Vol. r.XXIV. No. 420!). 
NEW YORK, MARCH 27, 1015. 
WEEK I, Y $1.00 PER YEAR. 
TRAINING CITY BOYS FOR ACTUAL FARM 
WORK. 
How Can They Learn How ? 
O NE of the greatest problems that confront the 
truck farmer to-day is the question of trained 
help. Young men can he secured from the ag¬ 
ricultural colleges who will work for their board in 
order to learn. Hands can he secured from the em¬ 
ployment oliices who will stay the better part of a 
month, or until they get enough money for a pro¬ 
aft'ord to take the time during his busy season to 
train one or more of these young men than could a 
business man in the city take the time to give 
young men from the country a course in book¬ 
keeping. 
BUSINESS COLLEGE TEACHING.—The city 
business colleges train young men from the country 
to be bookkeepers, stenographers, etc., and they give 
them a training in the actual work that will be re¬ 
quired of them later. These colleges do not under¬ 
take to make John Wanamakers out of them later. 
STATE TRAINING.—I do not know whether it 
would come in the province of a State institution to 
furnish young men with this training or not. It 
would be a valuable service if they could do it, and 
no doubt many young city men who could start out 
in this way would in time become farm managers 
and owners. It is the height of folly for anyone to 
suppose that a young man who has no knowledge 
whatever of farm work can take a short course in 
agriculture and then come out a full-tledged farmer, 
capable of managing or overseeing a farm. He will 
FIVE MINUTES FOR REFRESHMENTS. Fits. 15<>. 
longed spree. Italians can be secured for gather¬ 
ing fruit and vegetables. Hut where urc the young 
men who have the training to take, all around glares 
on truck farms. Have they all gone to till positions 
of trust in the cities? It seems sometimes as though 
they had. If that is true, will young men from the 
cities come out to fill their places? 1 cannot answer 
all this, but I do know that no young man from the 
city can be of value on a truck farm until he has 
had some actual training in at least some lines of 
truck farm work. Tbt average trucker can no more 
They simply give them training that will tit them for 
valuable service in some special department of a 
business concern, and then they succeed or fail ac¬ 
cording to their ability to grasp and master new 
duties and responsibilities. Why should not the 
same conditions exist in the country? Could not 
these young city men be trained so that they could 
render valuable service in some particular line of 
farm work, rather than have them trained as farm 
owners and managers before they know even the 
fundamentals of the business? 
not even make a fair farm hand. lie lacks the train¬ 
ing in actual farm work. It will be a happy day 
when these young men can have an opportunity to 
secure this training without having to depend on the 
generosity of some overworked farmer who is kind 
enough to sacrifice time and money in order to give 
them an opportunity to learn. trucker jr. 
“Plant patience in the garden of thy soul,” says the 
poet. It will surely come in handy with this year’s 
potato crop, yet we should plant both. 
