Grand Forks herald. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1916-1955, 1922-10-05
Present Day
Farmer Needs
Farm Bureau

The farmer group Of America was
lot built up by the evolutionary
naethod OF the selection Of the At and
tho elimination OF the unfit. The
proceSs was quite the reverse. DEM
ocraryse policy Of lavish distribution
- th0lrich bounty Of nature gave the
moMctent an equal chance with the
semctent, the farmer with the man
Who knew nothing Of agriculture. It
~ doubtful II the penaltyrfor individ-
uat failure, either on the fields or in
b city, has e been so light as in
America Of the nineteenth century
when the down-and-out could still go
west.sS OF such materials the Ameri-
can farmer group was originally COM
posed. Is it surprising that this
group, until recently practically iso-
lated from contemporaneous civiliza-
ton, should, at times, bring forth
strange things?
A New Epoch.
The last decade of the nineteenth
century. saw the conclusion Of the old
epoch In American farming. and the
beginning of the new ag%rarianism.
The frontier disappeared bringing to
an end the timeworn process Of in
creastng agricultural products by TAX
Ing up new lands.
Escape from the rigors of compe-
tition was cut off. Moreover, the
rolling prairie country had been COW
cred with a network of railroads and
the haunts of h bison shook under
the wheels Of h%urrying locomotives.
AS free land disappeared and the
country filled up with. people. land
values rose and farms became costly.
Ex-Secretary Meredith recently an
nounced that. in the forty years from
1850 to 1900, during most of which
time the frontier was an active force.
1arm values increased only twenty
per cent in 1920, and the end is not
yet. Not only have farms become;
costly. but the tools which have re-
placed the scythe and cradle have
greatly increased in expense. The
result Of these changes is that farm
ding has passed out of the simple, al
mos primitive development of the
mid -nineteenth century and become a
capttalistic enterprise.
Purged of Rirran..
THE change is one of the funda-
mental factors in the new agrarian-
ism. It is a change witch has
brought inexorable competition INTO
the farmer group and a wedding out
OF the unfit and the inefficient. The
purge Of the riffraff that flooded the
farming areas of American during
the years in which they served as the
safety valve of the nation has begun.
The growing keenness of this comp
petition has played no in~considerable
part in breaking down the lethargy
of ''old habits already and insensibly
acquired without any expense Of
Thought" and in bringing OPEN
lmindedness to the new agricultural
science.
"For more than a quarter of a
century the land grant colleges and
the state and national experiment
stations developed this science against
the day when there should be no
more unoccupied land. They fore
saw that, when it came, food produc-
ton must be increased by the use of
better methods. To abolish the in
ertia Of the traditional farmer and to
put the new scienc actually at work
behind the plough was the task
which lay ahead. The beginning OF
the solution of this problem is at the
very center Of the agrarian move
ment of the first quarter Of the TWEEN
tieth century.
A Potent Factor.
"Almost overnight, the Farm Blu
e has become a factor of major
national Importance. 1t must not be
believed that this is the only farmers
organization. There are active sur
vivals of earlier organizations OF
which the Grange is probably the
most useful. Furthermore there are
organisations Of specialists within the