Evening star., 1933-03-12
DY KATHERINE GLOVER.

|"HERE is an old tradition in gov
ernment and an older tradition
IN education, that symbols of
honor shall be bestowed upon
the heroes and the doerS OF the
world But in this generation there has
been created a new measuring stick Tor
men, An honor given not to a man but
to a family which shall have reached
certain high standards set for those who
sow and reap and till the land. 1t is
no order of merit for one who has
offered his life in crisis, nor yet for
those who have spent their years in
academic halls 1t is for the man and
-jointly-who patiently, through
the long hard seasons, have struggled
and won in the agricultural battle with
nature.
The only other award given jointly to
man and his wife. so far as We have
been able to discover. is that known in
England as the Giving of the Dun
NOW Fitch" The fitch is side Of
bacon and is given once a year. down
in Essex County, to the man and wife
who shall have lived together without
cross word throughout the year. Sew
eral years ago H. G. Wells presided at
that meeting and made some brilliant
comments on the old couple whose fam
lily life had set a model for the country.
But this American movement, the
award of Master Farmer" is an inno-
vation on high ground. carrying as it
does proof that agricultural life can
succeed in material and spiritual things.
1t is a new movement, begun about five
years ago in the Middle West which
has spread now through the State agri-
cultural colleges over very wide area.
Sewers Paid Tribute.
You could easily have imagined the
great banquet room OF Willard Straight
Hall at Cornell University, with its oak
paneled walls, its overhead beams, iut-
ting gargoyles and colorful pennants
swinging from the ceiling, to be one o.
the ancient guild halls of England on
the evening last month when Gov. Leh-
man of New York, Mrs. Roosevelt, wife
of the nations President, and several
hundred other guests met there for a
banquet to honor members of the oldest
guild in the world-the sewers and
reapers of the soil.
The occasion was Cornell's Farm and
Home Week Each year, in the brief
breathing spell of Midwinter, before
the Spring sowing sets in, farmers lay
aside their milk pals and farming i'm
plements and come to Ithaca to discuss
agricultural problems, to reckon with
the years successes and failures, to dis
cover better ways of doing old things
and to find out new trends in crops and
marketing. More farmers came this
year than ever before. Six thousand.
They were a serious lot. The print OF
the struggle was in their faces and their
soil wrestling hands. But: The farm
er's a long way from being licked yet"
declared one of their leaders.
Each year history is quietly made
there in Ithaca when the farm folk
come together with leaders Of the Agri-
cultural College: this year this was
truer than ever before in the IS years
since Farm and Home Week was started.
The nigh peak of the five-day program
was the banquet in Willard Straight
Hall for the bestowal Of honors on the
master farmers Of New York State.
had never heard of master farmer
or Of the master farmer movement.
There are others. probably, who haven't.
One is used to decorations for soldiers
and war heroes. for artists and men OF
letters. even degrees for distinguished
lawyers and business men, but not for
men Of the soil. Yet why not? This
master farmer award is a revival of the
old guild system, when craftsmen re-
warded their own kind for mastery of
their trade.
Launching of Move.
Since farmers are too busy to do their
own awarding, the movement was
launched by farm paper-the Prairie
Farmer-in the State of Illinois. Agri-
cultural journals in other parts Of the
country have taken up the idea. In
New York State it has been taken up
by the American Agriculturist, under
the direction of the publisher, Henry
Morgenthau, jr. For five years search
has been made for those farmers in
New York State who qualify as master
farmers. A beard Of judges, including
the Governor Of the State and the
Cornell University, examines the rec
ords and makes the selections.
This honor to farmers Is different
from any other decoration. The farmer
who stands before the Governor to re-
ceive his award does not come alone.
His wife comes with him, standing
shoulder to shoulder, partner in his
achievement and partner IN his
award.
A tense thrill ran through the thou
sand persons who witnessed this cere-
mony at Cornell recently. There, be-
fore the Governor of the State, the
dean of the college, the learned faculty,
the wife of the President-elect of the
United States, and fellow farmers from
all parts of the State stood some Of the
finest examples of citizenship of which
the Nation can boast. Character was
posture; they were fortnight, coura-
geous people, the men well dressed and
groomed, though obviously unacquainted
with Bond street. the women in simple