No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 121 



PAPERS SELECTED FROM THOSE READ AT THE GENERAL ROUND-UP OF 

 INSTITUTE MANAGERS, HELD AT LOCK HAVEN, PA., JUNE, 1900. 



IDEAL STANDARDS IN FARMING. 



By GEORGE E. HULL, Mercer county. Pa. 



A successful and wealthy manufacturer of railroad iron, when 

 asked the secret of his success, answered, that his success lay in 

 his persistent endeavor to make each succeeding batch of iron bet- 

 ter, if possible, than the last one made; and that all should ap- 

 proach as near as possible to an ideal standard, or model of merit, as 

 a manufacturer could produce. 



The celebrated Madole hammer, and Henry Disston saws, which 

 every carpenter recognizes as the very best tools of their kind, the 

 mowers, the reapers and binders, which have successively come to 

 the front and to the aid of the farmer, and every other article that 

 is to-day manufactured which has a recognized merit and standard 

 value, won its reputation through the determination of the manu- 

 facturer to produce and put upon the market a first class article. 

 This princijile of honorable success, so applicable to the manufac- 

 turer, who successfully manufactures his goods after an ideal stand- 

 ard, is no less applicable to the breeder, the stockman or the gen- 

 eral farmer. The farmer, like the manufacturer, who is ambitious 

 to be successful in his calling, should ever be guided by an ideal 

 standard or model of merit, which should lead him onward and up- 

 ward, not only morally and socially, but also as to his farm, its 

 management, its equipments and conveniences, as well as the selec- 

 tion, breeding and marketing of his stock. In full sympathy with 

 this spirit of progress, and always profiting by his own ex- 

 perience, and also by the experience of, and information given by 

 others in social intercourse and through the press, with that fore- 

 sight and discerning judgment which becomes the progressive far- 

 mer, he should endeavor to make every step taken one of progress; 

 and this must necessarily be to insure future prosperity to the 

 farmer in this country. 



The brood mare, the brood sow, the bunch of breeding ewes, every 

 bunch of sheep selected and fed for the shambles, every bunch of 

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