Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1920-10-02
The Ultimate Problem,

A LII economic problems lead ultimately
"A back to the soil. Industry may be
a. n wonderfully productive, commerce
wonderfully efficient and every wheel OF the
nations business machine running its
best: but unless agriculture also is pro-
ductive, efficient and functioning for the
common good, prosperity must fail.
It is all too evident that the interests
of the farm have not moved as vigorously
forward in the last few decades as the
public welfare requires. 1t has not even
kept pace with the growth Of elemental
needs. 'While manufacturing industry, -
says a writer in the current number of the
Americas has been managed in such a
way that it's progress has outstr1pped the
most vivid imagination of twenty years ago,
the farming industry, greater in the value
of it's annual output than any other, mas
practically stood still. Manufacturing has
had the benefit of every economic force,
including combination for large scale pro-
duction high-grade managerial talent ana
tha command of sufficient capital to take
advantage of market conditions in the
.....- u-4.,.u44C Wy. earning has remained
almost an inQvidualiStiC industry, with
each unit competing with every other farm
unit; with the methods Of yesterday, the
tools Of last year and the credit based not
on cash in hand, but on next years ex-
pectations."
While this picture may be somewhat
overdrawn, and certainly is if we take &C
count of recent developments in the South,
its main lines are lamentaby true. The
United States has least consideration to its
NIT important economic realm. Is 1t to
be wondered, then, that grave problems
are rising in consequence?
In the early eighties our population was
predominantly rural; today its balance is
decidedly toward the towns and cities. This
symptom is warning enough: for with the
ranks Of farm producers constantly thin
ming and those of urban consumers con-
stantly increasing, the inevitable result will be
a dearth of basic needments of living. The
excessive food prices OF recent years are at
tributable not so much to this cause as to
inadequate or i'll ordered means of distribu-
ton; both the raiser and the buyer of food
would profit immensely if this defect were
remeded But ultimately there will come a
distressing scarcity Of food itself unless the
sources Of it's production are widened and
stimulated.
Institutions like the Georgia College of
Agriculture, together with it's system of dis
trict schools, are doing much to better the
situation, as are also the county farm DEM
onstration agents and domestic science
teachers. All endeavors in agricultural edu-
cation by Federal and State governments
alike are invaluable. So, too, are the i'm
provement and extension of highways, the
establishment of rural Libraries and espe-
cially the upbuilding of rural schools. Let
all these efforts continue, let the methods
which have wrought marvels in industry be
applied as far as is practicable to agricul-
ture, and let the hiving of drones to soft
urban jobs be discouraged as far as can be-
Then the decades ahead will be secure against
want and the destructive unrest that springs
from it.