IN THE BROADER SENSE 



159 



to the end that the tenants, through better farm management, 

 might become land owners. The Alabama bankers employed 

 Mrs. Mathis to give up part of her time to teach better farming 

 to the farmers of the State, including the landlords and the tenants, 

 and also the boys and girls of the farms. And hence Mrs. Mathis, 

 by working with the bankers and farmers, with the landlords and 

 tenants, is securing the harmonious working together of these 

 different interests, and each interest is benefited by this coopera- 

 tion. The bankers in other states are very active both as State 

 Bankers Associations and as in- 

 dividual bankers, in cooperating 

 with the farmer. The "Banker- 

 Farmer" is the official organ of 

 this broad form of cooperation. 1 



The cooperation of railroads 

 with farmers takes many forms. 

 All important railroads now main- 

 tain agricultural departments 

 whose chief aims are to improve 

 agriculture in the territory tra- 

 versed by the road. New plants, 

 new methods of cultivation, bet- 

 ter seed selection, rotation plans, 

 better grades of livestock, bet- 

 ter marketing methods all 

 these things and many more re- 

 ceive attention. The late James 

 J. Hill, when president of the 

 Great Northern Railway, improved the breed of beef cattle along 

 his lines in North Dakota by awarding very expensive pure-bred 

 sires free of cost to farmers meeting certain requirements. Thus, 

 railroads in general, with a purpose which they frankly confess to 

 be selfish, aim to improve the particular type of agriculture which is 

 peculiar to their section. The Missouri, Kansas, and Texas Rail- 

 way, for instance, like other roads in the fruit belt, is educating 

 the farmer to grade and pack his produce in a standard marketable 

 container. Special trains are sent by many roads, carrying exhibits 

 of poultry or livestock or pure seeds or other demonstration 

 material, accompanied by able lecturers and demonstrators, to carry 

 the gospel of scientific agriculture to the farmer. And in numerous 

 other ways railroads are cooperating with the farmers. 



1 The "Banker-Farmer" is published at Champaign, Illinois. 



FIG. 23. Mrs. G. H. Mathis, of Alabama. 



