6o The State and the Farmer 



It is not only important to farming, but 

 absolutely essential to the nation, that the 

 man at the sources be reached. The farther 

 removed the man, the nearer the sources he is 

 likely to be, and the greater may be the neces- 

 sity of reaching him. We have made only the 

 merest beginning toward reaching him. We 

 must not overlook any man. 



Government can go into farming, — that is, 

 into forest-farming — on its own account, and 

 this it must do. But the one great thing that 

 government can do for the man on the land, 

 that it does not do for all men, is to increase 

 his sense of responsibility to the land and to 

 give him power to use the land. This is educa- 

 tion by means of agriculture, — using the word 

 agriculture broadly for man's occupational 

 contact with the surface of the earth. This is 

 the real solution of the problem of the saving 

 and increasing of our natural resources. This 

 lies beyond and behind all commissions and 

 conventions. Perhaps the commissions and 

 conventions will help to bring this about more 

 speedily. 



