JOAItTQ ijonaoj 
t’ i t wtv Published Weekly by The Rural Publishing Co., 
VOl. 1 /aAIA. 333 yy. 30 th g t _ fjew York. Price One Dollar a Year. 
NEW YORK. OCTOBER 30. 1920 
Bntered as Second-Class Matter, June 2B. 187S. at the Post 
Office at New York. N. Y., under the Act of March 3. 1879. 
No. 4610 
Shall I Take the Path of Least Resistance? 
L EAVING THE FARM.—There is. doubtless. 
truth in the saying that fools rush in where 
angels fear to tread, and now that about all the men 
of wisdom have had their say as to why boys leave 
the farm, and are beginning to shake their heads 
and decide that the matter must work out as it 
will, it is little short of folly for one so young and 
inexperienced to add more to the discussion. For 
while we are talking about it boys will continue to 
turn cityward some fine morning, and be lost to the 
farm forever. But such a state of affairs is not 
right, and usually the boy knows it is not right, and 
the gems of knowledge. As I see it. now. I would 
have fought to get back to that old farm had some 
one taken me to the city. The youngster who has 
never known the genuine happiness of farm life is 
to be pitied. 
A START IN COLLEGE.—Throughout high 
school days my connection with the farm was un¬ 
broken. - One day in September, however, I was 
shipped away to college against all the best advice 
of doubting neighbors and fond relatives. It was 
not to an agricultural college that I was going, but 
to a common everyday college of liberal arts, and it 
They help to make life worth living, and they goad 
men on to help make the country a better place for 
other people to live in. Perhaps it is just the seem¬ 
ing hopelessness of attaining these ideals that causes 
my present discontent. 
TROUBLESOME IDEALS.—One of my ideals is 
fair play. Everyone helps during a game of foot¬ 
ball. I object to working twice as hard for twice 
the length of time and for less than half the pay 
that members of my graduating class receive in 
other callings. Is that objection unfair? I will 
work at my farming 12 hours to their 10, but not 
An Object Lesson For Humans When Jealous Hen- If others Co-operate to Briny Up a Family 
that is what I. in my youth and inexperience, cannot 
understand—that a wrong must go unrighted. 
A CASE IN POINT.—I. too. am just one of many 
of my kind: a farm boy who needs “salvaging." 
Permit me to state my case, and then anyone that 
wishes is welcome to decide what is the trouble. I 
was born in the worst hills that Western New York 
State affords. 22 years ago. My parents were "hill 
farmers” (that pitiable species of human being) and 
were, if you will take the word of some of the 
neighboring hill folks, land poor. 1 started my 
career like all the other boys around me. going, as 
Shakespeare says, unwillingly to school, or else per¬ 
haps doing chores or fishing. I still remember the 
days when I started off with the neighbors’ children 
to the old white sehoolhouse to become endowed with 
seems to be taken for granted with some people that 
B. A. attached to a name is there for a warning, and 
that is “Beware Agriculture.” During my college 
course 1 always worked on the farm Summers, and 
1 assumed the tasks of the extra "hand.” All the 
farm land that I could manage conveniently would 
he mine gratis, and it was always my plan to come 
hack to the hills when I got my sheepskin, and start 
laising more sheepskins. Here I am, a kid just, out 
of college, with all the land I want, and I am going 
to kick out on the deal unless- 
THE COLLEGE FARMER—I have heard re¬ 
marks condemning college men as farmers. Some 
people say they won’t work, others say they have 
high ideas. I admit the latter of these accusations, 
for 1 pity the mau who does not have big plans. 
16 to their eight, or even five and six. What would 
my farming amount to if I worked from six to eight 
hours a day? They say that they must have time 
for self-improvement and recreation. Have l not 
that same right? Have they any more license to go 
motoring than I. if I had a car. or any more right 
to go to the country club and play golf than I have 
to play golf with the neighbor’s hired man over on 
the back eighty? I believe that we could all do it 
if a larger portion of our people worked. 
SOCIAL LIFE.—There is a decided lack of social 
functions, but I realize that that can be remedied 
only when we get more people back into the neigh¬ 
borhood. At present our farming population cou- 
sists of a few tired-out and worn-out old farmers 
and their wives, who are glad when night comes that 
