104 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



bred cattle. If a man has pure-blood stock, he can keep 

 that stock pure more easily than he can keej) his seed pure. 

 I think there is one of the most promising openings for a 

 young farmer, to go into the seed business. 



There are many farmers who do not pay any attention to 

 irrigation, or much attention to the nature of the land they 

 cultivate, whether it is land that they can get a crop from or 

 that they cannot get a crop from. Go through the western 

 part of the State anywhere and you will find hundreds of 

 acres under cultivation from which the farmer can never 

 make a dollar, and upon that same farm you can find acres 

 upon acres of land that would be sure to pay well. A man 

 has got to study his farm, he has got to study his lands, he 

 has got to know his crops and know what his farm will pro- 

 duce, and work the lands that will produce the crops ; then 

 I believe that any man who follows a good system of culti- 

 vation is sure of a good return for his labor. 



Another thinof. The farmers of this State never have had 

 credit for what they have done for the towns. The towns are 

 continually drawing the young men from the country. The 

 State taxes the country for the benefit of the cities. What 

 benefit do the hill townships get from the cities ? A great 

 many of our brightest boys leave for the city, all of them 

 educated at the expense of the farmers. Every man knows 

 that no boy can be educated in our schools for a small sum. 

 For instance, in our town we pay $36 per capita for every boy 

 that is educated in our -schools ; in my youth it was not more 

 than four dollars per capita. See what an expense that is ! 

 The farming community should have credit for that, but we 

 do not get any credit for it. That is one of the products of 

 a farm, you might say, and the city gets the benefit of it. 



There is another thing which works to the disadvantage 

 of the young man in the country. Suppose a man has a 

 farm, has it clear ; he has a family of half a dozen children, 

 perhaps. One of the boys stays at home, the others who go 

 away ifrom the farm want their money out of it, and often- 

 times they do not fiivor the boy who remains on the farm any ; 

 he has to run in debt ; the boys who leave the farm take that 

 money and carry it away ; the boy that stays at home has to 

 mortgage the fiirm, and if he takes it, he takes it at the val- 



