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About The gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1912-1925 | View Entire Issue (March 11, 1915)
nOME AND FARM MAGAZINE SECTION 13 Just Giving the Boy His Chance BY LUTHER BIJRBASK. 'I have never heard of a boy taught to lo nn t ure ft ho went wrong." AHXWDHED years ago a trip from New York to. the spot where Chicago now Is would have Involved weekH of travel and niiilesii discomfort. A hundred years ago communication by letter between these points was well-nigh un liPard of. Yet today the trip may be conveni ently nmUij over night. A letter mailed in New York this afternoon will be delivered In Chicago tomorrow morn ing. The telegraph will convey a message with the loss of only an hour of time. And the telephone from any point in New York to any point in Chicago, once the connection Ik made, gives Instantaneous com munication. Truly in transportation and easy communication those two funda mentals of civilization we have ac complished in a hundred years what We might reasonably have expected to accomplish in a thousand or ten thousand years. Aili'mi cement. And so. in medicine, in surgery, in electricity, In scientific management and high efficiency of business con duct and In almost every industry and every line of endeavor the pres ent state of advancement could never have been dreamed a hundred years ago could never have been believed fifty years ago could not have been foreseen even ten years ago. In practically every line we have been leaping centuries and ccnturips ahead within the span of a few brief years In practically every line ex cepting the one line of endeavor upon which all other lines of endeavor de pend in practically every line save In th? production of the necessities from the soil. In agriculture and horticulture, itlone, have we been content with that slow increase in efficiency which the years might naturally bs ex pected to bring while In all of our other lines secondary lines though they be we have impatiently robbed the future of progress which might have taken centuries for the natural course of events to bring about. Farming Backward. Or, to look at it In another way, if we were still traveling in stage coaches, had only dreamed the possi bility of a telegraph, knew nothing of what electricity had In store for us, or of the value of modern manu facturing and merchandising meth ods, then we could sit back and say that farming, indeed, had made won derful progress. But in days of instantaneous com munication, highly - specialized mar keting facilities, and the wastes and delays of existence reduced to a min imum, farming appears. Indeed, to have stayed in the stage coach period. It would seem as though, during the past hundred years, and particu larly the past two decades, we had been devoting all of our genius and bending all of our energy toward bringing conveniences within the reach of all toward making luxuries so cheap that none could afford to refuse them. While all the time the actual neces sities of life, th things we eat, the things we wear, and all those other thfngs which depend directly upon the soil for their production, have Crown dearer and dearer and dearer. Thei Iloj's OpM)ttunlty. It Is this state of things that gives the boy of today the biggest oppor tunity that, any boy has ever had. A hundred years ago it was the railroads which opened up oppor tunity to the young Vanderbilts. Fifty years ago it was steel steel needed in other fast-growing lines of industry which opened up opportun ity to the young Carnegies. Forty years ago It. was electricity which openpd up its opportunities to the young Edisons and Westing houses. Today every 40-acre tract, of land that will bear a crop is begging our boys to come and embrace their op portunity. The kind of opportunities which made fame and fortune for young Vanderbilts, and young Carnegies, and young Edisons and young West Inghouses Is not to be found in the highly perfected industries of today; for the greater perfection to which an Ipdustry or line of endeavor at tains, the better the organization of men behind that Industry and the better the organization the less the opportunity, undeniably, for the In dividual. if we desire to make Ihe boy a lawyer, for example, we must give him eight years of cosily training simply to teach him those funda mentals which all other lawyers know. The law is a highly organ ized profession. The eight years of time and the thousands of dollars of expense do not assure the boy of suc cess they merely place blm In a po sition to compete with 50,000 other lawyers who have all had about the ianitj training at the same expense they are merely preliminary requi sites before his individual talent may bo given even the barest opportunity to show for itself. So, too, with medicine, with en gineering, with advertising, and with all of the other highly organized pro fessions. So, too. with railroading, and with virtually every line of business the advancement which has come has brought with it. a state of organiza tion which eliminates the need of the untrained Individual which demands a long, tedious apprenticeship, before the slightest attention can be paid to Individual merit if, indeed, the in dividual merit Is to receive Its op portunity at all. The world already has enough law yers, enough