THE UNIVERSITY AND THE FARM 109 



On the social side, life in the country, must be made more livable. 

 I do not sympathize with those who think that the farmer's boy and 

 girl are more susceptible to the lure of the great white ways of the 

 cities than are other boys and girls. I do not believe that the attrac- 

 tions of the city are in so large a degree as is commonly thought the 

 cause of the exodus from country to city. Nevertheless, it is true 

 that means of recreation and pleasure are less abundant and, on the 

 whole, less refined in the country districts than they should be. This 

 is a field for educational activity. It should begin with the local ed- 

 ucational units, particularly the high school, each local community 

 utilizing its resources to furnish proper entertainment for the young. 

 It is a mistake for every community to look to the University as in 

 some states is the practise, for its entertainments, lectures, and study 

 classes. The local teaching staff should first be used and the Univer- 

 sity looked to for help only in those lines and subject with which it 

 properly has to do. 



It has been my purpose in these somewhat desultory remarks to 

 state what seemed to me to be the conditions and the problems rather 

 than to offer solutions of them. It is peculiarly rash for the layman 

 to try to give a description of activities with which he is not familiar 

 through being a participant. Yet the onlooker, who has a general 

 understanding of the character and direction of activities of a par- 

 ticular economic character, may sometimes see their general drift more 

 clearly than if he were immediately engaged in them. It is for that 

 reason and with that feeling that I have ventured on this unfamiliar 

 ground. A man would be a fool who would attempt to prophesy 

 for the next twenty ,or thirty years in Illinois agriculture. Yet I 

 venture to run the risk of being called foolish by pointing out that 

 in a general way we are headed towards a more intensive agriculture, 

 towards a standard or model farm having one leading agricultural ac- 

 tivity and numerous auxiliary agricultural processes, each of them 

 yielding its own profit and all together yielding a larger joint profit 

 than would be obtained from the pursuit of a single agricultural ac- 

 tivity on that particular farm. We shall have larger crops per acre 

 and, in time, either higher prices for them or reduced costs of pro- 

 ducing them. We shall put our dairying, as a separate industry, on a 

 firmer basis, and we shall make it a part of the work of every farm. 

 We shall reclaim our waste lands and use them for forests and graz- 

 ing. We shall restore our cattle industry by finding some method 

 of low cost feeding, and we shall improve our economic organization 

 and make social conditions more attractive. 



