THR RURAL NEW-VOKKEk 
January 20, 
To 
Hope Farm Notes 
NEW THING IN FARM EDUCATION. 
You may remember a note from a man 
in Pennsylvania who wanted to rent his 
farm, since all the family were going to 
college. This man did well on a com¬ 
paratively small place, and when the 
problem of educating the children proved 
hard, he figured out an original deal. But 
let him tell the story in his own way. 
We shall try to keep track of this: 
We, as a side issue at farming, raised 
three very good healthy children. We sent 
one away to school nearly 1% year, and 
the second one three months. We were 
eight miles from school, twice per week 
to drive to and from. The teachers were 
frying to get them to studying away from 
the farm. By all sorts of vacations the 
term was drawn out nearly to July. The 
strawberry crop was nearly over, so we had 
extra help to pick and handle the crop. A 
college course has been our plan for this 
crop of children, so wife and I took berry 
money for a week’s rest at Pennsylvania 
.State College, and to investigate, total ex¬ 
penses, $23:30. Our ideas were sustained, 
strengthened and broadened. We arrived 
at the old home, fell to the old work, but our 
thoughts were being more and more concen¬ 
trated, and August 1 a second trip was made 
to rent, buy or some way to locate, expenses, 
$0.72, and what a concentration of effort 
was put forth until September 1, when a 
third trip to State College resulted in a 
purchase of a house. Now The It. N.-Y. has 
been arguing and urging that country peo¬ 
ple, farmers, should enjoy the results of 
their labors by having as many of the mod¬ 
ern conveniences as possible. To put money 
in the farm home would be to keep the boy 
from school. School the boy and the old 
folks get along “any old way.” We de¬ 
parted from these and took a new way. 
Expenses of third trip $6.50. Next was 
packing and shipping goods; it was like 
pulling teeth ; that came hard, for the home 
was getting to be our record and reputation 
and character. September 20 we moved 
into our new home, a new brick house, 11 
rooms, besides halls and bathroom, steam 
heat, electric light, bath, hot water, a 
good lot for garden, nine fruit trees, a 
chicken coop and 30 hens, all complete, $4,- 
471.2.5. Expenses for landing goods, family, 
etc., and troubles, $72.95. September 23 
begun my first course and experience on 
the college farm. All kinds of work were 
put up to me and finally landed me in the 
stock barn, feeding and caring for the ex¬ 
perimental stock. The same determination 
that drew me from the home farm has got 
in its work again. December 6 I joined the 
Winter short course. This will give me 12 
weeks in dairy husbandry, give a better un¬ 
derstanding of scientific ways and means to 
an end, and perhaps a reputation that will 
bring the younger energy of these boys to 
sustain and keep up. Nearly all our friends 
and neighbors have attached the usual 
epithets to our names for this unusual 
piece of business, but we have driven the 
stakes and stretched the line and shall try 
to keep on the line. It is a private deal, 
to be worked out in our way. Instead of 
going West, going onto new lands, on to a 
depleted rundown farm, we are striking 
right into the heart and meat. w. t. 
What does me most good is the way- 
people feel about the child crop. At 
Rochester, N. Y., last week, I met a man 
who said he was going to school with 
his boy. This man did not like the influ¬ 
ences which surround a boy at the col¬ 
lege he had selected; so he purposed 
going right along with the young man, 
entering the course and taking all the 
studies. Father and son will study 
together. They have a fruit farm in 
,good condition and with some outside 
help can keep the orchards going while 
they are studying. You may have read 
the popular novel in which the rich 
old cynic starts out to train his boy for 
a statesman, with the deliberate purpose 
of changing the history and map of 
England. The young man with the 
money back of him was qualified to 
do this, but he upset it all by becoming a 
clergyman; not one of the fashionable 
sort, but a real, earnest worker. It has 
certainly become a fearful problem to 
know what to do with the boy in a fam¬ 
ily of moderate means. The very rich 
boy is likely to be doomed unless some 
miracle of hard sense from an old an¬ 
cestor can save him. The very poor 
boy has a better chance unless he is 
handicapped by the burden of caring for 
others, or by bitterness at his hard cir¬ 
cumstances. The child of moderate 
means has a harder chance than either, 
for he is usually taught to envy the 
rich and despise the poor. These farm¬ 
ers who are going to school with their 
children have struck out in a new line, 
which to me looks mighty promising. 
W hat Is Education — I do not 
know! A good friend has sent me the 
following questions, which, he says, were 
put up by a professor at the Chicago 
University. This professor told his pupils 
that when they could say “yes” to all 
these things they were educated in the 
best sense of the word: 
Has education given you sympathy with 
all good causes and made you espouse 
them ? 
