PROCEEDINGS OF THE ANNUAL MEETING. 227 



had surplus rooms in the upper story, because I have employed quite a 

 number of college graduates and they are not *^ip to snuff" in fruitgrow- 

 ing with the average farm boy or with some of the sons of toil. I have 

 within a year or two got some of these short-course students, and I am 

 blest if you don't seem to hammer more into them in the six weeks than 

 jou do in four years. I want to get out of Prof. Taft and a lot of other 

 college men, what there is in a college education that helps a man so far 

 along that he ceases to be most useful; and yet I believe thoroughly in 

 it. Do not understand that I am going back on your work; l)ut at the 

 present time I want a superintendent for my Georgia farm, I want a 

 superintendent to take hold of that great peach orchard down there, and 

 I will i)ay him a good liberal salary, give him a new house to live in, 

 a good horse and carriage, and all free plunder of the farm; but I will 

 finalh" engage a man that has not graduated from an agricultural college, 

 because I can find one with more horse-sense and more practical, scien- 

 tific knowledge and capabilities in managing that peach orchard, than I 

 can find anywhere else. The colleges are not to blame for it, but who in 

 the name of the board of trustees is to blame? I do not belittle the agri- 

 cultural colleges. I do not know how I could run my business without 

 the knowledge they have given me; but what do you do with the boys, 

 that you so thoroughly" demoralize them? 



Mr. W. W. Eork of Agnew: We are heartily in sympathy with this 

 paper, and we believe that the lack of knowledge is the worm at the 

 root of our whole plan; and it has been grown and ingrown into us that, 

 if you have a bright-ej'ed, smart boy or girl, lead him somewhere else 

 than to ihe soil. If he is smart, do not make a farmer of him; and as 

 soon as a boy begins to twist his mustache he thinks he issmart, and he 

 is aiming at something else. Then another idea prevails, that if you 

 are aiming the bo}' for the farm he does not need to know much — any 

 ignoramus will do for a farmer. People think that any one who can 

 grow rye can run a peach orchard, and run it tip-top; but they know 

 nothing about life. They do not known that vegetation has life, and they 

 do not know that it has conditions. There is no upi)er room, sir; they 

 live in the basement, and they have no upper ro.oms. 



Mr. 11. M. Kellogg of Three Rivers: I can understand j)retty well how 

 Mr. Hale's remarks should apply to every other college but an agricul- 

 tural college. I believe in education, I believe in college education, I 

 believe a man never gets to know too much; but, unfortunately, in most 

 of our literary colleges they do get to know so niucli that they do not 

 know quite enough to get a living, ^^'e are bringing out of our colleges 

 a race of dudes. They are good for nothing on earth. They are a little 

 too proud to work, and they do not know enough to get a living without 

 work. I can understand how Mr. Hale should hunt the country over to 

 find a college man and not get a supeiintendent for his farm. But if 

 I had a boy and he was here, I would have him educated on the Agri- 

 cultural college ground. I am not a college-educated man; I am sorry 

 for it, but it was not my fault. It amis because I did not get there, 

 and I am sulfcring in conseijuence. J have been at our Agricultural 

 college a good deal, and I have studied their workings; and if I had a 

 boy I would send him down there and have liiiii taught 1o do things 

 and to know how to get a living. Xow, T know that a man can not go to 



