156 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



farmer does not figure things the way most business men should. 

 He says he has his horses anyway and teams and wagons, and 

 has to haul anyway whether the roads are good or bad, and he 

 figures along that line. 



But there are other conditions than crop hauling that de- 

 pend upon roads and that are just as vital as getting crops to 

 market. 



Improving rural life conditions is 'the object of the associa- 

 tion to which you belong, and I want to say that aside from good 

 schools good roads lead in more directions than any of us can 

 imagine. If you have good roads and the farmers who can 

 afford them have automobiles they can get about, widening 

 their vision. It helps wonderfully in social matters to be able 

 to get in and out to a good country town and have intercourse 

 with your neighbors and know what is going on, to be able to 

 get to church, to school, to town. That is what is going to 

 build up country life and make it desirable. 



Farming is a life and people who farm have to live. They 

 have been "living," but it has been a more or less isolated life 

 because of the poor roads and the fact that in bad seasons for 

 several months it is almost impossible either to come or to go 

 with any comfort. They would rather stay at home than go, 

 and then as soon as they get far enough along they move away 

 from the farm and go to town, and the boys and girls living under 

 the average conditions as you find them in any part of the coun- 

 try are only waiting for a chance when they grow up to get 

 away from the farm. Now those conditions are totally dif- 

 ferent from what they ought to be, and we must work for good 

 roads. 



Referring again to the schools and churches, we should 

 have fewer and better churches and schools — more consolida- 

 tion. We should have fewer schools and school wagons; have 

 fewer churches and better preachers that we can pay better, 

 because in many communities we are trying to maintain two 

 or three churches when we would find it very much better to 

 maintain one church or two churches. We are not very far 

 apart in the line of our religious views — just a few trivial forms. 

 If we had fewer churches and better churches and made those 

 churches community centers, and if the ministers, as I have said, 

 got in touch with the people, he could do for the country churches 

 the same great service Mrs. Harvey is doing in her country 

 school. They are doing this in a number of country churches 



