Page:Everywoman's World, Volume 7, Number 7.djvu/38

“Higher than Gibraltar”

Yes, higher by 600 feet—this Tugged outpost of the Laurentian Mountains—Cape Trinity, on the Saguenay River. Eighteen hun- dred feet above the sea it towers. Its majestic companion, Cape Eternity, is almost as high.

MAKE THE SAGUENAY TRIP THIS YEAR

You can start your trip at Niagara Falls, at Toronto, or

Montreal. Make it a two-week trip, or take any part of it, Between Toronto and Montreal, you will encounter the ever-changing, ever- glorious scenery of the Thousand Is- lands—and the exciting experience of “Shooting the Rapids.” Later comes Quebec, the city quaint and beautiful, Visit the miracle-work- ing shrine of Ste-Anne de Beaupre. The boats touch at Murray Bay and Tadousac.

Send two cents postage for illustrated Booklet, Map and Guide

CANADA STEAMSHIP LINES LIMITED

46 Yonge Street, Toronto, Ont,

This is the Year for an Inland Water Trip

A large tin for 10c.

Black Knight Stove Polish is Safe. cannot explode or catch fire. applied to a warm stove. The polish lasts and does not burn off quickly.

Ask for Black Knight.

F. F. DALLEY COMPANY OF CANADA, LIMITED

HAMILTON, CANADA

It It may be

You begin to look old,

ance Send rs to your conspicu at once nearest store for a bottle of

LOCKYER’S HAIR RESTORER

Homes for

Sit not worth your while toinvestigate the merits of a new land nearby—go near to usand near to railroads and markets that it is not prized as its worth demands ? 20,000,000 acres of the finest 1 land awaits settlement in

Northern Ontario

Northern Ontario offers fen your choice of millions of acees of virgin sot obtainable at only Sic. an acre, ont uu case ourselves. leper Bome and calt'no man master. upon earth] ‘Thousands of farmers have ded tothe call Somfortable Sed eich. hicks night at Taetions ot ‘com! '. GWT Osta. ahcme awaits out 7 Will send for fullinformation as to terms, regulations and settlers’ rates? Write to

H. A. Macdonell, Director of Coloni- zation.

Parliament B: Toronto, Ont. Hon; G. H. Ferguson, inister, Lands;

WILL MY BOY BE
A FARMER?

(Continued from page 13)

He learns their habits, the peculiarities of the different animals as classes and individuals, and in later life he finds that he readily understands the peculiar slants of character in many people through his experience with animals.

And yet again, the changes of the sky, the weather, the wind, the fields, with their ever-changing colouring from day to day, the odours of flowers, soil, and harvest fields, the notes of the birds, the voices of animals and insects, the of fruits and leaves, grains and roots, are constant appeals to every sense, awakening and developing those five great avenues through which the mind must receive knowledge. The very foundation of education is the development five great channels to the mind, of touch, taste, sight, smell, and hearing.

He will develop a constant desire for knowledge, under the direction of an intelligent parent, by being encouraged to ask the reason for this and that, and by being advised to observe closely, reason accurately, and experiment with a purpose. By introducing the boy to the available sources of knowledge in books, magazines, and Government bulletins, his judgement, initiative, and originality may likewise be developed.

No crime is greater than that of silencing the question of the child through indifference, impatience, or sheer selfish laziness. All work becomes interesting when its purpose and the facts related to it are understood, and the average boy will grow up to love the farm if his questions are intelligently answered and if he is taught to work with his head as well as his hands.

 

 

THE IDEAL FARMER

The ideal boy for the farm is the muscular, long-limbed type, with dark hair and skin. His head is wide at the ears, decidedly long from the back to front, rather square, and fairly high in the centre at the crown. The features are strong; prominent nose, good chin, long upper lip, rather deep-set eyes, forehead prominent at the base and well rounded. The hair line may be rather low.

THE IDEAL FARM

The ideal farm is a small farm—relatively small at least—in a section of the country where the farms are small enough so that every acre will be utilized to its fullest advantage, and where the idle or uncultivated farm is unknown. This makes possible goad roads, good schools, good churches, and all of the opportunities for social and intellectual life which human beings crave.

It is reasonably near the market-town, city, or railroad. The crops suit the soil, the market, and the man. Machinery does as much of the work as is possible on land, in barn, and stable, and in the house. The home, barnd, and stable, are equipped with all modern conveniences and improvements. The farm is taxed merely for the land and not for buildings or improvements.

The farm is a co-operative business with the farmer himself a8 general manager. Each boy who is old enough, is responsible for some one part of the work and must turn in regular statements, and must see that his department pays. Each girl, who is old enough, works in the house, but if she is not needed there she has an outside deparment—honey production, poultry, fruits, vegetables. The younger children have their own gardens, their own animals. At the end of the year, when the books are made up and closed, a certain sum goes back into the business for new machinery, stock, and improvements. The farmers takes so much per cent. of the net profits for the interest on the capital he has invested, each boy and girl receives a certain per cent., according to age and work done.

