THE BORN-ON-THE-FARM MYTH 39 



was done without rime or reason, and quite enough of 

 the toleration of the inconveniences of life, which in 

 old-fashioned farm-houses undoubtedly reached their 

 maximum. 



As a rule, I may say with certainty that the man who 

 was born on the farm and lived on the farm until man- 

 hood, and afterwards has pursued some other career 

 until the advent of the last period of life, suffers a dis- 

 tinct disadvantage and handicap from his early experi- 

 ences. The only hope of the new farmer who begins 

 his career of agriculture after the maturity of his years, 

 is in adopting the latest scientific methods of culture. 

 I cannot agree with the theory that successful farm- 

 ing in this country will come from extensive instead of 

 intensive culture. This theory, in effect, is that inten- 

 sive farming is expensive farming and extensive farm- 

 ing is economical farming. The first part of this state- 

 ment is undoubtedly true, but in the light of modern 

 progress in agriculture we must take exception to the 

 latter part of it. A more correct statement would be 

 as follows : " Intensive farming is expensive farming, 

 extensive farming is robbery." 



The point which I want to bring out clearly is this, 

 that the man of to-day, born on a farm, who, at fifty or 

 sixty years of age, thinks of abandoning the profes- 

 sional career to which he has been devoted since man- 

 hood, by reason of his longing to return to the farm, 

 has had no real experience in scientific farming during 

 his boyhood. The chances are one hundred to one that 

 he was taught extensive farming, in other words agri- 

 cultural highway robbery. 



Extensive farming means to cultivate as much as 

 possible and pay little attention to the feeding of the 

 fields. The extensive farmer would very probably take 



