The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1911-10-31
Making The Farmer a
Mechanic
Bv F.. c.. MOORHEAD
e.. MOO III E AID
(By F. G.
(The World Today

Ii
(The World Today
The door of the presidents prlVate
office opened and an auStere. WIND
dried and sun-baked farmer appear
ed, driving his overgroWn, ungalniy
son before him. The boys embar-
rassment was not leSsened by the
chances Of a dozen Stenographers in
the main reception-room. The click
of the pounded keys stopped and the
progress of the pair was followed
until the haven of sec!usion in an al
cove was reached. then the hubbub
began again.
ut amt for none Of these here
n~ew-fangled, fool notions I'm goin to
spend my money" declared the Ia
Their. carrying on the monologue be
gun in the presidents private once:
1T amt so you can learn football
or crokinole or basketball or some
other durn fool game. don even
care if you never go TO a
an don't ever learn 20 crate at a
debatin' society. What I want is a
boy Of my W that can tlnkeI
round the corn-planter when it don't
drop right, or make the auto work
when nothin' under the sun seems the
matter In yet the durn thing won't
run. I'm tired knockin' Off work an
goin' into town for some fellow 10
make repairs at a dollar a minute
and extra for any time he does any
thing. Now you know what you're
to do, why I guess you can go TO col
lege. But mind you, behave and work
hard"
The ste~nographers lost interest the
minute the pair disappeared from
so often it had begun to lose its
novelty, and yet the world-old pas-
sion of the sex to embarrass the male
and make it realize its inferiority
caused every hand to hesitate above
the throbbing keyboard and every
eye to follow the pair to the oblivion
Of alcove seclusion. the key-pound-
ers knew their domination Of the sit
uation would be short-1ived. They
had watched hundreds OF such males
creak their embarrassed way to such
s%ec1usion, only to see them
in a few weeks, with the quick eye
and determined tread Of him who is
beginning to realize his mastery, n
depart forever in a hair year or a
year, back to the farm with a knowl-
edge of mechanics sufficient to dis
pense with the hired repairer and to
justify the fathers expenditure and
faith, and with a college gloss that
time can never eface.
You see. the way I figure it out
is just his way" The speaker was
an old, grizzled farmer from southern
Missouri. n as he stood before the
polished college president, he un-
easily shifted his hat from hand to
hand and alternately eaSed each bur-
dened foot by a lurching shift. 1.-The
trouble with us farmers is that we've
been farming from here down" with
this he dropped his hat to the floor
and jerked one hand UP until it was
on a level with his chin) without
paying much, if any, attention to what
was from here up. The thing now. as
! see it, is to farm from here up
(again the spasmodlc gesture to the
chin) and that's why l can see the
boys got to go to college, n just
such a college as this here"
There is the gist of the whole mat
ter. The man with the hoe is CIV
ing way to the farmer with the dyna-
mo. Man's brawn is being displaced
with the fruitiOn of mans brain, and
no one is quicker to see this than
the farmer.
Il walked thirty-seven thousand
miles between the handles Of a pillow
when / was a kid" remarked an
other good old farmer, quick to see
bow the wind was blowing, but now
adays a farmer won't look at an inn
plement that he can't sit on. What
we need now is to bring up our sons
so we won't have to be eterna1ly
hoppin' off the seat and fxin' the
thing SO it will rum"
Inc extent TO WHICH machinery is
reVOlutioniZing farming has frequent
~ been commented IN. 1t is no new
thing to be told that improvements
have been made in machinery in the
last forty years, by which the time
required for human labor to harvest
a bushei Of corn has been decreased
from four hours and thirty-four min
utes to only forty-one minutes, and
to produce a bushe1 of wheat, from
three hours and three minutes to onIy
ten minutes.
The pioneer farmers may not have
seen, but they have heard in these
days, Of the marvel harvesters Of the
great West, which carry a grinding
attachment and a stove on the plat
form, so tia wheat is ground. wheat
cakes mixed, baked and even eaten
within a few minutes after the grain
has been cut. They have heard OF
gasoline motors which pull fourteen
m~oidboard plows across the prairies
&C act or actor fhon n too~ mill