No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 313 



for the higher life left. In these times the mau with 100 acres 

 will have less trouble iii keeping help than where there is only one; 

 the more men you keep the easier it is to get help. 



One great trouble with the farmers in these days is, they do not 

 understand the terms or words used by writers when discussing 

 farm subjects, such words as "leguminous plants," "balanced ra- 

 tions," "inoculation," "humus material," etc. Many farmers have 

 a wrong notion about these terms. They think they could be ex- 

 pressed in plain, simple language. Such words are mainly used 

 in Agricultural Chemistry, and there are uo other words equivalent 

 to them. It is the same with the words "telegraph or telephone." 

 Both are Greek words, and there are no other words that stand 

 for the same meaning. Farmers as well as other classes found no 

 difficulty in learning the meaning of those two words, and they use 

 them readily. It is so with the terms in agricultural literature. We 

 acknowledge that the farmer can not get the true meaning of any 

 article unless he can understand the meaning of the language it is 

 written in. But the true logic of that situation is that the farmer 

 should at once learn the meaning of such words in order that he 

 may gain the knowledge they convey. Right there comes in the 

 great advantage of studying these questions and terms in the 

 common school when joung. Where will he be in after life unless 

 he learns their meaning? Thousands of good men to-day can not 

 read their farm paper as intelligently as they wish, just because in 

 their country district school, when boys, they were given no educa- 

 tion in these things. All thought, experience, knowledge, is con- 

 veyed from one man to another by the use of language. If we can 

 not understand the language we derive no instruction from it. It is 

 a dead language to us. There is no reason why he can not educate 

 himself the same as thousands of others have. By the aid of a 

 dictionary he can learn the meaning of any term used in books or 

 papers. Think how much more of a man he will feel himself to 

 be, and how much more of a man he reallv is, if he can readilv 

 understand the meaning of the articles that are written for his 

 enlightenment. It is a good plan whenever a Farmers' Institute 

 is announced in a neighborhood, for those who expect to attend to 

 save up the knotty problems they encounter in their reading and 

 experience and propound them for solution to the Department's 

 representatives. This would not only make the institute more 

 interesting and instructive, but would also put the lecturer on his 

 mettle and compel him to be of the class that knows he knows. As 

 common people we are surrounded on every hand with the thought, 

 the work, the results of science to the final meaning of our civili- 

 zation is applied science. It is applied in the buildings we live in. 

 the food we eat, the clothes we wear, etc. Indeed, it is the essence 

 of the life we live. Why, then, should the farmer be so afraid of 

 science or scientific men? Why should he have a prejudice against 

 them? Every improvement that has come to him through life has 

 been brought out through science, and yet there are thousands of 

 farmers who sneer at science and scientific farming. (Science is the 

 organization of the common knowledge of the common people.) A 

 farm is a common thing, but a well-organized, thoroughly efficient 

 farm is very uncommon, and so, there are many men on farms who 

 know enough if thej would arrange their knowledge into praotioal, 

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