The Bulletin. 45 



This means an agricultural education for every boy and girl that is raised 

 upon the farms of the State; an education, by the way, that unfits them in 

 no way for any other business that they may choose to take up later; for a 

 brain training founded upon the great principles that pertain to the soil 

 will be one of the best foundations upon which to rear an educational struc- 

 ture that will fit for any other business or profession. And the hope of the 

 country as I see it is to make of farm boys and girls farmers first, then let 

 the surplus go to other callings; for the greatest need of our State today is 

 better farmers. The greatest work that lies at the door of these better 

 farmers of the future is the improvement of the soils of our State; for it is 

 a fact that while our gross income from the lands of the State amounts to 

 vast sums yearly, yet not half of the acres upon which our products are pro- 

 duced — because of a depleted condition — pay a living wage to the men 

 handling them. This can mean nothing else than poverty to the farming 

 people. And a people continuing in poverty generation after generation lose 

 courage and ambition, and a consequent lowering of their standard of living 

 and citizenship is inevitable. 



This condition among those responsible for the care of our greatest in- 

 dustry can never be tolerated. Our new farmers must study and experi- 

 ment until they learn how — by better drainage, better tillage, better fertili- 

 zation, more economical working, and a better handling of necessary capi- 

 tal — to put these border acres into the profit-giving column; make them 

 produce a greater yield each year at no greater expense, and cause them to 

 increase from year to year in natural stored-up fertility. And then will the 

 present generation be more economically fed and clothed and the heritage 

 of future generations be conserved. 



These young men and women of the future must be brought to realize 

 clearly that upon them rests very largely the conservation of our great 

 natural resource called water-power; for while the State and nation in the 

 coming years may spend vast sums of the people's money in reforesting the 

 mountains and building great reservoirs for the control of surplus water, 

 yet upon them — the men and women having the control of the farming lands 

 of the State — must fall the great bulk of the work of regulating the flow of 

 surplus water. 



The farming lands of the State must be so thoroughly underdrained, so 

 well broken, so completely filled with vegetable matter, and the rougher por- 

 tions of the farms so constantly covered with grass that surplus water will — 

 the greater part of it — be made to seep through the land and thus leave 

 gradually, rather than to rush off the surface of the soil to swell the creeks 

 and rivers to the bursting point. 



Upon the farmers and their wives of the future will fall in a large degree 

 the work of beautifying our State, cultivating her natural resources, for 

 beauty that is second to no State in the Union. Our unsightly patches of 

 cultivated lands must be broadened and lengthened until they meet, form- 

 ing oroad areas of well-tilled fields. Our unprofitable brush-grown gullies 

 and galled hills must be made to lend beauty to the landscape by presenting 

 an unbroken expanse of rich green, profit-giving grass. And upon these 

 pastures the unlovely scrub animal must give place to the man-moulded, 

 beautiful, well-bred cow, horse, sheep, and hog. 



The farm homes of these future farmers will reflect their culture and 

 prosperity, and the open country from Currituck to Cherokee will give abun- 

 dant evidence that our State has recognized the importance of her greatest 

 natural resource — the soil — and has given thought to the training of the 

 people in the land; has given to agriculture the dignity that its importance 

 warrants. 



