1 6 FARM DEVELOPMENT 



vastly improving the conditions of work and living on 

 the farm, but further improvements are needed to keep 

 country life apace with the rapidly improving life of the 

 city. 



Studying agriculture is interesting and useful. A 

 course of study in efficient agricultural schools and col- 

 leges gives much pleasure, because the studies include 

 interesting things in nature, in business, in the home life, 

 and in the affairs of man generally; and after leaving 

 school for practical life, the student finds a continuous 

 source of very great pleasure in his acquaintance with 

 the practical means and processes of nature, and in his 

 knowledge of how better to work with man. Nature's 

 classics are not in a man-made book, but are spread 

 out in passive and active forms about the farm. Each 

 animal, plant, and field is a word, a sentence, or a page. 

 Each day is a chapter, and each year is a grand book full 

 of substantial structures, sturdy industry, exacting duties, 

 wonderful opportunities, noble impulses, interesting life, 

 gracious friendships, warm-hearted loves, and the 

 rhythmic music of the revolving forces and spirits of 

 inanimate and animate nature. The man or woman 

 who remains in country life, not following the tide to 

 the city, receives a wonderful inspiration from special 

 study in an agricultural school. 



Methods of work and trade relations are changing. 

 Perfected means of transportation throw each farmer 

 into competition with all the world, and the world 

 has learned how to produce all things more 

 cheaply. Intelligence, coupled with business capacity, 

 is even more of an advantage in farming now than when 

 prices were better and our competitors were not so 

 earnestly studying all the questions relating to their 

 business. The American farmer gets on because he is 

 enterprising. If his neighbor invents a machine he 

 makes use of it. If some enterprising firm manufactures 



