uce it. I need not tell you that the above conditions imperatively
suggest the proverbial mule, implements more or less primitive, with
frequently a vast territory of barren and furrowed hillsides and
wasted valleys. Instead of the veritable Klondyke, of which their
dreams are made sweet, another mortgage has been added as an
unpleasant reminder of the year's hard labor. With this inevitable
doom staring them in the face, is it any wonder that so many of the
youth of our land flock to the cities with the hope of seeking some
occupation other than farming? The above conditions, together with the
seemingly higher civilization of the city folk, I claim, are largely
responsible for this. But be this as it may, in the light of what has
been accomplished, I see for us a very bright star of hope in the
education of two-thirds of the brightest and best of our youth in
scientific agriculture.

The many excellent schools, colleges, nature study leaflets, farmers'
bulletins and reading courses, conferences, convocations, congresses,
fairs, and the like, are all powerful educational factors designed to
lead the race into higher agricultural activities. The agricultural
schools, and higher institutions of that character, are wisely laying
much stress upon stock raising, dairying, horticulture, landscape
gardening, poultry raising, and every manipulation incident to the
successful operation of this great industry. These subjects have been
taught almost wholly to young men, but recent experience has taught,
not only in this, but in other countries, that many of these studies
seem especially suited to women; and many are taking the advantages
offered by schools in the matter of learning the technique of poultry
raising, dairying, horticulture, landscape gardening, and the related
sciences, along with their academy or college work, and as a reward
are finding pleasant, profitable and healthful employment. Nature
study, with the first principles of agriculture, is compulsory in many
of the primary schools, and ere another decade is indelibly placed
upon the historical records of the greatest events of the greatest
century, it will find us wonderfully in advance in this particular.

Every year we see a perceptible increase in the funds for public
education, and magnificent schools and colleges, with better paid
professors, springing up here and there, stand out as beacon lights to
this new and wonderful epoch. The wisdom of spending thes