Viii PREFACE 



mobility of its society. Each man may do what he likes, 

 and become what his energy will make him. While it is 

 not desirable to try to make farmers, it does seem desir- 

 able to stop unmaking them. The present trend of all 

 our education is cityward. We have been living in a city- 

 making epoch. The bright farm boy, as he has attended 

 the village high-school, has been taught much that would 

 naturally interest him in city occupations. The teacher 

 has become interested in him, and has encouraged him 

 to "make something of himself." This usually means 

 that he become a lawyer, a doctor or perhaps an engineer. 

 The nature of his books, and the advice of his friends, 

 have led him to believe that these are the lines in which 

 mental ability will bring the greatest returns. If he 

 did become a farmer, he frequently felt that by doing so 

 he lost his real opportunities. In the past, this may have 

 been so; but today, law, medicine, and 'the ministry are 

 not the only learned professions. The practice of agricul- 

 ture now offers as great a field for scientific study as is 

 offered by the practice of medicine. 



The teaching of agriculture will make better farmers, 

 who will make more money. It will lead more boys to 

 choose farming as a profession, because it will open up a 

 field for intellectual life whose existence they never sus- 

 pected. But the great reason for this work is that it is 

 one of the best means of training a student's mind, and it 

 is one of the best means because it studies the things 

 that come within his experience the things with which 

 and by which he lives. 



In preparing this book, the author has tried to carry 

 out, as far as possible, the recommendations of the com- 



