THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, AUGUST 17, 1907. PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT AND FARMERS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8512, 17 August 1907, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, AUGUST 17, 1907. PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT AND FARMERS.

The President of the United States addressed some sound and statesmanlike remarks to a meeting of agriculturalists at Lansing, Mich., a few weeks ago. He contended that the permanent greatness of any State must depend upon the character of its country population more than upon anyching else. It would be idle to deny, he said, that in the last half century in the eastern half of the United States there had been a falling off in the relative condition of the farmers, but there were signs the nation had awakened to the danger. "Ambitious native-born young men and women who now tend away from the farm must be brought back to it, and therefore they must have social as well as economic opportunities." Need of encouraging social movements in the rural districts —libraries, assembly halls, and social organisations of all kinds—was elaborated by Mr Roosevelt. Nothing, the President declared, ir the way of scientific work could ever take the place of business management on a farm, and this led him to speak of the work of the Department of Agriculture. "Of all the executive Departments," said Mr Roosevelt, "there is no other, not even the Post Office, which comes into more direct and beneficient contact with the daily life of the people than the Department of Agriculture, and none whose yield of practical benefits is greater in proportion to the public money expended. Hereafter another great task before the National De-

partment of Agriculture, and the similar agencies of the various States must be to foster agriculture for its social results, or in other words, to assist in bringing about the best kind of life on the farm for the sake of producing the best kind of men. The Government must recognise the farreaching importance of the study and treatment of the problems of farm life alike from the social and the economic ,-Uindpoiiits; and the Federal and State Departments of Agriculture should co-operate at every point." Pointing out that the drift toward the city is largely determined by the superior social opportunities to be- enjoyed there, Mr Roosevelt suhi the problem of the farm, is as much one of attractiveness as of prosperity. To double the

average yield of wheat and corn would be p. :>-ir;<t achievement, but it was more important to double the desirability, comfort, and standing of the farmer:-; i!h\ "Farmers must learn the vital need of co-operation with one another," said Mr Roosevelt. "Next to this comes co-opera-tion with trie Government and the Government can best give its aid through associatious of farmers rat'.ier than through t! e individual farmer, for there is no greater agricultural problem than that of delivering to the farmer the large body of agricultural knowledge which has been accumulated by the national and S'ate Governments and by the agr.vultural colleges and schools. The people of our farming regions must be able to combine among themselves," Mr Roosevelt continued, "as the most efficient means of protecting their industry from the highly organised interests which now surround them on every side. A vast field is open for work by co-operative associations of farmers in dealing with the relation of the farm to transportation and to the distribution and manufacture of raw materials. It is only through such combination that American farmers can develop to the full their economic and social power. Combinaton of this kind has, in Denmark, for instance, resulted in bringing the people back to the j land, and has enabled (he Danish peasant to compete in extraordinary fashion, not only at home, but in foreign countries, with all rivals." Turning from this topic to the farmer's home, Mr Roosevelt spoke especially in behalf of "the one who is too often the very hardest worked labourer on the farm —the farmer's wife." "Reform, like charity, while it should not end at home, should certainly begin there," Mr Roosevelt declared. There is plenty that is hard and rough and disagreeable in the necessary work of acti\al life and under the best circumstances, and no matter how tender and considerate the husband, the wife will have at least her full share of work and worry and anxiety; but if the man is worth his salt he will try to take as much as .possible of the burden off the shoulders of his helpmate.