The Essentials of Permanent Agriculture

The Essentials of Permanent Agriculture By Elmer G. Peterson, A. M., Ph. D., President Utah Agricultural College

II. — The Real Farmer Much has been said about the depopulation of the country with resulting congestion in the city. There has undoubtedly been a strong wave toward the cities during part of the past half century. This has been due, in large measure, to the de- velopment of machinery and manufacturing which offered op- portunities that appeared greater than those of the farm. Most of the great industrial leaders of today were boys on the farm thirty years or more ago. With the development of manufact- uring and the improvement in living conditions in the city and in manufacturing centers, which is one of the truly remarkable achievements of the last fifty years, additional inducement was offered the farm boy and girl to desert the country for the city. At the time we were making a very important development in manufacturing and transportation enterprise in America, country life was in anything but a desirable condition. This was twenty years and more ago. Roads were bad, if not im- passable, during much of the year. There was very meagre pro- vision for sanitation on the farm. Automobiles had not come to remove the terror of isolation. The country church, speaking generally of America but not of Utah, in the opinion of many students of the subject, had failed to meet the needs of the farm- ers and their families. The price of products was low and the control of diseases and pests had not been so satisfactorily es- tablished as with the aid of modern science it is now established. The country schools were very inadequate. Interurbans had not yet been built, which now greatly aid the development of and others operating, coun- country life. With all these factors try life became very unattractive. About this time, however, there began a great movement looking toward the reiuvenation of the farm. The Agricultural throughout America began to extend their work, the Colleges earnest, automo- good roads movement began to take form in practically all the substan- biles developed within the reach of farmers. The price of products increased; education in ag- tial not only in the Ag- riculture and home economics was stimulated the high schools. The result of these ricultural Colleges but in

50 IMPROVEMENT ERA

and many other things operating sees the country today offer- ing advantages to those who have the necessary ability and spirit, that far surpass the average conditions of the city. Country life has been made beautiful. Sanitary conve- niences now are available for every home. Good roads, autos, and interurbans put the farmer in touch with world affairs. The city paper is left at his gate each morning or evening. He has excellent schools, although they can be improved. All in all, the result today justifies the belief that larger and larger num- bers of the "best" people will seek holdings in the country, for- saking the monotony and soul killing life which the great major- ity of city folk must live.

There is a prevalent error in the minds of many that the country must be made like the city before it is completely re- deemed. Utah and America contain many, many sad monuments by way of financial failures to pavement-minded people who thought that they were not modern unless they had a city house on their farm, a city lawn, city fences, and city furnishings in their home. Some of these things are desirable, and will come, but are not essential. And these tastes differentiate the artificial product which often parades in the name of agriculture from the real lover of the country. There is enough beauty in nature, if we but know it, not to make it necessary unduly to try to im- prove nature. Nothing, in a way, is more beautiful than sage, or even dry knolls where grass is making a stubborn fight to stay green. The simpler the country home, the better, sometimes; which does not prevent most modern improvements. What I mean is that a real farmer does not crave a great monument of brick for a house or a tremendously expensive lot of other build- ings. The city-minded man does. The real farmer knows his horses as individuals and his cows the same, and takes genuine joy in caring for them. He loves to "putter" around his pigs and chickens. He is a friend to his canyons and his streams of water. \nd yet he is quick often and decisive in business de- tails and must be a man of great industry, because farming is hard work and the man who is afraid to wilt his collar would better stay away. God has made possible no vocation which permits a truer living and a greater spiritual exaltation than agriculture. This State and others contain many opportunists who till the soil, many good business men who raise fruit or other crops, many good engineers who succeed in agriculture, but not nearly enough real farmers whose greatest satisfaction comes from creating fields of grain from dry lands, from developing great herds and flocks from small beginnings, who love horses and the great open places, and whose life would not end happily if

THE ESSENTIALS OF PERMANENT AGRICULTURE 51

itdid not end with them among their stock or in their fields. Such quality is a part of men who are right minded. Such an attitude represents an advanced spiritual mastery that puts such men among the great. Logan, Utah.