368 
Afford of Appreciation 
O CTOBER marks the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary 
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that there are so many to whom we can address these 
words of friendship and appreciation. 
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American Agriculturist, October 18, 1924 
The Judgment of Experience 
('Continued from page 265) 
“That point is especially good,” I 
suggested. “Some figures gathered re¬ 
cently by the College in Jefferson and 
Livingston counties showed very con¬ 
clusively that the percentage of boys 
staying on the farms increased as the size 
of the farm business increased. Pardon 
for the interruption, go ahead.” 
“I think the next best bet is for a lad 
to work as a hired man under a good 
farmer for a few years and get onto a farm 
as soon as he can as a tenant looking 
forward to owning as soon as he can secure 
the capital. To some this may seem a 
long tedious struggle, but when viewed as 
the work of ten or twenty years a man has 
built up for himself a good home and 
business. That’s a mighty sight more 
than most city workers ever accomplish.” 
“I have noticed frequently, Mr. Whit¬ 
man, that boys don’t get along with their 
dads for some reason or other. Have 
you ever noticed that?” 
. “Indeed, I have, and that brings up a 
point in connection with a boy’s staying 
on the home farm that’s worth thinking 
about. There are usually two sides to 
every controversy. When it comes to 
dads and the boys, each must do his part. 
Too many dads simply look at the labor 
of the boys as just that much that hasn’t 
got to be paid for. (Besides driving 
them too hard the boys often get no 
money and scarcely a holiday.) They 
soon get the attitude that they are 
through with such a life even though 
inwardly'they enjoyed the out-door work. 
Then again the father sometimes gets the 
notion that the lad is lazy, and maybe 
some of them are. When most of us 
were boys we liked to play better than 
work until we became really interested in 
our jobs. It seems to me that if more 
fathers tried to interest their boys in the 
business by pointing out its bright side 
and its future, there would be less trouble 
on this score. 
“I haven’t any cut-and-dried remedy for 
such cases but I do know that a little old- 
fashioned family love and respect won’t 
do any harm. In a lot of instances boys 
have found that the boss was harder to 
get along with by a long way than dad.” 
“I know the boys will be interested in 
what training you had for farming,” I 
suggested. 
“As far as schooling goes I didn’t 
attend a day after I was twelve. In 
fact in those days there weren’t many 
who stayed much longer. When I quit 
school I came home on the farm with 
father, and, as I said earlier, I have been 
here ever since. My father was a great 
reader and I remember his taking a great 
deal of interest in what Horace Greeley 
had to say about farming. From him I 
learned to enjoy reading. I was twenty- 
three or four before there was much to be 
read about farming. And what there 
was the farmers were skeptical about 
because they didn’t have any confidence 
in theories or ‘book farming.’ My 
father was a prodigious worker and 
could perform all kinds of work on the 
farm with great skill. He took pains to 
teach me to work just as rapidly as I 
grew strong enough to stand it. Beyond 
this I should say that my education had 
been secured in the ‘school of hard 
knocks’—and a mighty expensive and 
toilsome school it was, I can assure you.” 
“That’s certainly quite a contrast to 
present day methods, ” I said. “I should 
say that you would agree that experience 
was a good teacher but an expensive one. 
Out of your experience have you any 
suggestions for the boys of today regard¬ 
ing preparation for farming?” 
“I hate to give any advice,” protested 
Mr. Whitman. “It sounds so preachy 
and besides most boys are fed-up on 
advice already. There is one thought, 
however, that may help some of the boys. 
Many of the mistakes which I made were 
very expensive in time and money. 
These mistakes I would have been saved 
if I could have had the benefit of other 
people’s experience. To me that is one 
of the biggest things that an education 
accomplishes. Franklin wrote that an 
education pays. From the standpoint of 
success in farming I think it pays because 
you may profit by the mistakes and suc¬ 
cesses of other people and the teachings 
of the experiment stations and colleges. 
Speaking of the colleges I am reniinded 
of the talk that passed between farmers 
when I was about twenty. They poked 
all manner of fun at the idea of teaching 
farming at a school. And now, after fifty 
years, see what a change. The experi¬ 
ment stations, the colleges and the schools 
which are assisting and training farmers 
have the respect and backing of practi¬ 
cally every farmer.” 
“It’s inspiring to hear you review the 
big change in fifty years but coming back 
to the boys, specifically do you think a 
lad is fair to himself to attempt to enter 
a farming business without some training 
for it?” 
“Positively no,” he replied. “The 
problems of growing crops, animals and 
animal products, and marketing them, are 
many times as complicated as when I 
started farming. The best training for 
farming that a boy can get is none too 
good a preparation to meet these diffi¬ 
culties. From what I can gather of your 
statements about the opportunities at 
the present time it seems to me that boys 
who want to be farmers are making the 
mistake of their lives not to take ad¬ 
vantage of the opportunities and get 
ready for the business. That.may sound 
preachy but I actually mean every word 
of it.” 
“No, I wouldn’t call that preachy,” 
said I. “In fact, it is just such state¬ 
ments that help the boys decide to make 
the most of their lives.” 
Glancing at my watch, I realized that 
I had only a few minutes to get back to 
town for my train. I reluctantly drew 
our conference to a close with an ex¬ 
pression of appreciation for the time he 
had given me and the many helpful sug¬ 
gestions that I felt confident would be of 
interest to the boys and young men who, 
’ere we are aware of it, will be direeling 
the destinies of American agriculture. 
N OW that haying and harvest is over, it is a mighty good plan to see that 
all of the machines and implements are put under cover. Those 
parts that show rust spots should be scraped and painted. A half a day’s 
work spent in this manner once a year will increase the life of an implement 
many fold. Blue sky and an apple tree are beautiful, but they don’t serve 
to protect farm tools from the weather and elements. 
1 
