Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1922-06-08
What If This Foretokens An
Agricultural Revolution?

r F love of money be the root or evil, 1t
I is true also that opportunity to get fair
- portion of thai undeniably useful medium
is an incentive to work, an encouragement
to enterprise, promise Of security, and so
q substantial aid to contentment.
May not this have its bearing upon the
troublous problem Of keeping folk on the
farm when they are disposed to run away
to the cities, thereby multiplying the knots
of these entangled times? Many ingenious
minds and few really wise ones have been
looking into the matter. They find that
whereas only generation ago America was
markedly country of soil tillers and dwell
ers in the open, today majority OF her IN
habitants are in towns and cities, and that
within the last two decades the trend in
that direction has become swift, deep and
strong. Hence it is no longer the concern
of philosophers only, but OF work-a-day
economists, of statesmen and OF business
men, that the tendency is toward condl-
ton in which the consumers or 1000 VIII
SO largely outnumber the producers that we
shall no longer be a self-sustain1ng nation
During the World War, with its drain upon
man-power and food stores alike, the prob
lem was brought home with unusual stress,
and the Government itself was constrained
to take thought thereof. "Why do farm
lads, and their elders as well, in ever-1ncreas-
ing numbers turn cityward?' became prac-
tical pressing question.
There undoubtedly was truth in the an
swer that dearth of play and of social inter
ests figured largely in the situation, and that
if there were more conveniences and COM
forts in the average farmhouse and more OIL
versions in the common run OF rural lie, the
exodus to towns would be much less marked.
But more to the point is the query, how can
leisure and money for these things be Sc
cured? Whose answers that will be the real
undoer of the Sphinx.
Well, it is frequently observed that an alb
surdly small part of the ultimate price OF
a farm product goes to the producer. rms
is not because of any conspiracy or remote
intent to rob him of his due; it is because
of Inadequate, inefficient distribution and
marketing Other factors there may be, but
these alone are enough to engage the hardl-
est reformer's lance. If there can be pro-
vided system systems OF marketing that
will conserve the farmers interests as we'll
az the manufacturers are conserved py
proper selling methods, then we shall see
evidences of more money on the farmland
conspicuous among these will be slowing
of the drift to cities. Says writer in the
Grand Rapids PRESS: ga steadily lncreas-
ing percentage of the final selling price may
be expected to go to the farmer as market
ing organizations develop. Scientific farm-
ing is improving crop after crop. The nation
is, for the first time, acquiring general
appreciation of the connection between farm
prosperity and that of the general public )"
The marketing organizations" conducted
on cooperative lines, are doing much to re-
move or to change those inefficiencies and
inadequacies which have been largely re-
sponsible for the farmers lean returns; Geor-
gia has witnessed strikingly to this by the re-
suits of her Fruit Exchange, and now is
working for still larger achievements through
her Cooperative Cotton Marketing Assocla-
ton. Further, inasmuch as the best market
ing system must begin with the selection
and planting of seed and must continue over
sight on through cultivation and harvest,
methods of production are improving along
with methods of selling. Highly gratifying,
moreover, is the widening recognition or now
important it is to business and to the COM
mon veal that farmers should prosper. Geor-
gia bankers, merchants and civic leaders are
liberal in support of well-advised movements
to improve agricultural marketing.
AS these goodly developments go forward
the profits of the farm should increase sub
stantially and should become far more GER
tain. Shiftlessness, Of course, will always
fare i'll, behind the pillow as we'll as pen!no
the counter. But with efficient marketing
Joined to efficient production, the rewards
of agriculture should be such as not only TO
hold it's own but also to win fresh recruits
from the enterprising and far-sighted. Inc
nineteenth century witnessed a great 1nous-
trial revolution. May not the twentieth cen
tury witness great agricultural revolution