134 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



problems of temperance and of the slums; and we have in the 

 country problems equally as great and significant. They do 

 not concern, in the smallest view of it, as many people, but they 

 concern the people who are there just as vitally, and the interests 

 to be served are as far-reaching in their importance as any that 

 can engage a body of men and women in the great centers of 

 population. We must get busy to think about these important 

 interests. 



Now this afternoon I thought I would talk on the same 

 subject that I spoke on over there at Laddonia, and I don't 

 know any other way to present the things that I want to say 

 in connection with a meeting of this sort than to say them just 

 under four heads — the farmer, the farmers' wife, the farmer's 

 son and the farmer's daughter. 



The first of these — the farmer: The things that I wanted 

 to suggest are not things that immediately concern the raising 

 of crops, the raising of stock and the managing of orchards and 

 the selection of seed, and things like that — you can get that in 

 other departments and from men and women who are specialists 

 in the subjects discussed — but there is something that I feel 

 with referenoe to the farmer as a man that I want to lay on your 

 hearts. Now, of course, it is well for him to look to his health 

 and the harvesting and the right use and distribution of his 

 strength, and therefore that he should keep things in proper con- 

 dition for making himself healthy, but I want you to think 

 about the keeping of his mind active, too, and some of the things 

 that make the challenge to the farmer with reference to the 

 great things that may be done. Just to plump right into the 

 subject, one of the greatest undone things in the interest of 

 rural communities is the proper organization and solidarity of 

 the people with reference to the things that they grow and wish 

 to dispose of. 



When a farmer goes to market he asks one man what is the 

 price of wheat and corn and oats, and another man what is the 

 price of hogs and cattle and sheep, and another man what is the 

 price of eggs and butter and chickens; and if he goes to the 

 manufacturer, the producer of other things, he will ask the same 

 sort of a question: What is the price of the thing they produce? 

 What is the price of your iron? What is the price of your lumber? 

 What is the price of the things that you have to dispose of? 

 He does not fix the price on the things that he makes; the other 

 fixes it both ways. 



