350 Bureau of Farmers' Institutes. 



Are we, as farmers, living up to our opportunities? Are our 

 homes and surroundings what they should be \ Is our table supplied 

 with all the good things that our city cousins are so willing to 

 buy from us? Are we not depending more on luck than on 

 pluck? 



I must admit it is very alluring to read of a boy leaving the 

 farm without a dollar and ending at a Rockefeller or a Carnegie. 



How many of our boys have left the farm with quite a few 

 dollars, and end in the gutter — those are not mentioned. 



Was it the business methods, the happy surroundings, the good 

 living, that caused their leaving the farm? 



From a financial point, does not the well-managed farm com- 

 pare favorably with most mercantile or mechanical pursuits? Let 

 us compare them : 



I have in my mind's eye a skilled mechanic working in a shop 

 in the city at $3 per day. Health being good, he will earn $850 

 per year, from which he pays $144.50 for rent, $550 for living ex- 

 penses, and $30 for coal, leaving $126 to lay away for a rainy 

 day (providing he has had steady work). If the shop shuts down 

 for two months his little savings are gone. It is true he has 

 no capital to invest, but his skill and labor is his capital, and 

 must furnish him and his family a livelihood. 



ISTow let us consider the merchant, with a capital of $5,000 in- 

 vested in goods, after paying rent for store and clerk hire, allow- 

 ing he lives as economically as the mechanic, he must make that 

 $5,000 earn at least $1,500. To do as well as the mechanic he 

 must use business methods, not luck. 



ISTow to go back to the farm. By applying the skill of a 

 mechanic, the business methods of the merchant, it must indeed 

 be a poorly invested $5,000, that will not furnish us a better liv- 

 ing, a better home, and as many dollars in our pockets than either 

 of the above. 



Now, a word with the boys. Boys, on you depends the future 

 of agriculture, as well as all other pursuits. The boy who makes 

 himself useful and has the push and honesty to gain for himself 

 a good livelihood and the respect of a community in other 

 branches of business can succeed as well on the farm. Do not 

 look at farm labor as degrading or that the clerk in a store or the 

 skilled mechanic is superior to you in intellect. I know, from 

 personal experience, that it requires more brains to make the 

 farm a successful place of business than it does to make a skilled 

 mechanic. 



