Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1873-08-22
How to Make Boys Hate Farming.

A gentleman wrote TO Farmers
Club requesting it if possible to procure
him boy who is honest, truthful, not
lazy, and who will be likely to love
farming. He wanted boy TO pick up
stones, milk cows, turn grind-stones, &c,
and one also that will not hate farming,
and run away every chance he gets. AT
the meeting at which this request was
read one of the members answered in
the following admirable way;
eff a boy is ever justified in running
away most assuredly he would be when
he is directed to 60 alone to perform a
job that every faithful laborer hates. If
you wish to keep boy on farm never
set him alone when the.birds are singing,
the squirrels are chattering, and the vi
olets are unfolding their petals, at pick
ing stones in large field. [Applause. /
The truth is, those little arms and soft
muscles are no more suitable for hand
ling stones than the muscles of a young
colt are to drawing sub-soil plow. If
you wish to make boy love the farm
better than any other employment, don't
keep bim turning grlndstone at noon
while all the men are lying in the shade,
and don't bear on with all your might,
so hard as to stick him, and then ridi-
cule him tauntingly, telling him he
must eat more pudding and milk before
he can turn a grindstone like a man.
[Renewed applause,] Perchance the
boy weighs only fifty pounde. You
weigh a hundred and fifty, and the
grindstone 100. Now then, suppose we
let you turn huge stone of 450 pounds,
while giant of AGO pounds bears on,
which is fair proportion between your
self and the boy Before the giant has
applied half his weight, if he don't see
you balk square from the mark, and
crack, if you don't break the third com
mandment, and assume profane and
pugnacious attitude, then write me as
false prognostieator. [Cheers aud loud
laugter.
Unless you waut 10 make good boy
hate farming and every employment
connected with it, don't manage in such
an uuderhaDded manner that he will
have to milk the COW which every one
dislikes to milk because she milks so
hard Ia voice" That's what he
knows about milking."1 When the boy
comes in at night so tired that he would
rather lie down on the hard side Of a
maple plank than to eat his supper,
don't tell him to hurry up and eat his
supper so as to do that churning, when
all the men and older boys are al
lowed to read the newspapers or to smoke
unmolested. If you wish to induce boy
to think that Indian corn and potatoes
are profitable crops, don't give him an
old rusty hoe that no sensible man
would use, and then tell him if he will
cut in smart when hoeing that will help
him keep his row up even with the rest.
Renewed cheers. If you do not want
to make a boy hate the country, when a
task is assigned to him, don't pile on SO
much as to compel him to summon all
his energies for three fourths of the day
to complete it, and when the job is done,
tell him be will have to go to mill on
cook can make no bread for the next
day. If you don't want TO make boy
hate all the operations of the farm, don't
tell him while all the men are taking
their incoming in harvest time, to wa.
ter the COWS and horses, and to hurry
up SO as to 60 with the men when they
are ready to return to the field. Don't
encourage boy to rear a nice calf OF
COW and tell him the animal shall be
his when grown up, and then sell the
beast for good price, pocket the money
and tell the boy the price received don't
pay for the hay, grass and oats consum,
ed. If you want to make an energetic
and successful farmer of boy don't en-
courage him to rise before daylight Sc
to rake the wheat stubbles while the
dew is on, telling him he shall have hal
the gleanings, and then sell his part o.
the grain with the whole crop and tel
him if he inquiries about his share O
money, that the little sum received will
not pay half his board next winter
| Laughter, and voice saying, gues
you we're boy once."l Don't badger :
good boy to the verge of desperation
with the miachievous and obnoxious :" g,
boys system Of management If yol
want to make him like farming opera
tions, don't fret every ambitious desir
out of the young aspirant with that re
pulsive and incessant ding dong of
Jim do this and Jim do that
When all Jim gets is new straw hat
T There is no precept and no reasonin
that will induce boys to stick to the farm
like the cheering words, Come, com
boys" always accompanied by an IRE
proachable example in leading the way
Strange "a IL NAV seem To some how