92 RURAL RECONSTRUCTION 



good part of the value of instruction given and demonstrations 

 shown will be lost if they do not awaken that thought — to weigh 

 the arguments employed and lead people to apply the lessons learnt 

 according to their own peculiar circumstances. 



We are terribly behindhand on this point — which point is very 

 becomingly appreciated in the United States and in Canada — and 

 the advice only recently given, with all the authority of the office 

 in Whitehall Place, that farmers' associations should be formed, 

 not for purposes of discussion but mainly for purposes of business, 

 shows that our appointed leaders fail to appreciate the merits of the 

 case. In the United States and in Canada the successful business 

 organisations of farmers originated in discussional associations. 

 We observe that on the other side of the Atlantic and on the Euro- 

 pean Continent agriculture is everywhere the most advanced where 

 there are the largest number of farmers' societies for discussion and 

 common study. Belgium is an instance in point. But the progress 

 made in North America is, at a more initial stage, equally telling. 

 The results in Germany are striking. 



There must indeed be encouragement also, though there be no 

 financial support given, for associations formed for purposes of busi- 

 ness ; and we in our country ought to know how much there is 

 sometimes to be done in the way of clearing away hindrances and 

 stimulating progress by legislation. We have, in fact, done a good 

 deal of such work, and that work has told in results. But improve- 

 ment never stands still. 



" Better Business " and " Better Farming," although exhausting 

 the objects of interest to many, no doubt, of those practically 

 engaged in agriculture, or else solicitous for the nation's supply 

 with food, make up, after all, only half the prize that rural 

 organisation is designed to strive for. " No one at all familiar with 

 farm life," so wrote President Roosevelt in his " Special Message " 

 nominating his " Country Life Commission," " can fail to recognise 

 the necessity for building up the life of the farmer upon its social, 

 as well as upon its productive side. . . . The strengthening of 

 country life, therefore, is the strengthening of the whole nation." 



Farmers are men, their families consist of women and children ; 

 and men, women, and children, being human beings, cannot be 

 expected to do justice to their vocational business unless their call- 

 ing also provides for their comfort as well as for their profit, giving 

 them security of social standing and access to the amenities of life. 

 Such things, as matters now stand, have been accorded to the tiller 

 of the soil and the breeder and fattener of beasts that we feed on 



