Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1914-04-17

DFFllulTi' ((s7I0!N! ! TO FACE


t Chicago, April l6,-1 he problem
confronting the furdl organization
service of the depbrtment Of agricul.
ture, was describ4 today by DR.. II.
II, Carver director Of the service, as
two,fold teaching the farmer, how to
earn a satisfactory income and tlen
how to spend It'll DR.. Craver spoke
Of his work at. the conference on
marketing and farm products. ;. A
very, little study Of farmers orgali.
ntions In this and ether countries,
ne said, would cphynce. any one that
the effective 0rgaHization of the rur-
al interests was Ole of the most DIFF
ficult problems inSthe world. ~. '.''
The chief dimeSlty, he declared,
was due to the fagt that the farmers
are the most Numerous economic
class in the county They are. scat
tered, they haves wide diversity of
interests and smani antagonisms, and
the process Of atelection tends to
leave il the country those who are
strongly individual Istic, who prefer to
be- their owR,= =hoa les and who have
the capacity for 81 tlf-direction.: i
: "All of these leople," he. contin.
ued," to whom tie pain of new
idea Is -excruciatihg, who find it q
great hardship Id have to decide
what to do next will find, farm life
uncomfortable. That perhaps more
than any other ag'e fact schoraO.
'terizes the life of aafarmer. His work
never can be sta a1dardized. He must
always be in the act of deciding waat
to do next. His work from day to
day, even from hour to hour, has
to be, adjusted to the conditions Of
soil and climate. the exigencies of
plant and animal life, etc. This lis
no kind of life for a man who Is
only capable of doing what he is
told and incapab Bile OF deciding, him.
self waat is the next thing to be
done. This process Of selection, as
said, makes a rural population very
independent in spirit and temper
mentally difficult to organize. u.
another psychological difficulty
perhaps grows out Of the fact that
the farmers success that in the past
depended very little upon his mental
adaptabillty to other men. He has
had to control the forces Of nature
rather than the forcesSof society. He
is therefore less adept in those arts
and graces which adorn social life,
simply because his living has not de-
pended upon it. gI
THE idea sens to prevail at the
present time" said Dr.. Craver il
conclusion "that all that is neces-
sary is to enable the farmer TO grow
his products and to buy and sell to
advantage in order that his income
may, be increased. dare say that
most people, who are thinking on this
problem today believe that the prob
lem is solved when the farmer has
been assured a. satisfactory income.
wish to insist, on the contrary,
that this is only half the problem.
as it may seem, it is a
mdTter of actual observation that
the sections of the country where
the land is richest, where crops have
been most abundant, where land has
reached the highest price, and the
farm owners attain to the highest
degree of prosperity, are the very
sections from which the farm own
ers are retiring from the farms most
rapidly and leaving them to tenants.
1--WE may as we'll face the fact first
as last that there dre only two things
that will keep people In the country.
One is poverty. or the inability to
live in town. The other is an at
tractive country life which will in
duce people; to stay in the country
evea though they are financially
able. to live in town. The only thing
is to make country life
sufficiently attractive to keen people
in the country even when they dre
enough to- live in towl.
This will indicate that Re prob
em of organizing rural intcrssts is
= Continued on Page Two.)