THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



183 



kafir-corn and corn for another year, and 

 shall send in my report and essay when 

 the time comes. 



"The chinch-bugs got in my kafir-corn, 

 and the drought came on my corn, but 

 mother says I must be patient. She says 

 that those that have no misfortune die of 

 young age. I have always found my 

 mother true, and I shall be patient until I 

 get through. I am 10 years old and can 

 always find work to do." 



TEACHING THE FARMER THROUGH HIS SON 



The results which have attended the 

 efforts of food-production specialists in 

 club work among the young people have 

 been in marked contrast to the compara- 

 tively slow process of inducing the adult 

 farmer to adopt modern scientific meth- 

 ods in raising cereals, cattle, poultry, 

 swine, and vegetables. 



One explanation for this success is the 

 fact that boys and girls assimilate new 

 ideas more readily than their elders. In- 

 deed, agriculture experts are finding that 

 the easiest method of approach to the 

 adult farmer and the housewife is 

 through the sons and daughters, whose 

 signal achievements in club work furnish 

 concrete examples of the advantages to 

 be derived from scientific farming and 

 the scientific breeding of cattle, swine, 

 sheep, and horses. 



For example, no number of pamphlets 

 or lectures could be so convincing to the 

 Decatur County, Georgia, farmer with 

 respect to the advantages of scientific pig 

 feeding as was the object-lesson fur- 

 nished by his little daughter, who begged 

 to be allowed to join the Decatur County 

 Pig Club with the eighth pig of a litter. 

 She was given the pig because the sow 

 could only nourish seven pigs and the 

 eighth otherwise would have starved. 

 When the child's pig was 10 months old 

 it weighed 225 pounds net, dressed as 

 meat, besides yielding a 50-pound can of 

 lard. This pig had been raised at a cost 

 of five bushels of corn and the kitchen 

 garbage. The other seven pigs of the 

 litter, left to shift for themselves, aver- 

 aged only 87 pounds each when butch- 

 ered. 



And what farm expert could have pre- 

 sented the story of scientific hog-raising 



so forcefully to a Kentuckian as the tri- 

 umph of that farmer's own pig-club son 

 when both started even with litter-mate 

 pigs purchased at eight weeks old? The 

 records show that the boy's pig weighed 

 2.7 pounds when purchased, and gained 

 167 pounds in four months, at a cost of 

 five cents a pound — a daily gain of one 

 and two-fifths pounds on a ration of corn, 

 shorts, and buttermilk. At the fair the 

 boy's sow weighed 194 pounds and took 

 a prize; the father's weighed only 50 

 pounds, and there was no record of what 

 it had cost him. 



MANY BENEFITS FROM BOYS' AND GIRLS' 

 CLUBS 



The benefits derived from the pig-club 

 movement — and similar benefits are de- 

 rived from all the other club movements 

 of the so-called Extension work of the 

 various States, in cooperation with the 

 U. S. Department of Agriculture — are 

 manifold. First and foremost, the clubs 

 stimulate an interest in swine production 

 and teach the boys (the farmers of the 

 future) how to raise better and cheaper 

 hogs by the use of improved blood and 

 the growing of forage crops. The num- 

 ber of hogs raised on the farm is in- 

 creased and the meat required for home 

 consumption is produced instead of 

 bought. 



The pig club is complementary to the 

 work of the corn club, showing the mem- 

 bers how they can market their corn 

 profitably through hogs. The home cur- 

 ing of meat is encouraged on the farm. 

 The boys are instructed in a practical 

 way in the management, feeding, sanita- 

 tion, and prevention of disease of swine. 



One of the chief advantages which is 

 being derived from this movement is the 

 means which it affords boys and girls of 

 earning money for themselves while at 

 home, and at the same time awakening a 

 real and abiding interest in farm life — a 

 powerful back-to-the-farm movement in- 

 augurated at the very source. 



While emphasis has been laid here 

 upon the pig clubs, the canning clubs, 

 poultry clubs, baby-beef clubs, potato 

 clubs, corn clubs, and sheep clubs are no 

 less vital to the welfare of the nation and 

 to the increase of our agricultural re- 



