No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 713 



the juice of the plant, which permeates the leaf, stalk and root, cor- 

 responds with the life-giving blood in our own human system. 



Is the home made attractive with music, pictures, books, pretty 

 wall paper? Do the young people, on visiting the city cousins whose 

 income is no more than their own father's, find soft carpets, a piano, 

 pictures, heated rooms, then on returning to their own homes find 

 none of these things? They did w^ant a piano and new carpet so 

 much, but father must buy that piece of woodland or that pair of 

 work horses. So the wife and children are denied the luxuries fhey 

 craved. Fathers and mothers, if you want to keep the young people, 

 the boys and girls with you on the farm, consider these things. 



Implant deep in their hearts the love of nature. Teach them the 

 best in literature, especially the best bearing on the subject of agri- 

 culture. Go over with them with the first snowfall, Lowell's gem : 



"The snow had begun In the gloaming, 

 And busily all the night 

 Had been heaping field and highway, 

 With a silence deep and white." 



Then Whittier's ''Snow-bound." "SMiat healthy boy will object to 

 shoveling paths, if while he is doing it, he thinks: 



"We cut the solid whiteness through. 

 And where the drift was deepest, made 

 A tunnel walled and overlaid 

 With dazzling crystal." 



If the boy is ploughing, let him read the verses Burns wrote while 

 he was doing the same work. Teach the children to love a noble 

 tree, as well as "The groves were God's first temples." 



Let them understand when young that to be a good farmer we must 

 prepare ourselves for the work — as a lawyer or doctor would — that 

 real struggling is in itsself real living and that a great work re- 

 quires great preparation. Study the forest question or what in- 

 terests us more closely, tree planting in suitable jjlaces over the farm 

 and around the buildings. 



"Plant oak or ash in useless spots of ground, 

 A birch or willow at the murmering brook; 

 Some flowering shrub upon the grassy mound, 

 Or useful trees in any vacant nook." 



And again, let us educate the children to read the best current 

 literature. Do not expect the family to do with the amount of read- 

 ing you had when a boy. If a healthy boy or girl is supplied with the 

 best reading, suited to his taste, he will have no inclination for the 

 doubtful yellow-back novel that fs so much poison to him. 



Study i)lant life with them; point out the difference and the simi- 

 larities of the leaves and bark of the trees; draw their attention to 

 the insect world, teach them the kinds and songs of birds. All this 

 knowledge is useful to the future farmer, besides affording growing 

 children the best pleasure and profit. Interest the children in the 

 animals on the farm. Let them learn by example as well as precept, 

 to be kind and thoughtful of their comfort and well-being. Give 

 each child an interest in some animal, a horse, sheep or even a 

 chicken, and see what a spur it is to continued good care. 



The editor of one of the most widely circulated magazines in the 

 world in a recent editorial says: "One of the signs in American 



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