120 



CONSERVATION 



read what lie has to say in regard to 

 the farmers of the country. His letter 

 to Judge Goudy follows : 



Hon. Frank C. Goudy, President, Sixteenth 

 National Irrigation Congress, Albuquerque, 

 N. Mex. 



My Dear Judge Goudy: As I have al- 

 ready written you, I regret more than I can 

 easily say that I cannot be with you at Al- 

 buquerque this year. For a number of years 

 past I have attended every session of the 

 National Irrigation Congress, and at the 

 more recent ones I have been honored as 

 the bearer of a message from the President; 

 whose interest in irrigation never flags. This 

 fall, under his orders, I am trying to do cer- 

 tain work on the National Conservation, and 

 the Commission on Country Life, and that 

 is why I am unable to come. 



Ever since I came to have first-hand 

 knowledge of irrigation, I have been im- 

 pressed 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 irri- 

 gated 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 co- 

 operation, and generally has lacked the stim- 

 ulus which has sent the men whom this con- 

 gress represents so far along on the road to 

 the ideal country life. It is for this reason 

 that _ I venture to send you the following 

 considerations bearing on the work of the 

 Presioent's Commission on Country Life — 

 because you have gone so far on the road he 

 wants others to follow. 



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 cooperation 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 ob- 

 jects: First, sound and profitable business; 

 second, organized cooperation with each 

 other to their mutual advantage, as in set- 

 tling disputes, securing satisfactory rates 

 from railroads, and inducing new industries 

 to settle among 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 organ- 

 ized cooperation in selling their labor to the 

 best advantage; and in addition they enjoy 

 certain social advantages often of overwhelm- 

 ing importance. 



The practical value of organization and 

 cooperation 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 for 

 the most 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 as- 

 sistance of organization, in competing with 

 these organizations of other groups of citi- 

 zens. Thus the farmer, the man on whose 

 product we all live, contends almost single- 

 handed against his highly organized com- 

 petitors. 



How have the agricultural schools and col- 

 leges 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 hirn 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. We have done more, and have done it 

 rnore effectively, for the farmer along the 

 line of better crops 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 not only the work of departments 

 of agriculture in state and nation, 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 ag- 

 riculture should cover the whole field of the 

 farmers' life. It is not enough to touch 

 only one the three great country problems, 

 even though that is the first in time and in 

 importance. 



Of course, we all realize that the grow- 

 ing of crops is the great foundation on which 



