FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 203 



FARMERS' BOYS IX RELATION TO FARMING. 



BY K. O. BAIRD, SECRETAKY OF TUE MICHIGAN STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 

 (Read at Rockford, Manchester, and Romeo Institutes.1 



Tiie subject of ni}' address is not so directly a part of Agriculture as those 

 themes which have occupied your attention at the previous sessions of this In- 

 stitute. I think, however, that it is quite as important as any of these ; for 

 no matter how successfully a man may raise horses, cuttle or sheep, how much 

 he may increase the fertility of his farm or improve the quality of his crops, 

 his life will be a miserable failure, if by neglecting to cherish those influences 

 iu his home which are essential to the right development of character, there 

 should come forth from that home a generation of idle, unprincipled or vicious 

 sons, to bring swift disgrace upon themselves and exert an evil influence upon 

 society. Happily, however, among our rural population, the homes that send 

 forth such boys are rare exceptions. 



It is my impression that a large number of the boys of the country grow up well, 

 and as regards intelligence, real worth and the positions of usefulness and honor 

 which they occupy in after years, they will compare favorably Avith the boys 

 that are brought up in village, town or cit3^ I have no knowledge of statis- 

 tics bearing upon this matter, but am merely giving the impression that has 

 come to me from observation both of city and country life. 



All through these northern States, both east and west, you will find men occu- 

 pying positions in the very front of professional and mercantile pursuits, whose 

 boyhood was spent upon the farm. 



I quite frequently notice articles in agricultural and other papers, bemoan- 

 ing the fact that so many farmers' boys leave the farm, and that so few of 

 them are content to remain at home to possess and cultivate the paternal 

 acres. If it is a fact that the sons of farmers are less inclined than other 

 men's sons to follow the occupation of their fathers — although I am very much 

 inclined to doubt whether such is the fact at all — yet if it is so, I doubt 

 whether it should be a matter of regret. "We must respect the individuality of 

 our boys if we would lead them on to the highest usefulness and best enjoy- 

 ment in life. It is a stupid sentimentality to bemoan the fact that all farmers' 

 boys do not become farmers, or to regard it as a loss to themselves and to soci- 

 ety when they chose to "'hang up the shovel and the hoe" to take hold of some 

 other implements more congenial to them. AVho is sorry to-day that Daniel 

 Webster in his boyhood, came to the conclusion that the best way for him to 

 hang a scythe was to hang it on the limb of a tree and leave it there so far as 

 he was concerned. If his father, like an unreasonable tyrant, had compelled 

 him to stick to the farm we should have lost one of our greatest statesmen 

 and most brilliant orators, to have made in all probability a very poor farmer. 

 In the circle of my own acquaintance there are several men who, from a mis- 

 taken sense of dut}-, or out of deference to the wishes of parents, or from 

 circumstances that seemed to hedge them about and leave them no choice in 

 the matter, have stuck to the farm, while their tastes were not at all in har- 

 mony witii the occupation. It would be a mere truism to say they have not 

 made a success of it, while I have no doubt they might have been entirely 

 successful in some other and more congenial occupation. 



Even in the same family we almost invariably find a wide diversity of organi- 



