STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 93 



NATURE STUDY. 

 By G. Harold Powell. 



Now I wish to diverge somewhat from the general topics on 

 your program and make a few remarks along another line. The 

 progams of our horticultural meetings are usually well filled with 

 subjects relating to the methods of fruit growing, such as tillage, 

 spraying, varieties, marketing, and other questions closely con- 

 nected with the practical side of the business, yet I sometimes 

 feel that we are not giving enough attention to the cultivation 

 of one of the most important products of the farm, the boys 

 and girls who are to fill the places occupied by us in a few years. 

 \\'e may rejoice in the magnificent display of fruits and vegeta- 

 bles and the abundance of the general farm crops, but after all 

 the most valuable crops you grow on your farms are your sons 

 and daughters. We are taught that we must spray better, culti- 

 vate better, know more about the insect pests and fungous 

 diseases with which we have to contend, understand more of the 

 chemical and biological activities within the soil, and yet do we 

 pause and enquire how are we to get all of this information? 

 We hear nmch in these days of the boys and girls leaving the 

 faim — and we are glad when one does leave it to actually better 

 his place in life — but do we stop and ask why the boys and girls 

 are leaving the farm? I have only a few minutes to discuss this 

 topic and can only touch on the outside of it, but I want to say 

 that J firmly believe that one of the first §teps necessary to meet 

 the greater demands of modern fruit growing and farming, arid 

 to attract the best boys and girls back to farm life is to foster in 

 every possible way a close sympathy between the boys and girls 

 and everything that lives about them. If the boys of today have 

 an entliusiastic interest in plants, in orchards, in meadows, in 

 soil, in animals, from their earliest childhood to manhood, the 

 modern needs of fruit growing and farming will take care of 

 themselves, and less will be heard of the depopulation of rural 

 districts. The trouble today is farm life appeals to the boy 

 mainly through his biceps, and not through his intellect and heart. 



HoAv are the boys and girls to come in closer sympathy with 

 everything around them? Not entirely through every day 

 experience, nor through these meetings, nor the granges, nor 



