Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1879-02-11

sNistellantous.
WANTED, 50. 900 YOUNG MEN.

Yes, we want, the country wants. 90
600 young men or more, to engage in pro-
gresSive agriculture. Though soil culture
employs more than halt the people of the
country who are engaged in any useful
employments, all other ranks of industry
are better filled than this. Agriculture
furnishes the raw material for nearly all
our manufactures, yet while the factories
and workshops are overburdened with
skilled laborers, the harvest fields are too
often worked by the poorest labor that
strolls the highway Educated mechan-
les, formerly successful merchants, and
highly intelligent manufacturers are
seeking employment by hundreds, but
find the ranks of their calling full while
agriculture has plenty Of room for such
men. Thousands of Young men ''are
adriit in the large Cities as the New
\ ork Bulletin puts it, "smplv because
they can do nothing that anybody wants
done = but let them go to the farms of
the country and they will find abundant
opportunity for intelligent. willing labor:
at low wages. it is true, but sure to result
IN health and happiness. a thousand times
better than the precarious existence they
maintain in the city. If the trades and
professions have no employment for the
myriads of idle hands, the farm can fur
nish enough for all, The unoccupied
lands of the West. the abandoned farms
OF the South. the many neglected fields
all over the East, all offer opportunities
for every idle man in the country to ggin
bread. clothing, shelter and ultimate
comfort and happiness; for out of the
soil comes all we eat and wear, and out
of the forests the material for our houses.
We are not urging that the tramps and
yagabonds of the cities he turned into
farm laborerS, for a tramp in the country is n
greater evil than tramp in the city, and it
is quite as impossible to make him work in
the fields as in the shops and factories
But it is the unemployed, intelligent, ae-
tive workmen that can find useful employ
ment on the farm.
And To lntelllgennt young men, and active
men ont of business. but possessing some
capital, from 81 900 upward, agriculture
holds out tempting promises, and pro-
misses that She will fulfil to those who work
for them. There are but few farmers more
successful than the merchant who conducts
his farming on the same prudent vet pro-
gressive business principles that gave him
success in trade. 1t is pleasant fact 10
contemplate, that over four and a half mil
lion acres of new land were actually occu-
pied by settlers in the Western States dur
ing the last fiscal year, and especially
pleasant when we consider that settlers
We're not emigrants from foreign countries,
rs in former years, except to small de-
gree, but We're mostly from the overcrowd-
ed Eastern cties---many of the class above
described. The real estate dealers make
the statement, also, that the demands for
small farms in the Eastern States has new
er been so great as within the past wear or
two. This movement tends to an improy-
ed condition OF affairs for the whole nation.
and We hope it will go on until the old and
proper balance between city and country is
restored.
But to the young men Just coming upon
the stage of action. agriculture offers spec
ial attractions. There is great need among
farmers of more education in those branch
eS of science that pertain to the breeding
and treatment of animals, fertilizing the
soil, growing plants, and all the various
phases of the calling. Those men who
are familiar with the advancing thought
and practice of the time, are the
most successful farmers of to-day. So9it
Will be i'll the future to even a greater de
gree and those farmers and others who
desire their sons to become successful,
leading agriculturists, and prominent in
public affairs, should see to it that these
young men receive as good intellectual
training as those who embark in those call
ings that are universally admitted to re-
quire Il liberal education. Veterinary med
icine, agricultural, manufacturing and
trade, and even agricultural journalism,
are also open fields TO young men educat-
ted in agricultural science and practice
ImericaH .fgyicuiturist.