OCR Text |
Show Tho Needs of Agriculture. The census just taken shows that the cities have gained at the expense of the country. Commenting on this fact The Washington Post remarks that of course "some of the country young men who reach the cities achieve success, but their number is not sufficient to swell a census return. That effect is produced, so far as the cities are concerned, by the great army of those who year by year take their place in the ranks of competition, and soon find themselves, in the prime of life, barely able to make a living, and with no better prospect ahead. The time must soon como when this continuous influx into our cities of young men from the country will be generally regarded as a misfortune. The operations of agriculture are at the foundation founda-tion .of nil our prosperity as a people. With the single exception of bad and unjust un-just economic conditions, the circumstances circumstan-ces of the American farmer are especially favorable. "The methods of a varied and profitable cultivation of the soil are daily becoming better understood, and inventive genius has made available for farm work many labor saving machines that relieve it of much of its drudgery. There is, indeed, much to show that agriculture is arriving at a new epoch in its history. But the new conditions will need new men. The more varied the cultivation and the more numerous nu-merous the mechanical appliances employed, em-ployed, the more will intelligence and enterprise en-terprise be required in the management of the field and farm. It is greatly to be hoped that our well educated and active young men, who from childhood are familiar fa-miliar with the processes of furm life, will see their opportunity in these changed and changing conditions." |