Religion: Jewish Farmers

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I'll be sweetched

De hay'll wouldn't gonna be peetched, Gerryaple Nepolian, it geeves de rain a look!

The above Milt Grossian verses were to be seen issuing out of the mouth of a farmer of decidedly Hebraic aspect drawn last week by able Cartoonist Will Johnstone in the New York World. Cartoonist Johnstone's fantasy was inspired by the annual report of the Jewish Agricultural Society, Inc., whose president : no less eminent a Jew than Percy Selden Straus, famed Manhattan merchant-philanthropist (R. H. Macy & Co. Inc.). The report declared, to the surprise of Cartoonist Johnstone, that there are now some 90,000 Jewish farmers in the U. S. as against some 1,000 when the Agricultural Society was founded 30 years ago.

At that time a movement was animating worldwide Jewry to teach their young profitable occupations. Farming seemed among the best of these in the U. S. because Jewish immigrants were flooding into the cities, an increase in Jewish farming would divert some of the population from the teeming, unhealthy ghettos, the Jewish slums. To encourage such diversion the Agricultural Society was founded.

Last week, in addition to the startlingly increased number of Jewish farmers, the Society was able to report an estimated 1,000,000 acres under cultivation by U. S. Jews. Every kind of farming "has its Jewish votaries." Despite the nationwide groaning of Agriculture, more persons sought advice from the Agricultural Society last year than in any year, except 1928, since 1920. Last year 89 families comprising 450 people were established on farms at an average cost of $7,132 per farm. Average capital per family was $3,977; average cash payment, $2,319.

The Agricultural Society not only gives this sort of encouragement, but maintains a loan fund which has, in 30 years, dispensed more than $6,300,000. It also maintains an advice bureau, a system of field instruction, a night school. The Jewsh Farmer, numerous scholarships and grants, a farm employment agency.

From the Jewish Agricultural Society, Inc., sounds no lamentation, no wailing over hard times. All is hopeful, active. It is one of the most practical of the numberless Jewish philanthropies.