Vermont farmer. [volume] (Newport, Orleans County, Vt.) 1870-1877, 1876-04-28
How to Keep Boys on the Farm.

Col. Waring, in Ogden Farm Papers in
the American Agriculturist, on how to keep
the boys on the farm, proposes to solve the
problem, by keeping everybody of the
farm" In other words he would have the
farmers live in villages of thirty or fifty fam
lilies, having the barns and stables as well as
the house at the village. This he thinks ap.
plicable to the older settled parts Of the
country, where from forty to eighty acres is
getting to be the profitable holding, and no
farm would be more than mile from the
village. 1t would save time and horse labor
and the "best carriage" for church, visiting
and shopping. 1t would give the boys the
enlightenment, sociabilty, intimate friend.
ships, opportunity for displaying their mod
est merits Of person, clothing and attain
ments, which they believe land rightly be-
long more particularly to men who live
among their kind. Their aspirations grow
first Of all out of the stated fact that man is
a social animal, and they so often waste their
lives in seeking even meager employment in
towns and cities because Of the imperative
attractions that towns and cities hold out to
them, for other reasons than mere business
ones. They want friends, they want even
ing entertainment, they want to know plenty
OF nice girls, and they want many other
things that an isolated life wthhods from
them.
Now where farms are so small and neal
together that thirty or fifty OF the owners
may live in village, and none Of them be
over mile from his farm, it is not easy tc
see why the boys may not have all these adj
vantages, while every family lives on their
own farm. When farm houses are scattered
along all the roads and streets only forty rod
apart, there is good chance for the develop
ment Of social qualities among the boys ant
girls, and they are pretty sure to improve
them. If farmers owning such farms al
these, will devote the extra labor and ex.
pense consumed in hauling farm produce
fuel and manure, and in travel to aud from
daily work, and driving COWS while living
and keeping stock at village home, to max
ing the farm aud farm life attractive anC
profitable, aud farm work easy, the results
will be better and more satisfactory to al
concerned than to crowd themselves int
little villages with their corner grocerie;
travelling auctioneers, negro mustrels an,
"other things"
One Of the most intelligent communities o
farmers it has been our good fortune to meet
and one where there is moro rational, socia
enjoyment, intelligence and culture, partic
patOd in by all the people, than any othe
community Of people Of equal number, is
billy farming town in Vermont where ther
is no village in the town.
1t is our opinion that boys can be kept o
the farm, enough Of them, aud that the farm
ers themselves are the ones who have got I
do it. In the first place, farming must |
conducted on the same basis Of intelligenc
good management, enterprise and enthusias
that oharacterizOs other successful bushes
Then it will pay, and great advance is mae
toward the desired end. Teach the bo,
that they must do this to succeed as farmer
Train them in the right way to do it. Nal
them partners, in fact, in all farm operation
after they are large enough to do regul
work, and make it an honest partneTshi
too. Keep abreast of improvements in iarI
ing adopting all that proves WELL and w
informed in all agricultural inteligcnc
sharing it with the boys. Take the boys o
for an occasional trip to see what other iarI
ors are doing in crops, fruit, stock, iaI
buildings, etc., and go far enough to find
good ones as there are in the county. "C
in" for premium crops and stock on 20
own farm, and let the boys take them to
good fair Make the fields neat as well
productive. Make the farm buildings a
surroundings attractive. Give the boys I
best education for men as well as iarm
that the farm affords, DO not make drudl