100 EUKAL LIFE IN CANADA 



never widely serve the farm home. There is indeed 

 force in Dr. Kobertson's words before the Conservation 

 Commission : "A good system of rotation provides for 

 the spreading of the labor of the farmer over most of 

 the year. The other system means a rush of work and 

 very long hours for two months in spring and two in 

 harvest, and little satisfactory occupation during other 

 parts of the year. I have never known a healthy man 

 who, under sixty, could loaf for half the year and escape 

 the devil. I do not mean the devil hereafter, but the 

 devil here and now. A man has to be at something, 

 something with a definite purpose that calls out his 

 powers, or he will not be happy. "Where the practi- 

 cable system of farming does not provide satisfying, 

 profit-leaving work during the winter, let us have what 

 the Swiss have, what the Swedes have : the home indus- 

 tries — not for profits, but for the salvation of the boys 

 and young men, for the satisfaction of the women. 

 Labor, intelligent, skilful labor, labor with good will, is 

 a means of grace, whereby the race will be ever rising, 

 rising, rising."* Dr. Robertson advocates not seasonal 

 industries in factories, but home industries for moral 

 rather than for economic ends. A better way, economi- 

 cally, is the one he points out in his opening sentence. 

 A good system of rotation of crops is the fountain-head 

 of good cultivation, as well as a fountain-head of good 

 living. Of the four economic alternatives the fourth 

 and not the third is the true choice. 



Sir Horace Plunkett, who has done so much for 

 Irish agriculture through promoting co-operation, has 

 uttered a famous dictum concerning the needs of 



• Conservation Commission, III, p. 96. 



