Norwich bulletin., 1909-11-20


 | union, seems to be a little the most advanced in the matter of rural CO., operation. This is largely due to the I"down-to-the-bottom work of a lot of practical professors at the Universi- ty of Minnesota These gentlemen ap- pear to have demonstrated that theory and practice can be made to- go to- gether. to the mutual advantage of both, and that college professor need not, necessarily, be an impractical dreamer. Some of us ~old farmers" may perhaps get an idea from the way they are--not tening how to do things but actually doing them. Most any od us can preach wisdom, but not all of us practice it Most any of us can tell how things ought to be done, but not all of us can do 'em. Out in Min nesota they seem to be preaching and practicing both. and the practicing part is peculiarly interesting.
 The state university has, among other branches, college of agricul- ture for advanced students, and school of agriculture for instruction in the primary work of the farm. Nat urally the students in the advanced college course are less numerous than those in the school which this year includes some eight hundred boys and girls. They come to this school quite young, meeting only very easy re- quirements for admission. In the school they are taught farming farming as f ought to be done, and farming as it can be done. They are taught little chemistry and a little botany and little natural history, of course, because no man can possibly be good farmer unless he knows something along these lines. Now aon't sheer at that; don't quote "old man BinkS," who is surely successful farmer and who 1ever saw the outside or book on chemistry or botany. It's true, JuS. the same. Real knowledge of farm chemistry and botany doesn't come wholly from books. It comes also from the lessons of Teacher Ma ture, which ara not printed in black ink With metal type, but are buried in the flirt and locked in the rocks and dissolved in the brooks and painted on m flOtous orgies of color in the leaves ana the flowers and the kaleidoscopic PsRorama of changing autumn. "Old Wan Binks" may never have seen a Achool textbook on botany and may / never have heard the Latin name for quack grass. But he knows it. never theless-he knows the actual facts about it better than half the profes- sional botanists. He might vigorously deny that he knows anything about botany. But kin raise clover and I kin kill quack grass,' he'll admit And yet he's mo botanisti" I tell you he's one of the best in his neighborhood. Only 1t has cost him long life of close observation and a great many mistakes and some waste of labor and some loss of profits to gain the wisdom which a primary course in the elements of botany might have taught him more , cheaply and quicker
 To come back to the Minnesota school of ,agriculture; it helps the youngsters to get start before they ! begin actual work on their own farms: gives them some real advantage over those who have to learn while work ing and make mistakes in order to find out how not to make them. While it mas often been urged as an argument against an agricultural college that most of its graduates go into some- thing besides farming, the record of this Minnesota school is that eighty in every hundred of it's students go back to the farms and generally be- come. in very few years, the admit ted leaders in their neighborhoods in tarm success. The boys are taught how to run farms by being put right into the harnes on one which is run not solely for practice, but also for pTont. They see how things are done and they do them. Thus they get such a grounding in the elements of farm management as could come to them, if deprived of such help and training, only through long years of experiment and bitter seasons of disappointment The girls are taught, as well, how to mSlee farmhouse a "home'-whieh alas! some farmhouses are not They learn not only how to cook and bake. but also what to cook and bake and how to cook and bake most econom- lcally and most wholesomely. The av- craze cost per meal of ample, well cooked, properly served, tasteful and nutritious food to this army of eight hundred growing. hungry youngsters 1s-how much do you suppose? Just s-e-v-e-n cents. The whole expense to the student for board, lodging. lights fuel. unlimited laundry and all the other actual comforts of life is forty cents a day.
 But it is in the work of farm CO., operation, conducted under the aus pices of the university, in connection with the school and the college of ag- riculture, that the most important de- velopment of the universitys idea has been accomplished. All up-to-date dairymen know of the general idea of the Minnesota co-operative dairies The ground plan is very simple: it provides for the assembling Of farm CTS having from 800 to 2,000 cows. in the aggregate, into creamery districts. ! The milk is brought to the creameries, |