Cooperative Work with Columbia University 391 



higher esteem than the speaker, hut how ahsiird to expect to take 

 a course of few weeks or months and get any more than the rudi- 

 ments ! Many have an idea that an agricultural college graduate 

 is the beau ideal farmer. He may be, if such course has followed 

 an apprenticeship on the farm. To expect proficiency after only 

 a technical training is to expect the impossible ; as in law, med- 

 icine, engineering, or any other science, there must go with the 

 technical training the practical experience before men will engage 

 the services of such students. 



THE FARM TO BUY 



I cannot refrain from saying a word before closing as to the 

 character of the farm. Remember, I have said that the low-priced 

 lands are not usually the cheap lands ; the value of land depends 

 upon its earning power. Here is a real case to illustrate: A young 

 man came to me for information concerning a certain farm of 

 about 150 acres, the purchase-price being $7,500. It was several 

 miles from market, on a byway, a quarter of a mile from the 

 highway. At least $1,000 should have been expended ©n the house 

 and barn. There were about eighty apple trees on it, but it was 

 not orchard land. It is a fair farm for hay and grass, or stock, 

 but it had been leased for several years, the owner being too 

 old to work it longer. Under his management, produce from it 

 had sold for as much as $1,500 gross in good years. I had diffi- 

 culty in making the young man see that he, a novice, could 

 scarcely expect to obtain as much at the same outlay; and that, 

 when he estimated interest, taxes, upkeep, and labor, he might 

 expect to work at least ten years for his board. I asked him if 

 there were no other farms about — for he liked the neighborhood 

 — and he cited one a little larger for $15,000. It had much 

 better buildings, it was only a half-mile from an electric railroad 

 carrying both freight and passengers, and it was within four 

 miles of a boat landing on the Hudson River and the N^ew York 

 Central Railroad. On it were not less than 500 bearing apple 

 trees and as many pear trees, all good varieties and in good con- 

 dition. Besides, about ten acres of alfalfa had been established. 

 This farm would produce fully three times as much as the other, 

 and in fruit years much more, and was really a cheap farm at 



