388 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



ter) , it is worth your while to get these lessons in agriculture." 

 That young man taught and went to school, and when they needed 

 a man at Washington to judge grain he was sent down for that 

 purpose as the best student at the agricultural school. Next year 

 they sent for a man to go to Nebraska to take charge of the hor- 

 ticultural department, and they sent him to Nebraska. They dis- 

 covered at Wisconsin later on that they needed him there, and 

 they brought him back at $2,000 a year, and now he is professor 

 of agriculture, and superintendent of agriculture in the state of 

 Wisconsin. That is what one boy gained by being encouraged. 

 Give the boys and girls a chance. (Applause.) 



Mr. Claussen : I had intended to go away this morning, but 

 I was persuaded to stay, and I might say I would not have missed 

 this for anything. I have often thought of how we could take 

 care of our boys and girls — I have some of my own. Sometimes 

 my voice fails me when I think of the boys and girls in this coun- 

 try, how they get ruined. I have four boys myself. Even if I am 

 old — I am not so very old — I tried to form a club for these four 

 boys for the last two or three years, went in company with them. 

 They have been growing some vegetables. I was very much 

 interested in the everbearing strawberries, and we have divided 

 that up, and I turned the horses and plows and so forth over to 

 them. I don't want to take up the time, but my heart was touched 

 when I saw these young people up here and heard them so much 

 interested to stay away from the circus and the moving pictures 

 and more taken up with what is of more use for the future. (Ap- 

 plause.) 



Mr. C. L. Smith: I have been interested in this club work 

 quite a number of years. I am employed by a railroad company, 

 and my instructions were to do anything T could to improve the 

 condition of the farmers, and I soon found out that the best way 

 to reach the average farmer was through the boys and the girls 

 in the public schools. I have to make a report every year in 

 regard to what results I have gotten with the money that I have 

 expended, and during the last five years a summary of those 

 reports shows that we have got from twenty-five to fifty per cent, 

 larger results from the money expended in the boys' and girls' 

 club work than we have with the old fellows. (Applause.) Last 

 year, 1915, — I haven't had time yet to make my report for 1916 — 

 but for 1915 we distributed seed corn to four thousand different 

 people, twenty-two hundred of them were boys and girls in the 

 corn clubs, and in every single instance the reports from the boys 

 showed that they had raised twice as much corn per acre as dad 

 had. (Applause.) 



I was amused in reading a report in the Minneapolis Tribune 

 that someone raised 135 bushels of corn to the acre. Why, we had 

 a little boy at Walla Walla, Washington, that raised 1491^ bushels 

 of corn to the acre. (Applause.) Among our twenty-two hun- 

 dred boys we had over five hundred that raised over a 100 bushels 

 of corn to the acre. I say that from the summary of the reports 



