Farrnri's' ^yrrl■ in Agricultural College. 109 



tlie other questionable. Tluil t-i-y lias been attracting the attention 

 of the business world to farm conditions, which is highly profitable, and 

 it has caused a backward movement of people who have been off of the 

 farm for a number of years — and the results of this are questionable. 

 Men who have attained the age of 45 or 50 go back to the land, and in 

 three eases out of five they prove sad disappointments. When a man 

 has attained that age he may make a mistake when he goes l)ack to the 

 farm. Now there is only one way to solve this problem, ladies and 

 gentlemen. There is one great cause that is taking our boys and girls 

 away from the farm, and that is because we have educated them away 

 from the farm. There is only one way to get them back to the farm, 

 and that is to educate them back, and this great institution that belongs 

 to you is accomplishing that work at a wonderfully rapid rate. The men 

 that are being sent out over the country carry the University to the 

 people, and the people come here to the University, so that thousands 

 upon thousands of people are receiving that instruction — "Back to the 

 Land. ' ' We find this work must be done, however, not among the older 

 people. We will never make scientific farmers out of the grown-ups. 

 We can help them a great deal, but if you are going to make scientific 

 farmers you must begin with the Ijoys and girls, and if we must begin 

 with the boy and the girl their training must start in the country 

 school room, must it not? If this training must go to the people we 

 must come in contact with them before we can train them, and we cannot 

 come in contact with them unless you suppl.y the means. 



The stories of the farm, while they are simple, almost every one of 

 them, have remained through all these ages unseen and unrecognized. 

 We are finding some new story of the soil from time to time. Just now 

 comes along one from England. I don't know what there may be in it, 

 but they are telling us of an animal that is in the soil. They are telling 

 us our soil is filled full of these animals, and that they are eating the 

 bacteria of the soil. They are destroying the bad bacteria of the soil 

 as well as the good bacteria, and no soil can be fertile that is not suf- 

 ficiently supplied with bacteria. If they would only eat the bacteria 

 of typhoid fever and tuberculosis and such as that, we would feel all 

 right and friendly to them, but when they consume the bacteria that 

 make our crops grow we are a little less friendly. Now, they tell lis that 

 heat and sunshine are the only things that will destroy those little ani- 

 mals. They say that is the reason that after a drought we always have 

 a heavy crop. The same conditions would, to a large degree, destroy 

 the bacteria of the soil that destroy the little animals, but not to so 

 great a degree. 



