Pullman herald. [volume] (Pullman, W.T. [Wash.]) 1888-1989, 1920-10-15

heN. (, y. curtis mas received the
following interesting letter from +.
d. Alvord:
Mt Silinda,
Melsetter District,
South Rhodesia Africa,
August Il, 1920.
Dear Friends
Today was red letter day for
me, for although 1 have been on the
! job here at Mt Salinda for more
than two months l consider today
as the real beginning of my mission
in Africa, which is to teach agricul-
ture to the natives
Mrs. Alyord and | completed our
year of language study at Gogoyo
the latter part of May and moved
up here to Mt. Silinda at that time
in order to become more or less &C.
| quainted with the problems of the
mission before the annual mission
meeting which was held last month.
Having satisfactorily completed our
study OF the native language we were
taken into the mission family as full
| Pledged members.
During the mission meeting / was
asked by the mission to write a spe-
cial letter of appeal to the American
Board of Missions and to our friends
in America, telling them of our work
u T,1o 70 hA ftIt
ment of these needy people of Africa,
and to ask for financial assistance
in carrying on the new work Our
special appeal to the board is for an
appropriation of $1,000, to be in
Guided in the estimates for 1921.
This sum is very inadequate for our
needs as you will see when you have
gained a conception of the agricul-
tural status of the mission and the
great problems that confront us.
To begin with l shall tell you
something about the life of the ma
tive people for in order to understand
our problems you ought to know
tions. The life of the people is Who'll
ly agricultural, if you could call it
such. They live almost entirely on
saba" and 'muriWo." Sadza is
thick porridge made from the meal
or flour of corn, mungoza, or kaffir
corn. Muriwo is any relish that
% hn
cooked up leaves of pumpkins, sweet
potatoes or other plants in the form
OF greens. In a country teeming
with wild game they rarely have meat
for food, and live primarily on the
products of the soil. In their farm
ing methods they are very crude.
They know nothing about the i'm
portance of seed bed preparation, or
the principles of moisture conserya-
ton, and not very much more about
food conservation. AS a result they
live off the fat of the land during
the rainy season and sometimes
starve during the dry season.
The country is nearly all covered
| over with an open growth of trees
and all ground space beneath is oc-
cupied with tall grass. When the
native starts his garden he cuts
down all the trees about three or
four feet above the ground, lets them
lie where they fall then he burns
over the entire plot. Next he digs
up the ground with a crude native
| hoe and with the soil in a rough,
lumpy condition and with stumps and
fallen trees all about he plants it to
luck and nature to do the rest. When
the rainy season comes these crops
grow very luxuriantly if the ground
is fertile. Rather than weed his gar
den the native prevents any weeds
from growing by occupying all
ground space with other crop plants,
such as pumpkins, beans, etc /
have seen as many as seven different
crops occupying the same plot. With
this method of cropping the soil soon
looses its fertility and the native
must start new gardens elsewhere.
In this way his entire life is spent
in moving about from place to place,
and seldom does he stay in one loca-
ton more than four years Since he
lives in one place such a short time,
he does not build permanent build
ings, nor plant fruit trees 1t is hard
to Christianize a native without rails
ing his social standards, and it will
be difficult to raise his social stand
ards until he learns a more perma-
nent mode of life, and he can not
learn more permanent mode of life
until he is taught a permanent ag-
riculture.
After all these years of mission
work in this field only comparative
few of the natives on our micsiop