Agricultural society

“ Half a century ago, in the Middle West, the strong men and the influential families were largely farmers. Even professional men owned and managed farms, frequently living upon them. The smell of the soil sweetened musty law books, deodorized the doctor's den, and floated as incense above the church altars.
The new farmer lives in a day when the nation is not purely an agricultural nation, but is also a manufacturing and a trading nation. ”

“ On these farms every advantage of machinery, and every discovery in agricultural science, should be utilised [140] to the utmost. The crops should be carefully chosen with reference to soil and aspect—cereals, fruit, vegetables—and the culture adapted to the crop, the one aim being to obtain the largest amount of produce with the least expenditure of human labor. Whether land is most profitably cultivated in large or small parcels depends on the crop; and in the great area of the County Farm, la grande et la petite culture might each have its place. ”

“ Wherever the farmer sows not a full abundance of good seeds, weeds are certain to spring up. The farm must provide a fair and liberal income, [56] because want brings lack of true pride, breeds carelessness, even hatred of others, filches self-respect and courage. Therefore, if profits are desired, good land, land of wide agricultural capabilities, should be selected. The greater variety of crops the land is capable of producing and the more varieties the farmer raises, provided he does not exceed his mental and executive capabilities, the better will be his education and training. ”

“ Has this nation ever before had such a serious realization of the social importance of the agricultural industry? The prosperity of agriculture has become the nation's concern, because these war days are revealing how certainly farming is the basic enterprise of industry. And our experiences are those of the entire civilized world. It is not at all strange, therefore, that thoughtful students and public administrators the world over are earnestly studying how to foster the farming interests, not only during the war but also after it is over. ”

“ Our farmers and ranchers face many challenges, including weather, crop disease, and uncertain pricing. Yet with hard work and a love of the land, they have helped America build the most productive agricultural economy in the world. ”

“ Now, in this process, the roads, fields and meadows which lie between the giant city and the villages get covered over like a river-bed with a deposit of stone-paving; and consequently the operations of agriculture can no longer be carried on otherwise than in flower-pots in the windows. Where there is no agriculture, I cannot see what the agricultural population can become but unemployed idlers, such as no state allows within its boundaries ”

“ It is preferable that they should produce farm crops instead of tree crops if the land is best adapted to agricultural use. It is an economic necessity that all lands in this country best suited for farming purposes should be tilled. Our ever-increasing population demands that every acre of land useful for growing crops should be cleared and devoted to farming. ”

“ The staple crops do not yield as largely as before, and less crude methods of using the soil must be resorted to. Manures have to be applied, and the rotation and selection of crops practised. Meat and dairy products, vegetables, fruits, and the miscellaneous agricultural articles, must take their place in rural economy. ”

“ The fundamentals of the new rural economy are to secure maximum productiveness on the agricultural lands, as a whole, by a comprehensive utilization of a great variety of fertilizers, and, by studying the needs of the soil, to apply to them the particular fertilizers best adapted to their nature. ”

“ This book, is dedicated to the sons and daughters of the farms of the Republic as an expression of the author's realization, that Agricultural people constitute a large majority of its working units: That as such, its destiny is in the hands of their boys and girls, as its future guardians, fathers and mothers: That for the reasons stated, they should become its dominant thinkers and leaders: That Agriculture is the true basis of industrial and commercial success ”

“ The country church and its career will interest him fully as much as does the latest successful device for tying milch cows in the stable. He will want to get at the kernel of the political questions that confront agriculture [Pg 202] just as fully and thoroughly as he wishes to master the formulae for commercial fertilizers. No man will have acquired an adequate agricultural education who has not been trained in rural social science, and who does not recognize the bearing of this wide field of thought upon the business of farming as well as upon American destiny. ”

“ The farm is the basis of all industry, but for many years this country has made the mistake of unduly assisting manufacture, commerce, and other activities that center in cities, at the expense of the farm. The result is a neglected system of agriculture and the decline of the farming interest. But all these other activities are founded upon the agricultural growth of the nation and must continue to depend upon it. Every manufacturer, every merchant, every business man, and every good citizen is deeply interested in maintaining the growth and development of our agricultural resources. ”

“ Now it would be wrong to suppose that improved farming or development of agriculture in any direction can be anything but beneficial to the labourer and all connected with the land in the main; but during the process from the old to the new system, that is from the comparatively small farmer without capital, machinery, or science, to the manufacturer of beef and corn who makes the land produce double, in the march of improvement the human part of the system, the labourer, requires a little reconsideration and readjustment in regard to his land and his home. ”

“ A second portion of the inhabitants became engaged in raising, upon limited areas, small crops, garden vegetables and orchard fruits, and in producing butter, milk, poultry and eggs, for the supply of the cities and manufacturing towns which had been built up out of the abundant profits of the primitive agriculture. Still another portion of the agricultural population gradually became occupied in the more careful and intense culture of the cereal crops upon the better lands, the less eligible fields being allowed to spring up in brush and wood. ”

“ America's agricultural industry plays an important role in our Nation's economy. It provides us with an ample supply of high-quality food and fiber and a rewarding form of employment for millions of Americans. However, farming and ranching remain among our Nation's most dangerous occupations, demanding an understanding of complex agricultural equipment, strict attention to detail, and careful performance of farm and ranch work. ”

