No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 19^ 



wliicli education is of more value than it is to the farmer. How 

 many of our teachers ever think of talking to their classes about 

 Botan}', or interesting them in the things that surround them on 

 the farm? And it is the same with the father and the mother. 

 The boy does not take a proper part in the management of the 

 farm. You all remember how proud you were, as a boy, when 

 you w^ere entrusted with some business transaction by your father, 

 and how careful you were to attend to it, and how proud you were 

 when your father and mother said you had attended to it as well 

 as they could have done? The boy and girl in every family likes 

 to attend to business matters on the farm, and in order to keep 

 the boy and girl on the farm, you want to take them into partner- 

 ship, and make them think that their success is your success. 

 Allow them to have something of their own on the farm. We 

 hear a great deal about making the farm a success, but instead of 

 teaching manual training in the schools, why not teach the boy 

 how he can grow cabbage or corn or potatoes? Let the boy and 

 giri take interest in the raising of the animals on the farm. 



As I said a moment ago, conditions are frequently responsible 

 for the boy and the girl leaving the farm as soon as they arrive 

 at the age of twenty-one years. To my mind, there is too much 

 .^'rudgery in it. You will see the sixteen-year-old boy trudging out 

 to the 'fields as soon as the ( nslc-rn r':;, is brightened by the rising 

 ijiun. He is going out to feed and harness the working horses for 

 a hard days' work in the fields, for which he will not get a cent. 

 How can you expect to keep a boy on the farm whom you do not 

 take into partnership with you? Give him some responsibility, 

 and let him make a success of it. He has the fire and the energy 

 to make a success of something, and if you do not help him, and 

 keep him interested, you will soon find that while he is following 

 the plow lines, on his fathers' farm, he is wondering how soon he 

 will be twenty-one so that he can go to the city to make money 

 for himself. So take the boy and girl into partnership; make them 

 feel that there are responsibilities resting on them and give them 

 some of the profit of the farm. There is no way I know of in which 

 you can keep this sentiment in the boys and girls, as to give them 

 something of their own to look after, and allowing them to have 

 something out of what they make. What a spectacle, gentlemen! 

 The boy has been raised on the farm, and has worked hard, but he 

 has no interest in the profits of the farm. He has labored hard on 

 the farm up to the time of his majority, without receiving any re- 

 muneration therefor except such food and clothing and washing 

 as his father and mother saw fit to give him. He works on the 

 farm, but his father plans everything in regard to the management 

 of it. When he arrives at the age of twenty-one, he will probably 

 desert the farm, or, if his devotion to his parents is so great that 

 when he sees the silver threads, he will not desert them, but con- 

 tinues to work on the farm. What a spectacle is this! When he 

 arrives at the age of maturity he has accumulated nothing of his 

 own, and only waits for his parents to die so that he may come 

 into his own. Is it not proper that he should be taken into part- 

 nership in order that he may reap some benefit for the many years 

 he has devoted to the farm? 



