I 149 
Playing Fair With Our Farm Boys & Girls 
|The woman who writes the following article wrote 
us a rather severe criticism regarding our position on 
the rural school bill. She complained that we did not 
give the friends of the bill a fair chance in the argu¬ 
ment, and she thought that the discussion should be 
opened once more. In reply we offered to print any 
statement she saw fit to send us, and her article is 
therefore presented without comment.] 
T HE CONSERVATIVES.—There has been so 
much said concerning rural .schools in the past 
three years that the majority of farm folks do not 
relish the reading or hearing of anything more. 1 
am not disguising this letter. It is concerning rural 
schools, and may the readers he assured I have the 
spirit of my convictions in offering opinions, rnitny of 
which they will not agree with. Many farm people, 
trying to hide in a cloak they call conservatism, are 
still satisfied with the rural school system we have 
today. That opinion was more or less fostered by 
the discussion last Spring on the rural school bill. 
It is to them, especially, that I make this appeal. 
THE CITY SCHOOL.—If you will pardon the per¬ 
sonal. may I tell you why I am so interested in this 
'big question? I have gained a knowledge of our 
rural schools by being a pupil in them, and recently 
substituting as a teacher in them. The eldest of our 
three iboys starts school tins Fall. Because we do 
not feel justified to send this boy to our district 
school, we are planning to pay his 
tuition and take him 3*4 miles to 
a city school. The reason for this 
is not primarily to educate him under a 
city system, for I am wholly in sym¬ 
pathy with our superintendent of city 
schools, who said that he only wished 
farm people would realize the advan¬ 
tages offered them if they brought the 
standards of their school up to those 
of the city, that advantage being the 
keeping of our boys and girls under the 
influence of our homes during the 
hours out of school when the city boys 
and girls are attracted from their 
homes into so many destructive chan¬ 
nels. Our boy will go to town to school 
simply because the rural schools of to¬ 
day are not filling the bill. 
RURAL TEACHERS.—Many of my 
readers will challenge that, so I will 
state my reasons. Consider the teacher 
first (and I say this with all respect to 
our rural teachers). There are few 
teachers who can teach from six to 
eight grades, and keep these grades up 
to the standards demanded today. 
What has always struck me so force¬ 
fully was the fact that the inexperi¬ 
enced teacher was allowed to teach sev¬ 
eral grades in a rural school, 'but in a 
graded school it needed an experienced 
teacher for one grade. I believe, con¬ 
sidered collectively, the following state¬ 
ments are true: 
1. The rural schools get the culls of 
our normal schools for teachers. (In 
most instances these girls are “mis¬ 
fits,” having chosen the wrong voca¬ 
tion. When unable to secure jobs in 
graded schools they have been hired for rural 
schools by a trustee who felt thankful to be able to 
get a teacher, and especially a normal graduate.) 
2. The rural schools are a means to an end, and 
a training school for their teachers. Girls earn their 
money there to finish normal courses. Others get 
experience by which they obtain positions in graded 
schools. 
LOWERED STANDARDS.—The rural schools to¬ 
day are not turning out the products that they did. 
Superintendents and other school men admit to us 
that there lias been a falling down in the standards 
of work done by pupils in country schools in the past 
10 years. I have visited schools and traced out the 
work done by children who have entered graded 
schools from rural ones, and by far the largest per 
cent are doing work much below the work done by 
pupils Who have come up in that graded system. If 
you doubt this statement, will you go to your nearest 
graded school and do as I did? 
A PROFESSOR’S VIEW.—Prof. Fletcher Harper 
Swift of the University of Minnesota, who has made 
educational surveys throughout the United States, 
»f.|RJRAL NEW-YOIfKER 
ed schools, and with those of other States. 
2. With a knowledge that there is more disease 
and immorality in the country today in proportion 
to its population than in the city, let us consider in 
what way that condition would react to an improved 
educational system. Authorities tell us the latter is 
the solution of the former. 
3. Then, convinced a change must <k>me i;i our 
schools, let us throw aside the antagonism aroused 
by the school bill last Spring and concentrate our 
efforts into getting before our State legislature a 
bill that will put our rural schools on a basis in 
keeping with the other high standards that farm life 
of today has set for itself. 
IN FAVOR OF CONSOLIDATION.—I am too 
much of a layman to prescribe for that school bill, 
but I am convinced that the solution will have to 
come through a system of consolidation. President 
Coolidge, in his address to the school folks at Wash¬ 
ington July 4, said in part that the one-room, one- 
teaclier rural school, such as he knew, must give 
way to a consolidated system. We cannot finance 
these changes in our own district because econom¬ 
ically we are spread out over a large territory, but 
combined forces can make fliese changes. Of course 
there will be inconveniences attached. We will be 
able to pick flaws in the bill presented. It cannot 
will come as near growing spontaneously there as 
anywhere in the world. They sell trainloads of it, 
baled, when it should be fed to sheep. It would 
save purchase, now, for the extreme cost of western 
grain refuse that is flooding the East. Two flocks 
were in sight from a machine traveling under the 
speed limit, but I do not hesitate to say their net 
profit was greater than any other animal or crops. 
