INDIANA HOETI6ULTUEAL SOCIETY. 231 



college-trained. The college was not entirely responsible for their suc- 

 cess, but the training it gave materially aided them in winning success. 



I say we are agreed as to the common school, the high school, and 

 special schools or college training for those boys who expect to become 

 professional men. Now, what about the thousands of boys that are to 

 succeed or fail on the farm? We'll agree, I suppose, they shall receive all 

 the ti'aining the common school can give. A good many of us will not 

 agree that three or four years in a high school will help a boy to farm. I 

 fear we do not keep in mind that a school of any kind is to develop and 

 discipline a boy's mind as well as to store his mind with facts. Now, do 

 boys who expect to farm need well-trained minds, and would a great store 

 of facts add to their chances of success, or is it enough to know "gee and 

 haw and hoe potatoes?" We know they need well-trained minds and the 

 largest possible store of facts. 



Agriculture, until a few years ago, was always looked upon as a voca- 

 tion — a business at which men worked with their hands only, while in 

 truth it is a most difficult science. It has very much to do with life, both 

 plant and animal, the most complex of all sciences, and probably the least 

 understood. There are many questions relating to agi'iculture that di- 

 rectly affect the farmer's success that have not been definitely answered, 

 nor will they be answered until many men who have had the training the 

 best schools can give attempt their solution. When we know more of soil 

 chemistry we shall be able to use fertilizers more economically. Our tile 

 draining will be more effective when we know more of geology. Fruit 

 growing will be vastly more profitable when we have learned the cause 

 and cure of all the diseases that affect it and improve by rule rather than 

 by chance, as we do today. When we know as much of the breeding of 

 grains as we ought to know of tlie breeding of live stock, grain farming 

 may pay. When each farmer knows the best adaptation of crops to soils 

 we shall double and treble our yield. When supply and demand are 

 better understood, gluts and famines, with all their ruinous effects upon 

 profits, will cease to hinder us. We have yet to learn and use the power 

 of combination. When farmers know more of political economy they will 

 know and demand what is best in legislation for their interests. 



I have a boy whom I hope nvill some day be an intelligent, successful 

 farmer. Custom says he knows enough to begin farming when he has 

 graduated:^ from the common school, or even before that time, practically 

 saying his father can teach him all he needs to know in addition to the 

 common school course. But can I? I am busy early and late and I simply 

 can not help him to get that mental training which even a high school 

 would give. I know but little of chemistry, of geology, of pomology, of 

 crop relations, of adaptations of crops to soils, of live stock husbandry, and 

 the thousand and one other things a farmer should know to succeed. If I 

 were to attempt it he would have but one man's experience. I can not de- 

 pend on his learning of my neighbors; good farmers though they be, they 



