The Grit-advocate., 1903-08-14
Advantages Of Farm Life.

In the western wheat fields last year
the average profit of each farmer
counting all sizes of farms-is comput
ed at $400 each, says the Denver
News. This means clear profit, after
taxes are deducted. 1t compares IA
vorably with the average conceded to
business and professional men, taking
the smaller ones with those who are
distinguished.
Since last year 100000 acres of
new land have been plowed up in the
Southwest and this year is producing
Its first crops. These crops are not
large by any means, but serve to in
crease the profits. Last year We
raised 2,250,OO0,0OO bushels of corn
and 600,000,000 bushels of wheat and
nearly 1000, 100000 bushels of oats.
The earnings on the farms of this
country last year were 5000, 900, 900
OF this sum $400,O0O,0OO was paid out
to the workers of the field. Several
million men and women went into the
harvest and worked three months
gathering in the cereals. 1t is more
gigantic task than any other single
Industry presents-that of harvesting
the grain.
And yet, as educators view the sub
ject, the farm is far from popular with
the boys and girls who presumably
know all about it. Good hired men are
scarcer in the country than good hired
girls are in town, and during harvest
time 1t is impossible to get enough
men in the West and South to save
the crops. It would seem as If recent
Innovations, such as rural delivery and
the telephone, would make life on the
farm more attractive. but it does not
seem to make any difference-the
country boy wants to live in own, and
into town he is sure to 60 sooner or
later.
In discussion Of this subject in the
Orange Judd Farmer, comfortably ed
tied in Chicago. the educational tend
encies of the time are held partly to
blame, and even the agricultural col
leges are not exempt, for. under the
terms of the Morrill, act. these col
eges are general in their nature,
teaching everything from bugs to en-
cheering and from the temper of
plows to German metaphysics, the one
being as hazy and uncertain as the
other.
According to the Orange Judd writer,
reports from 100 teachers in 112 ru-
raj schools in New Jersey are to the
effect that thirty-seven per cent of
the children from six to nine years of
age expressed written preference for
occupations connected with the soil.
but this proportion rapidly decreased
with age until at fourteen and over
only two per cent. of the boys wanted
to be farmers. The answers were CIV
en- in writing without any previous no
tice, SO that they may truthfully be
taken to express the child mind. This
test is remarkable proof of the degree
to which the school and other envir-
onment of the average child in the
country tends to force it away from
the land. 1--WE by 70 means accuse
the school of being entirely at fault
for many parents do much more to
turn their children against agriculture
This instance simply emphasizes the
necessity of proper conception of the
dignity of agriculture and of the pleas
ures of country life on the part of par
ents, teachers and the general public.
Children are very largely governed by
their surroundings, and the parent who
Is always grumbling about his occu-
patton need not wonder if the young
people fail to follow it."
The above is but another form of
stating the value of sentiment. The
Greenlander loves his home because
he has been taught to do so-has i'm
bibed it with his infantile nourish-
ment and has strengthened it with the
years of his growth until the senti-
ment Is essentially part of himself
The farm, like any other calling that
is attractive, must be idealized to
make it so. The ribbon is yet much
to the soldier, and so is the talented
writeup to the locomotive engineer.
What the writer expresses the engine
driver will in time come to feel, and it
will form a goodly part of the compen-
sation for his risk and toil-the part
that ID never expressed in mere dol
lars and cents.