DAIRY^ SEED IMPROVEMENT, STOCK BREEDERS' MEETINGS. iS/ 



farming sections in Maine. It was an old section, very early 

 settled. As I glanced this way and that at the beautiful houses 

 and fruitful fields, I would ask, "Who lives here?" and the 

 driver who seemed to be a very well informed man, would tell 

 me, "Mr. So and So lives here," etc., and I asked about their 

 children, and I was amazed, I was astonished, that in three 

 cases out of four the children had left the farm, or were living 

 there as idlers. Those farmers in that section had become 

 what we call comfortably well-ofif, were able to hire help to do 

 their work, and were allowing their children to live in idleness 

 and luxury. Against these losses we must contend, and it is not 

 for me to say in this brief time how we are to do it. 



If you have not had any opportunity to read an article en- 

 titled "The Organization of a Rural Community," published in 

 the 1914 volume of the Report of the Agricultural Department 

 at Washington, by T. N. Carver, in which he very minutely and 

 wisely outlines the methods of organizing rural communities, 

 please do so at your first opportunity. I believe this plan to be 

 very practical, and that it may be realized. The farmers are 

 getting the results of the inventive genius of our people. It is 

 manifest wherever we go. They have not yet learned, as I 

 think they will, to follow the principles of modern economic 

 science, of cooperation in producing, cooperation in marketing, 

 cooperation in purchasing, cooperation in the promotion of 

 wise and healthful recreation for the boys and girls in the com- 

 munity, cooperation in the beautifying of the exterior and 

 interior of their homes. I believe these things are to come ; 

 they are absolutely necessary for the precious results of which 

 the speaker who gave the response spoke ; for these to be ac- 

 complished, we must bring about a cooperation in these things 

 that will render country life more attractive than it is now. I 

 remember when I was a boy, the old Lyceum, which set the 

 brains of the young men and women to work; I remember the 

 debates and literary exercises, rather crude, to be sure, but 

 bringing out the young men and young women in a way to 

 develop them. No doubt many of them were very wisely and 

 effectively administered. 



I think the Boy Scout movement and the Campfire Girls 

 movement, the movement to organize the women in our coun- 

 try towns to study, the promotion of clubs which deal with the 



