TENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART VIII 385 



it is more difficult to keep roads good than in most other places, yet I 

 believe that we can get a good deal better results out of the appropria- 

 tion and taxes than we are getting now. 



[t seems to me that those things which are most attractive to a boy 

 or girl by way of rural entertainment have passed out of existence and 

 our country people are catching on to city ways. I think that is a mis- 

 take. We are talking about keeping the boy on the farm. If we are keep- 

 ing the right boy on the farm that is the thing to do. Not every boy, 

 however, born on the farm will make a good farmer; some of them are 

 not good for anything. If you have a boy who will stay on the farm that 

 is the best place in the world to keep him. 



But listen here. While you are keeping the boys on the farm, keep the 

 girls on the farm with them. You don't want to go to town to get a girl 

 for a housewife on the farm. When a boy has grown up on the farm he 

 has absorbed his knowledge— if his father is any good— and if he starts 

 in on something else he has lost that knowledge and not only that but 

 the community has lost it. I said to one of the Ames professors, "How 

 many of these boys who take the courses will go back to the farm,, as I 

 have heard it said that when you send a boy away to educate him you 

 educate him away from the farm?" He said that fully 85 per cent of 

 these boys go back to the farm. They are going back and educating their 

 fathers. You send one of your boys to Ames and give him an education 

 along any line pertaining to agriculture and he is going back and dis- 

 seminate a great deal of knowledge in the community where he is locat- 

 ed. If John Smith sends his boy to college, send your boy along with 

 him. 



Don't try to own all the land that borders on your land. It is against 

 the laws of nature, and you have no business with it. You don't need 

 three hundred and twenty acres of land in Iowa. Give a part of it to 

 the boy and keep him at home. Don't set him up as a poor excuse for 

 a lawyer or a doctor, but keep him at home to raise a family. 



How are you going to keep the girl at home? How much money did 

 you make off your cows last year? Don't try to put all that money into 

 big barns. Good buildings and improvements for the stock are, of course, 

 necessary, but put some comforts into the home to induce the girl to stay 

 there. Henry Wallace said at Des Moines last week that if he were a 

 housewife and the husband would not put hot and cold water in the 

 house he would put a tent in the yard and stay there until he did put 

 it in. There is not a class of people in the state of Iowa better able to 

 have good homes than the farmers. He has an income big enough to 

 take care of him. The farmer may rob himself by failing to farm prop- 

 erly, but you can't rob him of his farm if he has it paid for. There is 

 no man in the state that ought to have a more comfortable home than 

 the farmer, and the best way I know to keep the boy and girl on the 

 farm is to furnish them a home that they will want to stay in. You 

 can have gas and hot and cold water and a furnace in your house. It is 

 a source of great pride to ride over the state and see the magnificent 

 homes, but you can make them better. And if you make them better you 

 are going to keep the children at home. 

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