Part 24 (1/2)

CHAPTER XXI

THE COMING PROFESSION FOR BOYS

In order that as little as possible may seem to be taken for granted or as mere expressions of the opinions of the author, we cite the views of specialists as to the possibilities of this field, so new in this country, of intensive agriculture.

These will show that the conviction has become general that, as workers, as teachers, and as discoverers, there is no career more inviting or more lucrative or more dignified than that of the skillful foster-father of plants.

”Children brought up in city tenements tend to become vicious and sickly, but if transported to country homes they may grow up strong and self-respecting men and women.

”There are hundreds of applicants for every position in the cities, and compet.i.tion forces the pay down to the lowest level. Living expenses are heavier. The risk to health from sedentary occupations, long hours in ill-ventilated offices, stores, and workshops is serious.

”There are few inducements to out-door exercise. Even if he lives at home, the boy who is forced to the street or into the factory before he has the strength or education to do good work remains an unskilled worker all his life.

”Manufacturing is upon a larger and larger scale. The division of labor is greater and greater. Not only does the gulf between capitalist and laborer widen, but with it the gulf between skilled and unskilled labor.” (”What Shall Our Boys Do for a Living?”

Charles F. Wingate.)

It is the city that breeds or attracts most of the pauperism and crime. The country has its own healthy life.

Every one is born with some natural gift, and it is a good thing to discover early in life what one's natural gifts are so that each may be educated in the direction suited to natural capacity.

How are you to treat a lad who has naturally an inclination for the work on the farm? In the first place do not provide him with any spending money unless he earns it. The prime thing necessary is to give the boy a personal interest in what is going on upon the farm.

Give him a plot of land as his own, let him understand that anything he may grow upon this land shall belong to him, but do not give him this plot and say, ”There, take that; do as you like with it,” he will wonder what to do with it. He will need somebody to help him by teaching him what he is to do. Enter into a partners.h.i.+p with him at the start, give him some instruction as to what it is best for him to do with his plot. Find out his inclinations; give him sympathy and help. Bring out his natural apt.i.tude for farming life, teach him method in his work; teach him to think his way out; and, best of all, teach him to work for definite results; that is what is wanted in any line of life, especially in farm life.

Let the work of the boy have a meaning and a purpose. Let him understand that certain results cannot be accomplished in any other way, and give him chances to go outside and see what other people are doing. Let him see good scientific agriculture and be encouraged to pursue such methods.

Provide for him the very best reading that can be found in agricultural journals and books. Let him have three or four years at an agricultural college. All the influences there point to agriculture as the best calling for a young man who is fit for it, whereas in other colleges the influences are all in the opposite direction. At our agricultural colleges a youth has all the necessary advantages of general education, and also an education in the lines fitting him especially for the calling he has selected.

(United States Department of Agriculture, Bulletin 138, condensed.)

”Among farmers and gardeners not enough thought is given to the whys and wherefores, or cause and effect; as a rule, they go on year after year without profiting by the personal opportunity afforded them of observation, or by the results of experiments at scientific stations.

”With rare exceptions the young farmer and gardener takes up his work, not from the scientific side, but strictly from the labor side; and he begins at the bottom, meeting the same difficulties as did his father and too often not acquiring information beyond what his father possessed.

”This should not be; agriculture should be taught in all our public schools in country districts, as it has been taught for years in Germany and Austria. It should be elevated as an art; in its higher estate it is already an art. No pursuit possesses a greater scope for development; the field is almost unoccupied by leaders, scientific and practical.” (Burnett Landreth, in _999 Queries and Answers._)

In accordance with these ideas, the Baron de Hirsch Agricultural School at Woodbine, New Jersey, is giving practical courses in agriculture to Jewish boys, on the principle of individual plots--all free where necessary.

The trustees of the State Agricultural College of New Jersey, at New Brunswick, have established winter courses in agriculture, open to all residents of New Jersey over sixteen years of age. Courses will be for twelve weeks, and only a small entrance fee is required; few books will be needed.

Other states are doing likewise; all will need many teachers and experimenters. At present all who know anything about intensive agriculture are snapped up by the numerous government experiment stations at good salaries. The land like that of the Rockefellers, the Paynes, the Cuttings, on which farming is carried on by unnecessarily expensive methods, needs the services of trained agriculturists and professional foresters. The Division of Forestry at the start employed eleven persons, but now it has in the field as many hundreds of employees, including a lot of trained foresters.

The railroads also see the profit in teaching farming, and are devoting more and more money to experiments and lectures to show the farmers that they can get more and better crops with the same effort by intelligent selection of seeds.

The Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railway Company ran its first Seed and Soil Special over the entire system in the winter of 1904-1905, and has lectured to hundreds of thousands of farmers since.

They report to us that ”there is no doubt that the lectures did a great deal of good, and necessarily the larger increase of crops which followed is due to the scientific methods of farming expounded by the various professors.” The late President James J. Hill wrote much about the small farms' large yields.

The hundreds of thousands of ”war gardens” unskillfully conducted and glutting the local markets with crops all matured at about the same local time will unreasonably disgust many with intensive cultivation, especially those who work but do not think. The remedy is more instruction. The effect the agricultural colleges and experiment stations is plain to the eye in the better appearance of farms as we near the centers of instruction.

Some years ago a clergyman published a book upon the Adirondacks; it was full of poetry, and he sent men up there who afterwards became known as ”Murray's Fools.” They knew nothing about the life and had no suitability and little preparation for it. We do not wish to bring out a crop of ”Three Acres and Liberty Fools.” We are telling what has been done and what can be done again. It does not follow that every man can or will do it, much less teach it or advance the art, but the field is a large one and holds out great promise to those who persevere and excel in it.