264 BOAED OF AGRICULTURE. ' [Jan., 



"grade" children derive their farm breeding from their paternal 

 or maternal parent. The only certainty is, that where the life, 

 culture, and training of parents and forefathers has been so vari- 

 ous, the exuct direction children will take is a conundrum which 

 no fellow can find out. The greatest comfort in this connection, 

 where the chances of fortune are so odd and unforeseen, is that 

 the versatile ability to light always upon our feet, when we fall or 

 jump, is a precious inheritance. 



In clearing the way for what we shall have to say, farther 

 along, it may be well to touch upon the painful wonder, existing 

 in the minds of many, that children should leave the farm and 

 garden for any other employment. There are natural reasons why 

 this should be so and there are plenty of artificial reasons. Our 

 misfortunes, our laws and customs, our education, and religious 

 teachings — springing shapely or more or less distorted from nature 

 — push the callow young birds from the farm nest even when 

 they have the greatest inclination to stay there until their wings 

 are grown. The top of a social plant makes inexorable draft 

 upon the roots in a dry time, unless we manage to control develop- 

 ment by timely mowing or pasturage. Besides artificial prompt- 

 ings out of agriculture, there are inevitable natural inclinations 

 to dig out. This tendency is as old as Adam or the first wood- 

 chuck. We want the farming family able continually to bloom 

 for market, and grow good boys and girls for market. Agri- 

 culture must have its qualified agents scattered abroad in the land. 

 When our social scum or cream grows bitter, we want some one 

 standing by who can tell what is the matter with the cows or 

 grass or land or people. 



In the days of our childhood we were frequently called to grieve 

 by the good preachers of that time, because our first parents, all 

 nicely fixed in the garden, broke up their business and quit. Be- 

 ing any way related to us how could they help it ? They hadn't 

 a common grocery, nor hotel, railway station, telegraph, telephone, 

 newspaper, or post-ofiBce, within a mile and a half ! There wasn't 

 any market, near or far, that we read of, for what surplus apples 

 or figs they might raise. There was, it is true, a sort of pomolog- 

 ical lecturer in Eden, and I think the devil has had a hand in 

 fermenting our grapes and budding our rotten orchards ever 

 since. But father Adam had no auctions, nor agricultural horse- 

 trots, and mother Eve no chance to get "pinned paper patterns 