Has it made you public-spirited? Has it 
made you a brother to the weak? 
Have you learned how to make friends 
and keep them? Do you know what it is 
to be a friend yourself? 
Can you look an honest man or pure 
woman in the eye? Do you see anything to 
love in a little child? Will a lonely dog 
follow you in the street? 
Can you be high-minded and happy in 
the meaner drudgeries of life? Do you 
think washing dishes and hoeing corn just 
as compatible with high thinking as piano 
playing or golf? 
Are you good for anything to yourself? 
Can you be happy alone? Can you look 
out on the world and see anything except 
dollars and cents? 
Can you look into a mud puddle by the 
wayside and see a clear sky? Can you see 
anything in the puddle but mud? .Can you 
look into the sky at night and see beyond 
tiie stars? Can your soul claim relation¬ 
ship with the Creator? 
Well, sir, those things are hard to 
beat. Ask the blind, the deaf or the 
crippled if they can be happy alone, 
when the great world rushes by them, 
and you hit close to the real test of edu¬ 
cation. As for the mud-puddle, educa¬ 
tion should teach a man to throw lime 
into the water and clear the “mud.” I 
fear our modern agricultural education 
may fall down on some of those tests. 
They are squeezing the spiritual or re¬ 
flective part out of it in the great rush 
for results. 
The Milk Record. —Mollie came to 
the pail with 763 pounds of milk in 
December. We allow $6 for care and 
$4.50 for grain. The milk is valued at 
four cents a pound, which is what we 
would have to pay if we bought. Thus 
the cow gave what we call a profit of 
$20.02 for the month. Since April 19 
she has given 7,176 pounds of milk, and 
the “profit” account stands as follows: 
April . $7.76 
May . 30.31 
June .’.’. 29.94 
July . 27.79 
August . 18.92 
September . 20.18 
October . -... 21.43 
November . 22.02 
December . 20.02 
$198.37 
We call this “profit,” but I am ready 
to revise it whenever I can have a fairer 
way of figuring the thing out. We are 
not trying to make out any big story. 
We know this cow gave the amount of 
milk stated, for every milking goes on 
the scales. We know that when she 
went sick with indigestion in August we 
had to pay eight cents a quart for milk. 
We also know that our family of 13 
people, including eight children, use up 
all this milk as food. Now tell me how I 
can figure it to better advantage? I give 
no value for the roughage this cow eats. 
What is it worth ? It is mostly sweet- 
corn stalks from which the ears were 
picked. These ears paid for the crop, 
and more. What are the stalks worth? 
The mangels ran out about Christmas 
time. Then we began feeding cabbage, 
yellow turnips and small Brussels 
sprouts. These are fed while the cow 
is being milked, and there is no trouble 
with bad taste. I am not bragging about 
Mollie or backing her for any world’s 
test. She is a good family cow, and 
turns wastes into profit. 
The Unit. —There you have the bad 
spot in some of those much advertised 
schemes—the “unit.” This one cow 
does well for us, but if we had 20 do¬ 
ing equally well there would very likely 
be a loss. Then we should be obliged 
to invest money in equipment, buy large 
quantities of feed, and stand all the ex¬ 
tra charges which come with a herd 
of cattle. This one cow covers an en¬ 
tire situation. You cannot take her as 
a “unit” in figuring a larger one. But 
that is what the promoters and blow- 
hards would like to do. Suppose I 
wanted to sell my farm and put up a 
story like this: I have 100 acres of land. 
The New Jersey Experiment Station 
kept one cow on one acre; my cow pays 
a profit of over $200 a year; therefore, 
you can buy my farm and make $20,000 
per year! That is a fair sample of the 
logic some of these promoters use, and 
they can apply it to apple culture, poul¬ 
try keeping, celery growing, and all the 
rest. They get hold of some abnormal 
growth or result as a “unit,” and then 
'figure for their life and your money. 
I am often called an “old fogy” because 
1 will not accept this plan of figuring. 
The man who has his living to make 
from the land must have something be¬ 
side “units” to figure on. And yet these 
high yields or successful individuals are 
useful, for they give us ideals and show 
us what to hope and work for. 
h. w. c. 
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T HIS Abbott-Detroit is not only built for service, but real service is buil 
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A bbott ' r kfroit 
Built for Permanence 
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i 
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THE EDWARDS MFG. CO., 123-173 Lock Street, Cincinnati. OfciR 
