50 The State and the Farmer 



avail himself of all these privileges. We have 

 learned that it is not sufficient merely to start 

 good movements, but that we must have some 

 active means of reaching the last man on the 

 last farm, so long as he lives there. This is by 

 no means a missionary work; it is rather a duty 

 that the state owes to its citizens, to provide 

 those persons in difficult positions with the 

 best possible means of making their property 

 thoroughly serviceable. It becomes in the end, 

 therefore, a personal question as to how infor- 

 mation and education can be taken to the farms 

 in such a way that the farming shall profitably 

 adapt itself to its environments. The failure 

 of a great many farmers may be less a fault 

 of their own than a disadvantage of the con- 

 ditions in which they find themselves. 



It is fairly incumbent on the state organiza- 

 tion to provide effective means of increasing 

 the satisfaction and profit of farming in the 

 less-fortunate areas as well as in the favorable 

 ones, both as an agency of developing citizen- 

 ship and as a means of increasing the wealth 

 of the state. The state cannot delegate this 



