Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 December 1898 — AD DRESS TO FARMERS [ARTICLE]

AD DRESS TO FARMERS

W. D. HOARD TALKS TO. NATIONAL CONGRESS. Wiaconsin’a Ex-Governor, in ( Hi« Annual Address, Dwells on the Intellectual and Business Sides of Agri-culture-Farm Education a Necessity. Ex-Gov. Hoard of Wisconsin, president of the Farmers’ National Congress, in his annual address" to that body at Fort Worth, said: Our agriculture Is becoming nationalistic. This farmers’- congress Is one of the proofs of this assertion. We are no longer a loosely joined band of States, "discordant, belligerent.” "Thank God, we are coming to see each other "face to face.” We are becoming cemented Ifr railroads, navigable rivers, interchangeable products, and a more general commingling of our people. National legislation Is taking on thought of this kind in the establishing of experiment stations, the enactment of laws for the better protection of agricultural products against the dishonest greed of men who would adulterate and counterfeit.. We are just beginning to feel as a people that agriculture Is an intellectual as well as a manual pursuit; that from the humblest tenant to the lordliest ranchman progress and protit depend on mental comprehension of the principles Involved, and an energetic obedience to that knowledge. Comprehension means Intellect, obedience means business. Some men are all intellect and no work; others all work and no Intellect. The true farmer unites both. He Is both a student and a "doer of the word." Some of the questions for this farmers’ congress to ask itself are: What can we do In an organized way to got the farmers of this continent to sec the necessity of more Intellect on the farm? In other words, what can we de to promote farm education? What can this congress do to promote wise legislation In the State and national legislatures to this end? What can this congress do as a great force to arrest the tendency of the American farmer to destroy the natural fertility of his farm? What can we do to arouse publie opinion and the great educational forces of the country to the Importance of teaching the elements of agriculture In the primary schools of the land? Our present system of agricultural education Is an Image with a head of brass, a body of iron and feet of clay. We are directing all our energies to the head and not the feet. Our common schools recruit the academy, the college and the university, and they, In turn, recruit every profession but farming. Our young men flee to the towns and cities because we have educated them to do so. Nearly every European country Is putting forth strenuous efforts to stop this tendency by teaching the elements of scientific agriculture In the public schools. It can be done as easily as the teaching of the elements of sclentlflc arithmetic, or chemistry, or philosophy. A great host of farmers who were deprived of such teaching now find themselves barred from an understanding of much agricultural literature. As a consequence they turn from the agricultural college, the bulletin of the experiment station and the farm paper, which is really worth everything to them. Like all other llnes'of human thought and action, the American farmer and his farm are going through a process of evolution. The manufacturer feels It, and bls capital and enterprise can hardly keep pace with coming changes; statesmanship feels It, for new and difficult problems of government constantly present themselves, and how to keep center and circumference In harmonizing growth is the problem of the day. The railroad magnate feels It and must bow to It. What is the subtle power that is so mysteriously leavening the whole lump? It Is growth of knowledge among the people. Heretofore our vision has been directed almost wholly to the price we were to receive for our products. The present tide of evolution bears us In another direction. We cannot control prices; the market end of the question Is beyond the Individual reach or modification of any farmer. What can he do, what must he do, to Increase his profit, for on that hangs his prosperity? This must he do: He must realize that he is no longer a crude producer; he Is a manufacturer. He must Invoke science, Invention, better system, more thorough organization among his fellow fanners, more exhaustive study of the Underlying principles of his business, Improved methods, everything he can lay hold of, to contribute to a reduction of the cost of production. He is subject to the snme economic law’s as Is every other manufacturer. The world declares It will have cheap food and clothing, for this Is the humane order of our civilization. The American farmer Is In the forefront of a merciless competition, for from the soil must come primarily all the food and clothing. He must furnlslr as good as the best or he will lose the market. Ho must do this at a living cost and keep up the fertility of the soil, or he and his farm will both perish by the way. The demands of modern civilization are expensive. It costs more to live, educate his children and be a man among men than It d'd his father fifty years ago. There Is but one road out of the difficulty ns I can sec. He must put more thought Into this question of the coat of production. Heretofore the cry has been more land, until the farm has become bigger than the farmer. This makes expensive farming. The necessities of the hour say make the farmer bigger than the farm. The Farmers’ National (longreiyt Is needed as an organized body of opinion to promote as best It can national legislation In supisirt of the Department of Agriculture. Our present Secretary of Agriculture is doing what he cun to Introduce American food products Into foreign markets and promote their consumption. That department should have the authority mid means to employ, under Its own direction, commercial agents In every fiAxl market in the world. Denmark sends Its agents to England to receive, guard and look after Its shipments of butter and bacon. Canada is doing the same. There is no reason better than traditional abstraction why the United States should not show the same good business sense. Besides, there is u great trade awaiting us at our very doors In the sister republics of the southern part of this continent. Cun we say or do anything here which will move our national legislature Into work of a practical character, in the way of mull subsidies to a Hue of American ships sailing direct from southern ports to South American ports? I hope we can. It Is a reproach to the practical statesmanship of the American people that something has not been done of this character. This congress can do something In the way of aiding the greater efficiency of the Htate experimental stations, some of which me hardly more than lodging-houses for politicians. It can stand up uml rebuke, In m> measured tones, the prostitution of agricultural necessities ami progress to political favoritism, it cun und should demand of the national government the taxation to extinction of all counterfeit food product*. An Imitation Is u counterfeit, and a counterfeit Is n fraud, und should have no rights before the law us against un honest product of the farm. No matter how many hired chemists assort to the contrary, counterfeit food produets are a niemtc' 1 to the health of the public and the prosperity of the farmer and the nation. Mat Lull}’, n farmer, who resided about two miles northeast of Olathe, Kan., had his house, with the furniture, also a large barn and contents, including four horses, grain, hay and implement®, completely destroyed by fire, the occupants of the house, Mr. Liiby, wife nnd daughter, barely escaping with their live*.