228 ANNUAL, REiPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



As a second reason, it may become necessary in the near future 

 as a means of self-preservation. A few years ago Dr. Wm. Cook, 

 in a lecture before a British Association, showed by statistics that 

 as man advances in civilization he requires a wheat diet, that 

 about all the land adapted to the p-owth of wheat is under culti- 

 vation, and that unless more grain can be raised per acre the wheat 

 crop will soon be below the demand. He suggested the fixation 

 of atmospheric nitrogen as the remedy. May it not be possible 

 that a cheap source of nitrogen will not alone solve the problem? 

 Would not more intelligent farmers who could understand and apply 

 the laws of nature be a more likely solution than the mere cheap- 

 ening of a fertilizer? If what I have said is true the successful 

 farmer's education demands that the future farmer and his wife 

 should be educated in the elementary principles of mechanics and 

 electricity, to understand the machines which he has to handle, 

 and enough chemistry must be added to enable him to understand 

 and work out a balanced ration or a fertilizer; bacteriology and 

 sanitary science so that he may combat the lower enemies which 

 are on every hand; mathematics and bookkeeping sufficient so 

 that he can keep account of the profit and loss account; enough 

 of nature study that he may find pleasure as well as profit in ob- 

 serving what is going on around him and make and interpret such 

 experiments as will improve his crop production. Enough inde- 

 pendence should be installed that the young man may think for him- 

 self and be able to cut loose from the methods used by the fore- 

 fathers and try up-to-date methods; enough history, literature and 

 art to make the farmer's boy and girl appreciate the surroundings 

 in which they live and the country life around them, so that they 

 will appreciate their surroundings and not be in a hurry to go to 

 the cities where they can make a few more dollars. 



This it seems to me is what the successful farmer's education 

 demands. This I realize would necessitate a great change in our 

 common school system, but you see with few exceptions it is only 

 trying to teach the children what the Farmers' Institutes are try- 

 ing to teach the farmer and his wife. We all realize that "It is 

 hard to teach old dogs new tricks." The time to innoculate new 

 ideas is during the years of school life, then all could be reached. 

 What a small percentage of the farmers now get any benefit from 

 the instruction which the State so liberally supplies in the insti- 

 tutes. Centralizing rural schools would be necessary. The cost 

 of education, in the long run it would be an investment that 

 would pay well and of which we could well be proud. 



THE SOCIAL SIDE OF FARM LIFE. 



Bt Mrs. Sabah B. Fritz, Duncannon, Pa. 



The social side of farm life is a very important one. If we want 

 to get our full share of anything but existence out of our lives, 

 we must not live so close within the confines of the farm that we 



