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Show RAILWAY BENEFICENCE. Railroads labor to Increase development as well as to reduce transportation costs. We have several times referred to the work of some of them In furthering good roads and running agricultural lecture trains, thus bringing the agricultural college to the farmer, farm-er, and this work is still progressing. The Illinois Central will now operate a "farmers' "farm-ers' special" in the South, starting October 2 from Hernando, near the northern line of Mississippi, and ending In ten days at Memphis. Mem-phis. Stops will be made at nearly 100 stations, the town halls being used In the larger places and the train In the smaller, the speakers, of course, being the ablest, since the sole object is practical results. Another development along- the same line of work la being -done in other fields; it might be called teaching agriculture by rail. The suggestion comes from the Burlington-road's Burlington-road's industrial commissioner, and haa grown out of the lecture train. The plan 1 to have the agricultural department of the State universities arrange for a four years' correspondence course, each year taking tak-ing up its special phase of agricultural work, the correspondence to be based on textbooks text-books supplemented by monthly bulletins and practical experiments. On the practical side, the student is to set aside one acre, upon which he can -demonstrate and observe, keeping accurate account of results upon this acre and reporting to the university: an annual an-nual meeting at the State farms, of course favored by reduced . fares. Is also contemplated. contem-plated. The plan is to be without charge beyond a small enrollment fee as evident of" good faith, and it is indorsed warmly by the heads of the State universities and the executives . of 'the great agricultural States of Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska and Missouri. Mis-souri. The popular notion of a railroad Is that it is an octopus a devouring monster. That is the substance of the complaint, which wholly Ignores the fact that unless the people peo-ple thrive there would soon be no sustenance susten-ance for this monster, and that it he really, devoured them utterly he would soon be in the agonies of starvation. A railroad must have development and production through Its territory, especially if it. is a pioneer road, and the real fact is that It is much nearer a kindly nurse of popular prosperity than a devouring monster. The common carrier must certainly have things to carry or perish. And while orators and 'writers are spouting rhetoric and Legislatures are laboring to tie up the monster by statutes, he is at "work trying to pay his debts and make both financial ends meet, and hence all th time planning new wsys of increasing population and production in the territory where be operates or to which he expects to push on. New York Financial Chronicle. |