The gazette-times. [volume] (Heppner, Or.) 1912-1925, 1922-05-25
CHILDREN
THE SOLUTION
Agricultural Head Would
Make Farm Attractive to
All Ages and Thus
Solve A Problem That Is More
Grave Than the City Man
Even Suspects
BY ]. R. Howard,
President American Farm Bureau
Federation.

by j. II. TOWARD,
President American Farm Bureau
Federation.
Editors Note--J. R. Howard is
president of the American Farm Bu-
reau Federation, an organization OF
rural dwellers, of progress
sive, thinking farmers. What he has
to say strikes note that may sound
alarming until one reads his offered
The happiness of children
on the farm is matter that is OF
vital importance to you.)
Here and there a hilltop eighty
has worn out and lies beneath the
sun Indifferent to the seeds in its
keeping, to the hungry who tramp
over it. Hills that never failed the
buffalo for nobody knows how many
years, are gray with the ex-
haustion Of extensive production.
So long as the sod was unbroken
the fertility Of the soil remained in
tact. The pioneers who broke the
seal from the soil richer than crea-
ton. For under the unhampered
of Mother Nature all
plants give back their surplus at the
end of every summer. The first
wheat field waxed golden on the
legacy of the frugal prairie grass.
The first corn fields spent riotously
the compounded interest of centuries
Of the earth's careful savings Of plant
food. And the farmers fed their
crops on the soils store for so many
years before il became noticeable
that the principal was being touched,
that the supply was unconsciously
to be inexhaustible. We
sowed intensively, reaped bounteous-
ly, and then burned the straw and
stubble complacently. So long as
the virgin qualities Of the soil, under
a system Of wasteful soil mining, sup
ported relatively spare population
we we're not worried about the fu-
ture. And now many an aenemic
field dots the countryside in mute
THERE Is No WASTE.
Fortunately, rowever, farmers are
awakening to the fact that soil must
be revitalized. Public opinion for
bids the burning of straw. Legumes
have been put to making nay and
nitrogen. Fertilizer companies are
doing business. Phosphate and lime.
stone deposits are being distributed
The hilltop eighties are being re.
juvenated. Just as the land has been
devitalized, here and there a farm
community has worn out. The church
door has been nailed shut. The
school house is out Of date. The
children Of the. old homestead have
moved to town and the farms are
now the abodes of transient familie:
who hope to get enough ahead tc
move to town also.
No nation has ever risen above the
level of its agriculture and the deac
communities scattered through the
United States are comparable to the
white alkali patches on the hilltop
eighty. And if allowed to spreae
will ruin our country just as sure as
blight will wipe out an apple orchard
The worst Of it is that the worr
out community is not necessarily the
one where the land is past produc
ton. If that we're the case the
building up Of the soil would bring
flow Of new blood back into tht
personnel Of the occupants. II is Of
ten in our richest sections that tht
human force Of agricultural produc
ton is at low ebb.
We are used to thinking when W,
speak Of agricultural production, o
grain and livestock, cotton and wool
lumber and fruit. But the opel
country has an important product il
boys and girls who constantly fee,
our cities.
REPLATED History.
The history Of the pulseless com
munity is we'll known, The pionee
father who thrust his pillow into tn
unbroken prairies was as vital as hi
acres. He had come to the ne,
country to make home. His neigh
bors were home builders. The non
interference of outside world, nee
for protection and common ideals
fostered social contact. They wer
the best type of humanity, being tn
kind who were not contented to b
poor in the state or the foreign cour
try from which they came. Sine
they were in their new homes to sta
they set about making their CON
munities fit places in which to live
They built school houses and church
es at the same time they broke tn
sod and put up their barns. The ne,
generation took up community built
ing at the point left off by their pal
entS The old Homestead vas ker