165 



an open heart and has a whole lifework ahead of him. When the follow-up 

 instructions are furnished, they will be accepted as a whole, and not with 

 the proverbial "grain of salt;" but earnestly and with all his heart, the boy 

 translates the pages of instruction into action upon the acres and for the 

 good of agriculture. 



This is exactly the reason why the young people from the states in 

 the past, as well as for the present year, have a record of real achievement, 

 and these boys before you tonight, the one from Ohio with a report of over 

 130 bushels of corn to the acre, and the boy from a Pennsylvania county, 

 with his yield of 144 bushels. I congratulate you, boys, for this achieve- 

 ment, and for what you have contributed to your conmaunity and state, 

 for the good of agriculture. The Pennsylvanians will be interested to 

 know that another boy, by the name of Charles Yohe, of Tower City, made 

 a yield of nearly 200 bushels of corn to the acre during the past season, 

 and that he will doubtless be the champion in the club work for the entire 

 State of Pennsylvania. [Applause.] Charles Yohe has not only submitted 

 his official report, but has had it properly attested by two disinterested 

 witnesses, and it shows a handsome net profit on investment. It is neces- 

 sary at this point to make an explanation — the two yields above reported 

 from your own state were both made based upon field measurement of ear 

 corn. Both of these yields will be very materially reduced when the air- 

 dry 56 lbs. of shelled corn per bushel rule is applied as the standard. The 

 144 bushels will probably be 100 or less, while the 200 bushel record, when 

 thus reduced, will probably be in the neighborhood of 115 or 120 bushels. 



Ladies and gentlemen, at the present time America is unfortunate 

 in the fact that she does not have a definite American type of farmer. 

 We have the German farmer, the Swedish farmer, the Dane, the Irishman 

 (most of these, by the way, are farmer policemen), and from these various 

 European countries we have been extremely fortunate in securing the 

 types that constitute our most enduring and economical type of farming. 

 But you and I will have to search the map over very carefully to be able 

 to find even a small settlement or community of the enduring and construc- 

 tive type of American farmers, to which I refer. There are perhaps a 

 few small communities in eastern Pennsylvania that will come more 

 nearly meeting the requirements of American farming than any other 

 section of our country. The hope of a nation is in her youth. We must 

 deal with them in the springtime of life, at a time when their hearts and 

 minds are open, and when habits are being formed, and out of this type of 

 childhood to develop the type of farmers and righteous citizenship of which 

 a nation might well be proud. 



Friends, in addition to the club work and splendid enrollment reported 

 from the State of Ohio, and their splendid list of achievements in agri- 

 culture, you will be interested to know that for the past eight years the 

 United States Department of Agriculture, in co-operation with the 

 states, has been developing this club work from an enrollment of 162 