In this way each child may specialize in different branches of farm work—cattle, poultry, fruit, vegetables, dairy, buying and selling—and since each owns an active interest in the farm, they take a pride in it and in doing their work well. This co-operative business method and manner of running a farm in the new way keeps the children on the farm.

 

A Great Gift: The Value of Knowledge

A BOY can learn at the Agricultural College, in a short time, what scores of men have spent years in discovering, and can secure that knowledge for a very small investment in real money. When that knowledge acquaints him with a better method, a better crop, a better strain in breeding, by which he may increase the product of a farm by hundreds of dollars, with the same labour, it is worth real money. Scores of farms have paid the cost of tile draining with the resulting increase, in a single crop. Many a farmer, after learning to systematically weigh and test the milk of every cow, discovered that he was actually boarding some members of his herd at a loss. Your boy, taught to value knowledge and to apply that knowledge to the problems of the farm, will not find, as he grows older, that farm life is without opportunity.

 

Improvements of Farm Life

WITH the numerous inventions and improvements in machinery come the farmer's opportunity to shorten his hours of labour and to do better work. Granted that there is some machinery placed on the market that is too complicated and cumbersome to be worth using; granted that many farmers have been "bitten" by buying machinery of this kind, and "stung" by sharp practice. Granted, too, that those who have been "bitten" and "stung" would not have been such "easy money" to some crook had they known more about it. There you are! More education, more information would have saved them. It takes brains to profit by an education, and it takes judgment to buy machinery.

But of all the hired men who pass through,a farmer's hands in a year, the man who gets the warmest welcome on his return is he who "can do the work of two." Well! A good machine, suited to the soil and the work does the work of two, three, ten men, you don't pay it wages, though it does "cost a pile" at first.

The farmer whose home, office, stable, barn are equipped with the best and latest improvements is working with brain and not with his hands only. He makes the machinery do all the work he can; he saves his wife in the home and himself in the barn, so that they each have time for something besides "always slaving."

The office is as necessary to the farmer as to the banker. The banker deals in money, the farmer in wheat: and of the two crops—for the next four or five years, anyway—wheat is worth more, It is quite possible that in 1918 we shall have money and yet cannot buy bread; and the same condition is likely to obtain in 1919, despite an increased production.

Could the banker tell where he stands without books? Does the merchant attempt to carry all his business "in his head"? Can the manufacturer know if he is making a profit or carrying a loss if he can't "figger" well, nor write a business letter? How does the farmer know that his cows are not boarding on the money made by the pigs, or that his potatoes are not swallowing up the profits made in corn?

There is just on thing that can be carried around with expense and that is knowledge; and enouch knowledge can be gained at any Agricultural College in a four-year-course to give a man a good foundation on which to build, by Government bulletin, magazine, club, and book, for the rest of his life.

Remember it is the start that counts.

 

The Boy and Girl Crop

MOST farmers give little intelligent attention to the boy and girl crop. They are born on the farm and they either do as their fathers did and as their father wants, or they get out. This same policy is followed over and over again by the city business man, except that his crop is not born to it, but hired. If the city man have an employee who does not fit in as the employer wishes, he gets out—is fired. But it is beginning to dawn on the city man that a man or girl may be a misfit in one position and a splendid success in another. The farmer may claim that the city man has the other position in which to try out a misfit employee and that on the farm this is impossible. Is it? Think it over. If Jim grows up not any too robust and shows strong inclination to shirk the heavy work and loafs around the barnyard fooling with the chickens, and, perhaps, wants to keep rabbits, the average farmer promptly decides that Jim is no good and wonders "who he takes after, anyhow."

The general tendency of the day is to specialize, and this is becoming true of the farm. It gives a man a chance, since life is limited, to learn on subject much more thoroughly and to apply his knowledge to much greater advantage. The boy who shows an interest in chickens should be given a chance to specialize as a poultry farmer and, with the price of eggs now and the price they will surely be, there is a bug success to be made along this line, particularly if run in connection with a general farm where the hens can pick up so much without expense.

Another boy may show an inclination to putter around sick animals and an aptitude in caring for their comfort and cleanliness; he should be "railroaded," with the least possible delay, into the dairy business. He is needed there.

The successful father, he be city man or farmer, should find out for what his boy is best suited, and help him to develop along those lines. It doesn't pay to use a carriage horse for ploughing, nor a draft horse for the saddle.

We Canadians come of a long line of ancestors who worked in the soil. The first man, Adam, was a gardener. (Continued on page 38)