No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 237 



farmers will they make? I tell you, that the trouble is with the pub- 

 lic schools of today. The teaching is superficial, and little 

 attention is paid to the fundamental part of a boy's education. 

 Now, these boys who expect to be farmers should be taught well 

 in the fundamentals and have the first principles of agriculture 

 instilled into their hearts and minds, instead of passing their time 

 reading novels and emulating Wild West shows, they want to 

 study Hoard's Dairyman, the New York Agriculturist, The Farm 

 Bulletins, and other good and profitable publications of the same 

 class. Instead, they get a little Latin, a little literature, and mighty 

 little, too, and less of something else, and instead of becoming 

 "•Sons of Thunder'' they become "Sons of Mush." 



You talk about changing the schools we have in the country to 

 arouse an interest in agriculture. It is the city boy who needs 

 agriculture just as much as the country boy. You can't take any 

 man, put the books before him, talk to him about farming, and make 

 a farmer out of him. His heart and mind must be in the work first, 

 and he must be grounded in the rudiments of the work. Whether 

 in agriculture, music, or anything else, it is the same. The skill- 

 ful pianist must first know the rudiments of music; the successful 

 farmer the rudiments of farming. But the schools of today are 

 teaching them stuif that will do them just as much good as that 

 famous old classic '"Old Mother Hubbard," or "Grimm's Fairy 

 Tales," and then you wonder why so many of the boys go astray! 

 I wonder they are as good as they are. 



ON WHAT DOES THE QUALITY OF BUTTER DEPEND? 



BY PROF. H. B. Van Norman, State College. Pa. 



Mr. Chairman: As I sat here yesterday and heard our chemists 

 tell of the development in the study of soils, of the need of lime 

 and the best methods of fertilizing the soil, heard our horticul- 

 turists speak of the problems that are still unsolved in that depart- 

 ment, and then think of one of our Experiment Stations closing 

 its dairy department, and abandoning the machinery because the 

 important problems in dairying have been solved. It seems like 

 presumption for me to come here and try to talk to these educators 

 on butter-making, and that to speak on the subject as outlined 

 would bore you. There are some things that I would call to your 

 attention. 



The more I study the situation the more I am impressed with the 

 excellent home markets there are for first-class dairy products 

 in Pennsylvania, One of the things that I think should be changed 

 is the self-satisfaction of our butter-makers with the product they 

 are putting out. Because there is such a demand for our butter, 

 a great deal of it is sold direct to the consumer, and he becomes 

 used to that particular brand, faults and all, but when the butter- 

 maker takes that same butter to the Butter Shows, such as Chicago 

 and St. Louis, our Pennsylvania butter does not get a very favor- 



