BETTER TIMES ON THE FARM
Ever since I came to have first-hand knowledge of irrigation, I have
been impressed with the peculiar advantages which surround the
irrigation rancher. The high productiveness of irrigated land, resulting
in smaller farm units and denser settlement, as well as the efficiency
and alertness of the irrigator, have combined to give the irrigated
regions very high rank among the most progressive farming communities of
the world. Such rural communities as those of the irrigated West are
useful examples for the consideration of regions in which life is more
isolated, has less of the benefits of coöperation, and generally has
lacked the stimulus found in irrigation farming.
The object of education in general is to produce in the boy or girl,
and so in the man or woman, three results: first, a sound, useful, and
usable body; second, a flexible, well-equipped, and well-organized mind;
alert to gain interest and assistance from contact with nature and
coöperation with other minds; and third, a wise and true and valiant
spirit, able to gather to itself the higher things that best make life
worth while. The use and growth of these three things, body, mind, and
spirit, must all be found in any effective system of education.
The same three-fold activity is equally necessary in a group of
individuals. Take for example the merchants of a town, who have
established a Chamber of Commerce or Board of Trade. They have three
objects: first, sound and profitable business; second, organized
coöperation with each other to their mutual advantage, as in settling
disputes, securing satisfactory rates from railroads, and inducing new
industries to settle amongst them; and third, to make their town more
beautiful, more healthful, and generally a better place to live in. Take
a labor union as another example, and you will find the same three-fold
purpose. A good union admits only good workmen to membership in its
sound body; the members get from the Union the advantages of organized
coöperation in selling their labor to the best advantage; and in
addition they enjoy certain special advantages often of overwhelming
importance.
The practical value of organization and coöperation is obvious, and they
are being utilized very widely in nearly every branch of our national
life. But what is the case with the farmer? The farmers are the only
great body of our people who remain in large part substantially
unorganized. The merchants are organized, the wage-workers are
organized, the railroads are organized. The men with whom the farmer
competes are organized to get the best results for themselves in their
dealings with him. The farmer is engaged, usually without the assistance
of organization, in competing with these organizations of other groups
of citizens. Thus the farmer, the man on whose product we all live, too
often contends almost single-handed against his highly organized
competitors.
How have the agricultural schools and colleges and the Departments of
Agriculture of State and Nation met this situation? Largely by the
assertion, in word or in act, that there is only one thing to be done
for the farmer. So far as his personal education is concerned, they have
tried to give him a sound body, a trained mind, and a wise and valiant
spirit. But so far as his calling is concerned, they have stopped with
the body. They have said in effect: We will help the farmer to grow
better crops, but we will take no thought of how he can get the best
returns for the crops he grows, or of how he can utilize those returns
so as to make them yield him the best and happiest life.
It is not wise to stop the education of a boy or a girl with the body,
and to neglect the mind and the spirit. But we have done the equivalent
of that in dealing with farm life. Along the line of better crops we
have done more for the farmer, and have done it more effectively, than
any other Nation. But we have done little, and far less than many other
Nations, for better business and better living on the farm. Hereafter we
shall need in State and Nation not only the work of Departments of
Agriculture such as we have now, but we shall need to have added to
their functions such duties as will make them departments of rural
business and rural life as well. Our Departments of Agriculture should
cover the whole field of the farmer's life. It is not enough to touch
only one of the three great country problems, even though that is the
first in time and perhaps in importance.
Of course we all realize that the growing of crops is the great
foundation on which the well-being not only of the farmer but of the
whole Nation must depend. First of all we must have food. But after that
has been achieved, is there nothing more to be done? It seems to me
clear that farmers have as much to gain from good organization as
merchants, plumbers, carpenters, or any of the other trades and
businesses of the United States. After we have secured better crops, the
next logical and inevitable step is to secure better business
organization on the farm, so that each farmer shall get from what he
grows the best possible return.
Consider what has been accomplished in Ireland through agricultural
coöperation. The Irish have discovered that it is not good for the
farmer to work alone. Since 1894 they have been organizing agricultural
societies to give the farmer a chance to sell at the right time and at
the right price. The result is impressive. In Ireland the coöperative
creameries produce about half the butter exported. There are 40,000
farmers in the societies for coöperative selling, which, as we know in
this country, means better prices. There are about 300 agricultural
credit societies with a membership of 15,000 and a capital of more than
$200,000. In a word, in Ireland, which we have been apt to consider as
far behind us in all that relates to agriculture, there are nearly 1,000
agricultural societies with a total membership of 100,000 persons. Since
1894 their total business has been more than $300,000,000.
But, after the farmer has begun to make use of his right to combine for
his advantage in selling his products and buying his supplies, is there
nothing else he can do? As well might we say that, after the body and
the mind of a boy have been trained, he should be deprived of all those
associations with his fellows which make life worth living, and to which
every child has an inborn right. Life is something more than a matter
of business. No man can make his life what it ought to be by living it
merely on a business basis. There are things higher than business. What
is the reason for the enormous movement from the farms into the cities?
Not simply that the business advantages in the city are better, but that
the city has more conveniences, more excitement, and more facility for
contact with friends and neighbors: in a word, more life. There ought
then to be attractiveness in country life such as will make the country
boy or girl want to live and work in the country, such that the farmer
will understand that there is no more dignified calling than his own,
none that makes life better worth living. The social or community life
of the country should be put by the farmer--for no one but himself can
do it for him--on the same basis as social life in the city, through the
country churches and societies, through better roads, country
telephones, rural free delivery, parcels post, and whatever else will
help. The problem is not merely to get better crops, not merely to
dispose of crops better, but in the last analysis to have happier and
richer lives of men and women on the farm.