively merely to the produc-
ton side of rural life. The slogan
WaG make two bales of grass grow
where only one grew before" and in,
dividualism characterized thinking and
acting. Obviously, there is more to
rural life than the mere increase of
crops and animals, important as this
is; more even tina nincroase in pro,
Guction and the finding of markets;
more than matter of profits and
even of justice in distribution; and to
limit the attack on the rural life prob
lem merely to, these phases Of it is.
Inadequate and wasteflll. It is neces-
ss1sI look at TINS ssItfe eof IA
tional economy in its larger aspects
as we'll, and while not neglecting the
l
cur power to organize rural life, to
| develop the moral, the intellectual.
and the broader economic, govern
mental, and social interest. For, in
the rural district, no less than in the
Urban district, it is life and that more
abundantly which we are interested
in and to which all the material things
must minister, and certainly the time
has come to bring it about that ali
the fruits of modern civilization shall
not accrue to the towns and cities.
The neglect of rural life by the nation
has not been conscious or Willful. We
lave been so bent on building up great
| industrial centers, in rfValling ma
tions of the world not so fortunately
circumstanced agriculturally, in man
Utacturing, fostering it by every ma
| tUral and artificial device we could
think of-so busy trying to make each
city larger by half-milion or more
people for the next census, that we
have overlooked the very foundations
of our industrial existence. It has
been assumed that we have had a ma
turaI monopoly in agriculture, that it
could take care of itself, and for the
most part we have cheerfully left it
to do so; and, too, recklessness and
waste have been incident to Ous
breathless conquest of a continent.
And SOFAS the President recently said:
ct has. singularly enough, come to
pass that we have allowed the industry
Of our farms to lag behind the other
activities of the country in its devel-
opment. :. Our thoughts
IN 1U hn
the cities and the hives of industry,
Upon the cries of the crowded market
place and the clangor of the factory,
but it is from the quiet interspaces of
the open valleys and the free hillsides
that we draw the sources of life and
Of prosperity, from the farm and the
ranch. from the forest and mine. With
cut these every street would be silent,
every Office deserted, every factory
falling to despair
With all our efforts, which we wit
ness an increasing diversiffcation of
agriculture and both a relative and
absolute increase in many of our i'm
poEtant lines of production, such as
wheat, forage crops, fruits, dairy
products, and poultry, we still note
not only a relative but also an abso-
lutte decrease in a number of our
important staple food products such
as corn and meats. In the former, in
the fast Is years, there has been no
substantial advance. In cattle, sheep,
and hogs, there has been an absolute
decline-in cattle from the census
year 1899-1909 of from 50,000,000 head
to Al, 100000; in sheep of from 81 ,O00,-
600 to 52,O00,OOO; of hogs from 63,000,-
900 to 5S,OOO.OO0, while population has
increased 16,OOO,OOO. Remember that
this situation appears not in crowd
I'd country but in one which is still in
a measure being pioneered; in one in
" hich, with 935 100000 acres of able
land. not over 4OO,O00,0O0 or As per
cent is under civilization in one IL