The Farmer. Short Talks with the Boys.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1982, 21 March 1885, Page 2 (Supplement)

The Farmer. Short Talks with the Boys.

uv m. (ju\P, i\ Ttir " i.i ]• rni'ss." I \s talking v.itli a sturc' 7 old farmer the other day, and asked him how many boys he had. " Fivp," he replied, " and I'm going to make a farmpr of eveiy one of 'eir> " " How do you Kuow you fere?"' "Why, they're my boys, ain't they, and I reckon they'll do as I say about it !" " Do they like farming ?" "No matter whether they do or not,they'vo got to work at it !" The man was what you might call a representative farmer. He was fairly educated, more than comfortably well off, and wa» looked up to in his township. If anybody had called him stingy or mean, bi« friends would have been shocked, and yet he coolly planned to sacrifice the future of his five boys through purely selfish motives. The chances are that not all of the five would sflect agriculture as an occupation, or make a success of it)if they did, but their father wanted their services until each was 21 years old, and he had no care how they turned out after that. Too many farmers take this same view of the case. Under the law a father ia entitled to the pervices of his son until the latter reaches his majority. Half a century ago no boy began a trade until he was 21. Now the majority of them begin at 1G or 17, calculating to have their trade finished at 21. If the farmer's boy, who is determined on learning some trade or piofession, must stick to the plough until he becomes of age, his prospects are greatly damaged. He is no longer a boy, nor can bo accept of boy 'a wages. A blacksmith or mason or carpenter with five sons wou'd not have answered that he was determined to make every one of the boys le*rn his trade. Had any one suggested such a thing, he would have laughed in derision, fully realising that he had no moral right to Bit in judgment that way. During the last six months I have been hunting for statistics about farmers and their sons. In that time I have talked with at least sixty farmers, only ten or twelve of whom had any love for, or enthusiasm in, agriculture. The other 3 replied to the question with : "I wanted to learn a trade, but father opposed it, and so I had, to stay on the farm." Out of the fo'ty-ssven men who answered me in that way not one wus rich. All complained roora or less about hard luck and poor crops, and it was easy to see that they had no heart in the business. These were the sons whose "elfish fat-hern had obliged them to become farmers. Oi the others all were well off, cheery and contented and full of pluck. These were tho men who had f,=Uicn up agriculture from choice. Of the iitty or sixty farmers' boys whom I interviewed, not more than ten I itended to stick, to the farm. The others wanted to learn trades or professions. There ia one particular point in which the average farmer is contemptibly mean with hia boy. He seta himsplf up as a standard. If he didn't want po and bo why should his boy? If he had to turn out »f bed at 4 o'clock a.m. snd work until dark why should his boy be spared ? He didn't have a decent suit or fine boots or any spending money, and why should his offspring go into tucu extravagance? The farmer who reasons that way has a selfish motive under it. He Knows ad well as other people that the boy 3 of to-day cannot be and are not treated like the boys of fifty years ago. He will admit tbat his father wore a hickory shirt without collar to meeting, while he must havo a white one well starched and adorned with collar and neck-tie, but he won't admit that his son has any right to improve on him. If a boy ieeU enthu<*:a3tio to learn to be a printer, harness-maker or wood-engraver no father with any nense in hia head will command tho boy to learn tho trade of a stonemason. Why then should a farmer decide that hi-3 fod, who has exhibited a taste for mechauic3, spoil hi* whole life by ordering him to f>tick by the farm? If a boy who wanted to learn the carpenter's trade is made to learn the harne39-maker's, and thereby bacomes a botch workman, why shouldn't a farmer's son, who ought to have been an architect, make a poor farmer ? He certainly will, figure it a3 you may. I have a letter from a resident of Alabama who says he hated farm v/ork and ran away to escape it. His father wanted him to be a farmer, and he wanted to be something else. Tug boy ran away, and is now comparatively rich and doing well. H3 reasons that farmers' sons should run away to get along in the world. The idea is perniciou3 and altogether wrong. The chancea for a runaway boy are not one in a hundred. The bare fast of his having run awiiy ia enough to condemn him with all honest men. Out of fifty who mn away not moio than one or two will etand a show of success. Let the farmer's son seek to discover what his taste run -i to. If to agriculture, he should be given a fair show. He should have the best of agricultural papers and every chaace to improve ou tho system his father has worked under. Some of the land and the live stock should be hid, and he should be to a certain extent a partner. No man will dig and delve foi you without pay a3 ati incentive. A boy who id expected to put in his beat efforts on the furm because the law say 3 his father is entitled to hw services will certainly disappoint you. If hi 3 taste runs to a trade or profession the father must argue the matter as a reasonable man would. He has no right to encumber the earth with another botch farmer. He has no ri^ht to condemn hia son to poverty when he might be rich by his own exertions. If he is wise he will even encourage the boy to follow out the bent of his inclinations. Nine times out of ten where you bear of a farmer's boy being get down as a hard case you find his father to blame for it. He has been too harsh and aroitrary. Ho ha 3 gone on the idea that his so a was a drudge. His idea has been to make money out of his tirad muscles and back-aches, and give back the least possible reward. All farmers are not so, but too many ulill are, no matter how much other classes have improved. The results have been and will ever bo disastrous. Too many sons have been drudged and bossed and pounded until they prefer the life of a vagrant. There is hardly any combination of circumstances to warrant a boy running away from home, but it 13 ua^y for a fit!i r .r to drive hia boy r.wuy anJ iii'-ke a bad mini of him. It n being done in almost evciy couurry in the land every day.