“ Both Irish experience and Continental study have convinced me that neither good husbandry nor a worthy social life can be ensured unless accompanied by intelligent and efficient business methods. We must, therefore, examine somewhat critically the agricultural system of the American farmer, and see wherein its weakness lies. ”

“ It improved still further our agricultural laws to give the farmer a fairer share of the national income, to preserve our soil, to provide an all-weather granary, to help the farm tenant towards independence, to find new uses for farm products, and to begin crop insurance. ”

“ IMPORTANCE OF AGRICULTURE Of the 13 1/2 million people gaining their living directly from the land, more than 12 1/2 million were engaged in agricultural pursuits. At the present time (1919) probably one half of the population, including women and children, is directly dependent upon agriculture as a means of livelihood, while the other half, as well, is dependent upon it for food supply and the materials for clothing. ”

“ There can be no doubt that cereal crops can be raised most economically on large holdings, and such holdings should be rented from the body or bodies representing the community by groups of cultivators, so that both large and small farms should be found in agricultural districts. ”

“ The range of agricultural issues has grown, too, to include public concern over the environment, recreational areas, water, wildlife, food safety and nutrition, and, of course, the productivity and profitability of farming itself. ”

“ When we turn from the agricultural arrangements described in previous chapters to examine these large farms, we enter a new world, a world where economic power is being slowly organised for the exploitation of the soil, and where the methods of cultivation and the standards of success are quite different from those obtaining on the small holdings of the peasantry. ”

“ A public discussion of the conditions affecting agricultural and business prosperity cannot but be helpful, if it is conducted on broad lines and is hospitable to differences of opinion. The extraordinary development of the productions of agriculture which has taken place in a recent period in this country by reason of the rapid enlargement of the area of tillage under the favoring land laws of the United States, very naturally has called attention to the value, and, indeed, the necessity of larger markets. ”

“ So much for agricultural skill. "Nothing can be so excellent as the crop which precedes and that which follows it." The wheat "is thrashed by a cylinder, drawn by a horse, and guided by a boy, while the labourers turn over the straw with forks. This process lasts nearly a fortnight; it is quick and economical, and completely gets out the grain..... In no part of the world are the economy and the management of the land better understood than in Piedmont, and this explains the phenomenon of its great population, and immense export of provisions." All this under metayer cultivation. ”

“ In the agricultural group the unit is the farmstead. By that term is meant the whole complex organization of the farm, including the land and its products, the stock, the barns and the sheds, the whole family together with whatever houses it, the corps of workers, farmer, farmer's wife, sons, daughters, maiden aunts, working people unhired and hired—in fact, everything "animal, vegetable or mineral," as the children say when they play "Forty Questions," that ministers in any way to the success of the farm as a business and to its ultimate object, the happiness of the family living thereon. ”

“ On the fertile low grounds along the margins of rivers or in clearings of forests, agricultural communities naturally take their rise, dwelling in villages and cultivating the wild grains, which by careful nurture and selection have been turned into rich cereals. The agriculturist as a rule is rooted to the soil. The land he tills he holds, and acquires a closer connexion with a particular patch of ground than either the hunter or the herdsman. ”

“ The price of wheat rose to an average of 14s. per quarter, thereby encouraging tillage once more. There was steady inflation.
With enclosure of agricultural land there could be more innovation and more efficiency, e.g. the time for sowing could be chosen. It was easier to prevent over-grazing and half-starved animals as a result. The complications of the open system with its endless quarrels and lawsuits were avoided. Now noblemen talked about manure and drainage, rotation of crops, clover, and turnips instead of hunting, horses, and dogs. The breed of horses and cattle was improved. ”

“ There is need in the twentieth century for a new agricultural policy. As I read the economic signs of the time, industrial conditions are beginning to favour a great agricultural revival in the British Isles. ”

“ It is the problem of the man behind the plow. It is he that is the center of interest. His business, his success, his manhood, his family, his environment, his education, his future—these constitute the problem of the farm. Half our people make their living from the brown soil. In virtue, in intelligence, in real worth, this half compare favorably with the other half who saw wood, and shovel sand, and pull throttles, and prepare briefs, and write sermons. The business of agriculture provides directly for the material welfare of nearly forty millions of our people. ”

“ We can then free some three million hectares now devoted to marginal rice and corn growing to other uses -- to pasture, to aqua-culture and to high value crops. These efforts in agriculture must be matched by equally resolute efforts at agrarian reform. ”

“ Oftentimes the object of these rural forces is confused with efforts to increase the financial prosperity of the farmer. It goes without saying that the maintenance of the fertility of the soil is essential to the food supply of the nation. The problems of the economic production of plants and animals are of great importance to the prosperity of the farmer. ”

“ Is the farm problem one of technique plus business skill, plus these broad economic considerations? Is it not perfectly possible that agriculture as an industry may remain in a fairly satisfactory condition, and yet the farming class fail to maintain its status in the general social order? ”

“ But the truth is, the planting of apple and pear trees in fields is no extravagance, rather an economy, the fruit they produce exceeding in value the corn they damage, whilst the puzzling line of poplars growing beside canals and rivers is the work of the Government, every spare bit of ground belonging to the State being planted with them for the sake of the timber. The crops are splendid partly owing to the soil, and partly to the advanced system of agriculture. ”