Secretary Matinecock Neighborhood Association,
Locust Valley, N. Y.
Farmer Smith needs help. He needs it here and now. He is trying to
keep his family supplied with food and clothes. He is struggling to
give his children an education and at the same time to pay off the
mortgage on the farm and to save enough to keep his wife and himself
from want in their old age. All around him are those who are waging
the same battle, but they give him little help. Each one fights
alone, as his father did before him.
Twelve years ago Farmer Smith had a $5,000 farm. It yielded him
an income of about $500. That was a return of 10 per cent. Today,
because of the general rise in land values, that farm is worth
$10,000. It yields him about $700. It is now only a 7 per cent
investment. His profits have decreased. Moreover, his land is poorer
than it was twelve years ago. Smith never learned how to farm
intensively. He knows only the crude methods used by his father in
the days of virgin soil. The years ahead give him no promise that he
will be able to make even as much from his farm as he is making now.
The economic pinch has left its marks upon his social life. Many of
his old neighbors have sold their farms and moved away. Some have
left their farms in the hands of tenants who are robbing the land
of its fertility. Community spirit has vanished. The old forms of
recreation have lapsed with the passing of the settled population. No
new forms have taken their place except in the towns, and these are
usually of a character that would not be tolerated in the country.
Smith’s boy is waiting his first opportunity to get off the farm. His
has been a life of all work and no play, and while it has not exactly
made him a dull boy, it has made him hate farming. Smith’s wife is
leading the life of a drudge, and she swears her daughters are not
going to live on the farm if she can help it. With the stagnation
in social life has come stagnation in moral and religious life, for
morals do not flourish in a stagnant community.
Yes, Smith needs help. He needs to know how to farm more
scientifically. He needs a better income. He needs to know how to
organize with his fellow farmers to protect themselves against the
inroads of the middlemen and the tenants. He needs better markets
for his crops and better transportation facilities to those markets.
He needs a school for his children that will give them as good an
education as they would get in any city school, a school that will
instill in them a love of the country, a knowledge of farming and an
appreciation of its economic significance. He needs more recreation
facilities for the whole family. He needs a handier kitchen for his
wife and daughter and many more opportunities for them to broaden
their lives and enrich their minds in literary and social activities.
The question is, Should the church give it? Should it go to Farmer
Smith and say:
“Smith, I am a bit ashamed of myself; I have not been doing for
you what I ought. I have been preaching about Elysian fields and
allowing the riches of bluegrass, corn and wheat fields to be
squandered with prodigal hand; I have been trying to pave your road
to Glory Land, but I have paid no attention to your road to the
nearest market; I have talked about mansions in the skies and cared
little about the buildings in which you and your family must spend
your lives here and now; I have been teaching your children God’s
word in the Bible, but I have left his word in the rivers and the
hills, in the grass and the trees, without prophet, witness, or
defender.
“Forgive me, Smith; I am not going to do it any more. I am going
to take an interest in your every day affairs—your crops, your
stock, your markets, your school, your lodge and your recreations.
I am going to see if I can help you in your effort to get your boy
started on a farm of his own. I’ve preached a long time against
Sunday baseball; now I’m going to try to give your children so much
recreation through the week that they won’t care for it on Sunday.
I am going to take as one of the articles of my creed, ‘I believe
in better roads for Smith, and I propose to have them.’ I am going
to try to save you and your family not only for Paradise, but for
America and American farms.”
Should the country church take its place shoulder to shoulder with
Smith in the line in which he is battling for existence? Should it
take up the task of encouraging agricultural organizations that will
work for more scientific farming, better roads and better markets?
Should it throw open its doors, not three hours a week but three
hours a day, to Smith’s sons and daughters that they may have a
place to meet and to play and to mingle with each other in literary,
athletic and social activities? Should the church forget all about
itself and its creedal and polemic differences? Should it forget its
own salvation in its effort to save Smith? Should it lose itself in
his service, even if some churches have to die in the attempt, as
long ago their Master died?
Should it?
“THE COUNTY MAN”
JOHN R. HOWARD, Jr.
General Secretary Thomas Thompson Trust
The rural leader, whether his interest is primarily in the church,
the school, good roads, health, wholesome recreation or the care of
the neglected, must, if he would get anywhere, be interested, also,
in better farming. For one reason, there is no better way to obtain
the interest of the farmer. Then, too, a normal standard of health,
intelligence or morals depends, in the country as in the city, upon
a normal standard of living. Finally, the socialized church, the
vocationalized school, good roads, sanitation, community play places,
experienced advisers for family problems all cost money, and the
majority of our rural townships are taxed already to the limit of
endurance.
The “county man” is the man the United States Department of
Agriculture is sending into the counties of the North, not only to
make two blades of grass grow where one grew before, but to help the
farmer earn two dollars where he earned one before—quite a different
proposition. This entails not only scientific choice and treatment
of crops, but co-operative buying of fertilizers and feed and
co-operative marketing of products. Further, this “county man,” who
is helping the farmer to double his dollars, has a rare opportunity
to work out with him the problem of spending them and will prove to
be a vital factor in the promotion of any of the ends of community
betterment.
That the government requires the formation of a county organization
to direct the work and to finance it, beyond the $100 a month allowed
by the government toward the agent’s salary, establishes at the
outset a co-operative county agency through which other work may be
taken up. It is the intention of the government to encourage all
purposes looking to a better country life.
There are 127 of these men now in the field. They are serving in
twenty-three different states. The unfulfilled applications number
276. In January the number was but sixteen although fifty-nine more
had been promised. This shows how eager counties throughout the
country have been to take advantage of this important new service.
Rural leaders should urge the establishment of this service in
their counties, encourage it when started, and, whether the initial
organization be an agricultural association or an improvement league,
be ready to make use of it for the social and educational as well as
the agricultural needs of the county.