CLUB RULES.—For the information of other 
bankers, and the upbuilding of our deficit American 
sheep industry, here are the rules: 
Any boy or girl in Ontario County may enroll as a 
member. 
Each member shall be the owner of a purebred sheep. 
Each member agrees to care for his or her sheep ac¬ 
cording to the directions of the county club agent. 
Each member agrees to keep a record on a form pro¬ 
vided. 
The contestants agree to exhibit at the Ontario Coun¬ 
ty Fair, at which time the sheep will be judged and the 
prize awarded. 
THE NEED OF WOOL.—If there is any rural 
scheme more worthy than this I fail to see it. Other 
productions are a surplus, or near surplus, while 
sheep are a national and world deficit. Wool is so 
scanty that the people are wearing each other’s worn- 
out, re-worked rags. It is a wise man who has no 
shoddy in his garments. There cannot be a glut of 
wool during the life of any reader, and it must be as 
profitable as, or more so than, any other farm pro¬ 
duct. The conditions now are such that 
anyone who grows wool to help free 
Americans from short-lived, disgrace¬ 
ful rag clothing, is a public benefactor. 
STARTING A FLOCK.—Boys and 
girls should grab some ewes, purebred 
preferably, but ewes, and grow lambs. 
The increase will make a flock later, 
and the wool and male lambs more 
than pay all expenses along the way. 
This flock will be a competence, but, 
better still, a good character will be 
formed and a farm love and knowledge, 
so the owner will never be buried from 
a rented house in town. Bankers and 
parents should make a note of the 
above, and relieve the youngsters from 
uninteresting, unprofitable, threadbare 
production. w. w. iseynolds. 
Licking Co., O. 
Calcium Cyanide Death to 
Woodchucks 
James G. Greene, President Rural School Association (See page 1152) 
be perfect for each individual district, but must be 
generalized for the common good of all. With a 
spirit of broadmindedness let us unite our efforts to 
give our farm boys and girls a square deal. 
BUSY M. MARK. 
makes the following statement: 
‘New York State 
is 50 years behind the times with its district rural 
school system.” Now, farm people. I believe the 
time has come for us to take the following steps: 
1. In a receptive attitude compare our educational 
system in our country schools with that of our grad¬ 
The Benefit from Sheep Clubs 
S TUDENT’S OF CHARACTER.—There is no class 
of men who study the character of folks so 
closely as bankers. Also they have sharp eyes on 
the boys who are coming on, and can tell which will 
grow into the right kind of citizens. Banking de¬ 
pends on folks of character, and bankers admire the 
boy of promise. Let me say here that boys are in 
awe of bankers, but they are the best folks in the 
world to advise a boy, except the boy’s mother, and 
they always take pleasure in doing it. 
AID FROM THE BANK.—Some bankers reach 
out to make good citizens of boys. It was my pleas¬ 
ure to find the National Bank of Canandaigua, N. Y., 
inciting sheep clubs. There are calf and pig clubs 
in many sections, but those animals will not tie a 
boy or girl to the farm, nor influence character 
equally with an association and profit in sheep. Also, 
they demand too much grain. 
AN ALFALFA DISTRICT.—Sheep must pay in 
any section except swamp land, but from Caledonia 
to Geneva is exceptionally good. Alfalfa and clover 
S OME time ago you had an article 
about calcium cyanide. Always use 
flakes; dust does not kill. I got some 
and have used over 100 lbs., and it 
works to perfection. It is the best thing 
for destroying woodchucks I have ever 
tried. I have not finished all the 
’chucks yet. I use two heaping table¬ 
spoons to every hole, covering the 
hole with grass, weeds or sod, then 
dirt. Covering the hole keeps the 
’chuck busy until the gas get him, and 
also tells you if another ’chuck has 
come along and moved in. 
I have used traps, poison, carbon bi¬ 
sulphide and shooting, and hiring 
them killed at 25 cents per head, but the ’chuck in¬ 
creased until I had probably between 1,000 and 1,500 
on my farms here of 175 acres, and on canal and two 
railroad banks that run through my farm. I am 
poisoning all the holes on line fences and canal and 
railroad so as to have some rest. 
On and around one hay lot of less than nine acres 
I have poisoned 40 colonies of woodchucks; each col¬ 
ony has from two to six holes. In one end of wood- 
lot on about three acres I poisoned 128 holes, and I 
do not think a ’chuck escaped. These ’chucks lived 
on my neighbors’ crops, but I fixed my own and the 
ones on the line fences each side. 
I have lots of patches of woodbine all over my pas¬ 
ture, and the sheep will not eat woodbine, although 
they kill out poison ivy. The sheep have killed all 
the poison ivy I had. What will kill woodbine? The 
’chucks live in such protected places hunters cannot 
get many, and hunters never can tell a pheasant 
from a woodchuck. The jewel weed in the woods 
over the ’chuck dens grows over S ft. tall, and weeds, 
hedge, trees, etc., protect the chucks, so hunting 
them is of no use. 
This field of hay of nine acres, having 40 colonies 
of woodchucks, is part of a rifle range, and tne 
’chucks come for miles to see the shooters shoot, and 
make up faces at them. They know they are safe. 
Can you help me kill the woodbine? It is a seri¬ 
ous damage to my pasture, clabic allis. 
4 
