Jasper County Democrat, Volume 17, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 October 1914 — Stick to the Farm. [ARTICLE]

Stick to the Farm.

With winter coming on, and the crops safely harvested and stowed away, many young men of tho farms will be casting longing eyes toward the big cities. They would leave the green fields end their pleasures and seek the glare of the electric lights and the allurements of the great white way. They would taste of the greater life. And therein lurks the most hauntlug peril that confronts our country today, for the nation is dependent upon the farmer. Our population is increasing by leaps and bounds, and millions of additional mouths must be fed each year. From the soil of the farms must come the produce which sustains life and body for the countless thousands who throng the cities. And year by year young men of the country are leaving the farms to seek their fortunes in the, human ’bee hives.

And each one who forsakes the farm reduces the producing capacity of the country, although our constantly increasing population calls for greater farm production. Young men of brains are needed on the farm. Their presence there means much to their country—-a thousand times more than they realize,

The city offers but one chance in a hundred for success, for every large city is already over populated, and for every job worth the having there are many applicants. Today, as we write this article, every cly in he country, as usual, is groaning under the burden of its unemployed. M’any hundreds of housands of people are without bread and wholly dependent upon charity. That is the condition of the great cities today—a condition which should not appeal to any intelligent young man from the farm. The farm offers the young man a life of honor, and of peace, and of plenty. The glare of the electric light offers him all that he should not have. Young men of wisdom stick to the farm. Fools have no wisdom to lose.