The Bulletin. 39 



such, as well as to all otliprs, I would say (hat thore is a Rreat mass of 

 reliahle information i)rinlcd on subjects rolatetl to farming which is for free 

 distribution for the asking. The North Carolina Department of Agriculture 

 at lialoigh issues a bulletin every month which is sent to about ?)0,000 farmers 

 in the State. AH you need to do to get this publication is to address a card 

 or letter to "Department of Agriculture, Italeigh, N. C," ask to have your 

 name put on the mailing-list to receive the liuiXEXiN, sign your name and 

 address, mail it, and you should thereafter receive it regularly. Of course, 

 mistakes will sometimes occur, and names may be lost, but if you find that 

 you are of a certainty not receiving the bulletins as you should, a polite 

 reminder sent to the Department will receive polite attention. Every wide- 

 awake farmer in the State should be on that mailing-list. 



In the same way every farmer should receive the bulletins issued by the 

 Agricultural Experiment Station, West Raleigh. The Experiment Station 

 issues a number of bulletins at irregular intervals each year. 



A study of these publications will soon teach you who the officials in the 

 State are who are engaged in different lines of work, and much help may be 

 secured by direct correspondence with them. From the State Department of 

 Agriculture probably not less than 15,000 personally signed letters are sent 

 out each year, not counting circular-letters, and there is no reason why two 

 or three of these letters each year should not be for you. Make use of these 

 institutions which have been created and are conducted for your benefit. 



Address a letter to "U. S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C," 

 and ask them to put your name on the list to receive the Farmers' Bulletins. 

 A large number of these have been issued, and they cover many lines of 

 agriculture. You should get them. 



These three separate institutions — the N. C. Department of Agriculture, at 

 Raleigh, the State Agricultural Experiment Station, at West Raleigh, and 

 the United States Department of Agriculture at Washington, D. C. — all issue 

 valuable publications which all of our wide-awake farmers should have, and 

 they may secure them in the way I have mentioned. 



EDUCATION. 



And now we will suppose that the little ones are getting up to five, six, or 

 seven years of age, and the question of their schooling comes up. It would 

 be well if we could reach that point where none of our children were kept 

 out of school a day to hoe corn or pick cotton. Our school terms are all too 

 short at best, and we cannot afford to shorten them ; and right here it is 

 absolutely essential that the poorest of us shall make whatever sacrifice is 

 necessary to secure the best education possible for our children. This is 

 more necessary for the poor than for the rich — the rich man may leave a 

 fortune for his children to waste and degenerate i;pon, but the best (and 

 almost the only) thing that the poor man can leave to his children is well 

 trained minds and character, therefore train them well. Old men who have 

 been all along the road of experience assure me that they have no regret for 

 any sacrifice incurred if only their children turn out a credit to them. And 

 by "education" I mean not only the learning from books at scliool, but also 

 all other little lessons of manners, industry, honesty and unselfishness which 

 can be taught them — either in school or at home. 



It costs something to educate a family of children — I have reason to know 

 that. It costs in time, money and sacrifice, all three, but it is a paying 

 investment if the bo.vs and girls are in frame of mind and heart to make use 

 of their chances. If you wish to send your son through a four-year course 

 at college and then send him for one or two years to a higher university to 

 complete his special training in his chosen field of work, put it down that it 

 will cost, if you pay cash for everything, in the neighborhood of $1,000. But if 

 that were all of the story I would not have told it. In almost every school 

 and college there are boys and girls who are working— their way through in 

 whole or in part, as true heroes as died at Gettj-sburg or in the Wilderness. 

 Every year we have boys doing this at the A. and M. College at Raleigh. 

 I am assured that many girls do likewise at the State Normal at Greensboro. 

 At Cornell University at Ithaca, N. Y., when I was a student there in 1899 



