FARMING AS AN OCCUPATION FOR CITY-BRED MEN. 245 



kinds of plants and understand their requirements. In practically 

 all kinds of farming some live stock are necessary, and the farmer 

 must know how much shelter these stock require, what kind of food 

 they need, how much, etc. He must also know the time to plant and 

 to harvest, and how to secure and manage labor, unless he is so fortu- 

 nate as to be able to dispense with hired labor. 



Part of this knowledge may be obtained from books, but a great 

 deal of it can be obtained only by experience. This is especially true 

 as regards knowledge of the soil. Even the agricultural scientist does 

 not yet know all about the soil, and the best books on the subject 

 leave much to be learned by experience. 



In most communities the beginner can gain much information from 

 his neighbors, especially about the time of planting and harvesting, 

 when the soil is in condition for plowing and tilling, the amount of 

 feed necessary for his live stock, etc. On the other hand, one's neigh- 

 bors are often poor advisers, especially if the new farmer is attempt- 

 ing to do something which has not before been successfully done in 

 the community. The average farmer is inclined to discourage inno- 

 vations of all kinds and is ready to predict failure of new methods 

 and of men new at the business. 



Fortunately, agricultural papers are abundant, and many of them 

 are very reliable in what they teach. Every farmer should take sev- 

 eral of these. Some of the best farm papers relate to general farm- 

 ing, while almost ervery phase of farming is discussed by special 

 journals. For instance, there are numerous journals devoted to poul- 

 try, and practically every kind of stock has one or more journals 

 devoted to it. There are also good journals which give special atten- 

 tion to truck growing, fruit growing, and the like. It is a good plan 

 for the farmer to take one or two of the best of the journals devoted 

 to general farming in addition to a few of the special journals relat- 

 ing to the phases of farming which he is practicing. 



THE AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 



In every State there is an agricultural experiment station which 

 issues bulletins on various phases of farming. These bulletins are 

 sent free to all applicants in the States where they are published. 

 Some of the stations send bulletins to farmers in other States. 



UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



In addition to bulletins from the experiment stations, the United 

 States Department of Agriculture issues an extensive series of bulle- 

 tins covering very many phases of farming. Most of these bulletins 

 are sent free to all applicants. This is especially true of the series 

 known as Farmers' Bulletins, of which there are now several hun- 



