126 THE FUTURE OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 



official Report concludes, " in the South has led those in charge 

 of the work to plan for the extension of the movement through 

 the formation of boys' farm clubs. In these clubs the boys who 

 have already learnt to produce large yields of corn and how to 

 feed pigs, in the earlier organisations, are taught the elementary 

 principles of crop rotation, of the economical feeding of live 

 stock, and of soil building." 



Under the patronage of the American Bankers' Associa- 

 tion, which has betokened a lively interest in the promotion 

 of agricultural education, the boy and girl competitions 

 have recently been extended to cow keeping. The Associa- 

 tion advances the money for buying a cow, in each case, which 

 is to be paid for out of the profits realised out of the keeping 

 and the sale of the animal itself, or of its yield in milk or a 

 calf. The competition is not as extensive as in the other 

 cases. But the Association appears to have recovered all its 

 advances, and boys and girls have been much encouraged 

 by the profits made. One boy last year had netted a 

 round $ioo. Under the auspices of the same Bankers' 

 Association the method of stimulating competition has 

 recently been still further extended, to adult farmers occupy- 

 ing their own holdings in respect of corn growing. It is 

 the Bankers' Association which gives the prizes and, at 

 the end of the competition, provides a public luncheon, 

 which appears to be exceedingly popular, because it " brings 

 farmers together to talk over their own affairs one with 

 another." The prize-takers find a ready market for their 

 corn as seed. In Canada the same practice — begun, of 

 course, in Ontario — is now reported to be spreading over 

 all provinces. And the children are said to be taking to it 

 " with enthusiasm." 



The method of teaching by prizes has of late been still 

 further extended in Canada, namely to the collection of 

 good seed-corn. Boys and girls are invited to collect a suffi- 

 cient quantity of the best ears in their fathers' fields to 

 breed from, say, enough to yield two pounds of clean seed 

 — of one kind, directions being given for the collection — 

 to thrash and clean by liand and deliver. There is a 

 graduated scale of prizes. The highest prize for wheat is 



