HAMPSHIRE COUNTY FARM BUREAU MONTHLY 

 BOYS' AND GIRLS' WORK 



CHAULKS H. (iOl'Ll), Leailer 



The Garden Season Opens 



The boy and g-irl gardeners have been 

 pretty generally organized throughout 

 the County. In Ware, the work is un- 

 der the authority of Mr. Mallory, super- 

 visor of adult gardens. In Amherst, it 

 is being done by Prof. Hart of the Agri- 

 cultural College. In the other towns of 

 the County, it is being taken care of by 

 the Farm Bureau. 



In Easthampton, there are enrolled 

 about as many children as last year. 

 The garden work in Easthampton is 

 well established and those children who 

 enroll realize that they must care for a 

 garden, containing fifty square yards, 

 and are in the contest for business. 

 Liberal prizes are made possible by the 

 generosity of the Village Improvement 

 Society, and are awarded both for the 

 best gardens and the best vegetables 

 shown at the exhibt in the fall. The 

 work is being supervised by Mr. Rand 

 of the Farm Bureau. 



In Hatfield, the local visitors, co- 

 operating with the schools and the Farm 

 Bureau, will keep an eye on the children 

 as they did a year ago. 



In Northampton, Florence and Leeds, 

 the supervision is also wholly on a volun- 

 teer basis. About fifty local people have 

 been enrolled to keep in touch with a 

 group of gardeners who live nearby and 

 to report to the Bureau twice a month, 

 and have held organization meetings. 

 Mr. Keyes of Florence and Mr. Aubrey 

 Butler of Northampton, are helping the 

 Bureau as expert supervisors. About 150 

 children who have no land will be pro- 

 vided for in community plots on Wil- 

 liams Street, Franklin Street and Pros- 

 pect Street. Mr. Downer of Smith Col- 

 lege, Miss Rose Hinckley and Mr. Don- 

 ald Tyler, have charge of the super- 

 vision of these plots. As in other towns, 

 the Bureau representative has given 

 some instruction in the schools. About 

 seven hundred children are enrolled, 

 but those who are not making a legiti- 

 mate attempt at food production will be 

 eliminated early in the season. 



In South Hadley, a hundred boys and 

 girls, with the written approval of their 

 parents, are enrolled for gardens. The 

 supervisor has already paid his first 

 round of vists. Part of their work will 

 be the keeping of a definite record of 

 their gardens, and this record will be 

 considered in the award of prizes. An 

 exhibit will be held in the fall. 



In Huntington, about fifty children 

 are enrolled under the direct supervision 

 of the Bureau representative; much 

 after the same plan that has prevailed 

 in Easthampton in the past. 



To Boys and Oirls of Hampshire County 



This is the season of the year, when 

 our enthusiasm for club work usually 

 runs high, and we are quite apt to 

 promise ourselves we will do a good 

 piece of work during the summer, then 

 as the season advances our interest be- 

 gins to lag, and the results in the past 

 have shown that many boys and girls 

 have started with splendid anticipation 

 of making a success but the records sent 

 in at the end of the season show that 

 they dropped by the wayside. 



I hope this year that each boy and girl 

 in the county who takes up this work 

 will decide to do no more than they feel 

 they can successfully complete; that 

 they will make up their minds to carry 

 whatever they start to a finish, and that 

 when the reports come in next fall we 

 will find very nearly 100 9r who have 

 completed all the requirements. Let us 

 remember that it is the sum total of 

 what each one does that counts. 



I wish that all of the boys and girls in 

 Hampshire County who are going to 

 raise a pig would grow enough corn to 

 I fatten the pig in the fall. 



I once appealed to Mr. Gould for 100 

 corn club members and he said that he 

 would endeavor to find 25. Let us re- 

 member that the best corn club work in 

 the state has been done in Hampshire 

 County, and surprise Mr. Gould by hav- 

 ing 100 members this year. 



When I was a small boy and went in- 

 to a store to inquire the price of an 

 article, I was some times told "two bits." 

 Two bits was twenty-five cents, and I 

 never see the motto now — "Do your bit," 

 that I do not think of twelve and a half 

 cents. I hope the boys and girls of 

 Hampshire County vdll do more than 

 twelve and a half cents worth this year. 

 I am going to give you a better motto — 

 "Do Your Best" 



— George L. Farley, 

 Supervisor — Junior Extension Work. 



Save the Bags 



Save the bags! This is a day of con- 

 servation. Waste in any and all forms 

 must be eliminated, and now it is the 

 humble jute bag which must be saved to 

 guard against threatened famine. With 

 this, as with so many other things, war 

 is teaching us that "nothing is too small 

 to be saved." 



Formerly the cheapest of fibres, jute 

 has increased in value so rapidly that 

 the burlap necessary for bagging a ton 

 of fertilizer now adds three and four 

 dollars to the cost of that fertilizer. 

 Likewise the used bags now have a 

 value sufficiently high to make it worth 

 while for the farmer to practice con- 

 servation. 



I Club Work for 1918 



J Club enrolments are coming in so fast 



' that the office force is kept busy, cata- 



jloging them, and sending out literature. 



! The pig club work promises to be larg- 

 er than last year. Amherst, which had 

 only .3 pig club members last year, had 

 a "squeal" on May 8, when 25 boys and 



j girls received pigs. A few boys in Had- 



j ley and Goshen are starting work this 

 year with pure bred pigs. 



[ The Home Economics records are now 

 coming into this office, it is hoped that 

 every member will finish. 



I Canning clubs will be started only in 

 those towns that can furnish a leader. 

 The poultry club enrolment is larger 



{ than last year and some interesting re- 



' suits are looked for. 



This year's prizes consist of a county 

 prize to the winner in each project, 1st 

 prize being a week's trip to Mass. Agri- 

 cultural College and the second prize 

 some useful article. 



Thinking 



Thinking was invented by Socrates. 

 Before Socrates, the head of man was 

 very largely a loafing place for hair. 

 Now it is a perfect hotbed of ideas, and 

 the blank look of a man who isn't think- 

 ing of a thing is so rare that one almost 

 never sees it. If there were hair re- 

 storers we wouldn't use them. Heads 

 are much to valuable for waste products. 

 — The Grasshopper. 



Bags will be needed next fall for the' 



harvesting of farm crops. New bags 

 will be obtainable in but small quanti- 

 ties. The United States Government is 

 taking much of the available supply for 

 war purposes. The cost of such new 

 bags will be nearly prohibitive. If, 

 however, the farmer foresees this diffi- 

 culty, and saves the bags from his 

 season's fertilizer purchase, there will 

 be a very real saving — a saving almost 

 entirely net. 



Even now there are companies doing 

 a thriving business in the purchase of 

 second-hand bags. The price for good 

 bags is high, and offers immediate re- 

 turns for the work of conservation. 



Finally, we must realize the possibili- 

 ty that another season we may face the 

 necessity of bulk shipments of fertilizer. 

 If farmers and dealers can forsee this, 

 and make provision by saving the sacks 

 from this year's fertilizer shipment, the 

 labor of handling such bulk shipments 

 will be greatly reduced. It takes but a 

 little time and forethought now — it may 

 mean the saving of time and money this 

 fall, and in the spring of 1919. 



■ — Nat. Fertilizer Assoc. 



