830 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



There always will be some poor and half starved men among farmers, 

 but this class is far less prominent upon the farm than in the marts of 

 business; and there are ten times more impecunious city workers than 

 there are farmers in actual want. 



Should the farm boy remain upon the farm? Upon general principles 

 I say, emphatically, yes! There are exceptions. There are many boys 

 who have no business to stay upon the farm, because they are destined 

 for something not necessarily better, but entirely different from farming; 

 but, generally speaking, I would advise the farmer's boy to remain on 

 the farm unless he can give legitimate, sensible, and positive reasons 

 for a change. 



FARM OFFERS HEALTH AND HAPPINESS. 



Should the city boy leave the city to become a farmer? Yes, if he 

 wants to. If he goes the chances are that he will become a happier man, 

 a healthier man. and a better citizen; but if he does not want to go, do 

 not force or even urge him. Probably a great many more city boys might 

 go to the county if they only knew the meaning of life in the country. 

 However, there are comparatievly few city boys turn farmers, and it may 

 be a long time before the sense of the city will be strong enough and 

 broad enough to see beyond its brick walls and towering buildings. 



The country boy, born and reared upon the farm, should give the farm 

 the preference. Instead of despising his home surroundings because his 

 father did not make a success of farming, he would better use his 

 father's failures as stepping stones to success. The farm which gives 

 the father a mere living may give the son a competency. The farmer's 

 boy should realize that success is not so much how one earns in a year as 

 how much one gets out of the year in experience, money, and opportunity 

 to enjoy life. A few hundred dollars earned on a good farm may leave 

 at the end of the year much more in actual money than five times the 

 amount of earnings will leave to the boy or man in the city. 



MORE AGRICULTURAL SCHOOLS NEEDED. 



What the world needs today is more intelligent and scientific farming, 

 and more business farmers. There are altogether too few agricultural 

 schools and colleges. The states can do no nobler or higher work for 

 civilization than to establish schools where real farming (not drudgery) 

 as a business is taught. If there is any excuse for government subsides, 

 that excuse should be applied to subsidizing the farming school, which 

 will make not only farmers but business farmers. 



I wish the country school, yes even the city school, would instruct 

 the boy in the elements of agriculture, theoretically, if necessary, but iu 

 some way instill into his mind the truth about planting and its resulting 

 harvest. We are teaching almost everything in our public schools, both 

 in the city and in the country, to save the one fundamental science of all, 

 the science on which depends our health and wealth — that of agriculture. 

 True, our schools teach botany, but botany is not agriculture in more 

 than a special sense. The so-called school garden is too infrequently 

 seen to make an impression. 