doctors, enough en gineers, enough business executives, enough railroad men to take care of its wants. Need of Men. . What It needs urgently and now is men who can show the farmer how to Increase his wheat yield with out corresponding increase of ex pense or effort, so that Chicago and New York may once more have their large 5c loaves of bread as of old. What the world needs, urgently and now, is men who can increase the forage from our present acreage so that Itfc will buy a pound of the choicest sirloin, as of old, instead of a pound of rump, as now. What the world needs is not the ory, or agitation, or college lore; there are plenty of these, and at a cost of $180,000,000 per annum in money and who knows how much time they have succeeded in increas ing our crop yield only a bare 3 per cent. What the world needs is men who can do to agriculture and to horticul ture what Edison did to electricity, Carnegie to steel, and the Vander bilts, Hills and Harrlmans to trans portation develop its efficiency. Aud the boy who tries to give the world this want will find himself fac ing an opportunity 400 times bigger than the railroad opportunity was a hundred years ago, S00 times bigger than electricity offered at its incep tion, 1500 times bigger than the steel opportunity which Mr. Carnegie found because agriculture is just, by these amounts, bigger than those other industries. No Apprenticeships. The boy who seeks this opportun ity will find himself in no long wait ing line of applicants. He will face no eight-year apprenticeship. Every acre of tillable land is invit ing him to come to work; every pur chaser of food and clothing is pro testing against his delay. And every plant that grows is anx ious to reveal to him the trade secrets and the technique of his new profes sion. What an opportunity Indeed! To add a single kernel to each ear of corn means a 5,000,000 bushel crop Increase In America alone. A single improvement. In the de spised potato has meant $17,000,000 a year, here at home. The production of a single new fruit, or the adaptation of an existing fruit to new conditions, or the in crease in yield or improvement in the flavor of a fruit may mean a colossal fortune In added wealth. A single intelligent idea applied on an SO-acro farm may mean the dif ference, to some one, between grind fng poverty and comfortable pros perity. A Thousand-Fold Reward. What an opportunity, indeed! To the boy who baa a genius for the work it offers a thousand-fold more reward than has ever been of fered a geuius. To the boy who has merely intelli gence and persistence It opens up the wnv to escape from mediocrity. Everything we eat, and everything we .wear must be produced directly or Indirectly from the soil. Yet even now, when we can easily afford bathtubs, and telephones, and steam heat, and luxurious travel, we are sorely hurt to pay the prices to which the common necessities of food and clothing have arisen. The world did not want railroads so badly, because It had no concep tion of the wonders which railroads could work. It did not want electricity so bad ly, because the things which electric ity has done were beyond its Imagin ation. It has never wanted anything so badly as it now wants to put back the price of its necessities a prica ure of farming to keep up with the times. What an opportunity, indeed! The Itegiiining. How shall the boy begin? By working with the plants them selves, by learning to understand Nature and to love her responsive ness. If the boy can have 10 feet in the back yard for his experiments, well and good. If not, perhaps he can have five. If he can raise a variety of plants it will hasten his training. But sure ly he can work with one or two. He can learn for himself that plants continually change themselves to meet the requirements of the men and women who grow them. That nothing in Nature stands still, that it either goes forward or backward. That nothing else in all Nature responds to the pleasures and de sires of man so readily as her plants. That the characteristics of the par ent plant are reproduced in its off spring, and that parentage can be varied almost at will. That due to Nature's adaptability It has already been possible to change the scent, size, color, blooming period and charm of flowers; to improve ex isting fruits and foods to meet the needs of the present day, aud to cre ate entirely new. fruits and food plants, so that the world may enjoy a better product at a lower price; and to perfect plants which yield entirely new substances for manufacture new chemical elements which have their definite hearing on lowering the cost of living. I hope to see the day when a prac tical manual of plant breeding in words, almost, of one syllable will be placed within the reach of all the young. . But until that day, it is still pos sible to lead the boy into his oppo tunity, by teaching a love for plants themselves, and putting him in a po sition to study a knowledge of their ways. (From tiookw issued by the Luther Bur bank Society c? Santa Rosa.) To "Old Steamboat."' "Old "tramboat," the worst outlaw horse In the West, was shot the other day to end his siifffrinss from blood poisoning, caused by an injury received In a railroad wreck. "Oid Steamboat" had thrown the most skilled tronco busters, and no rider had ever conquered him fairly. He was defiant to the lust. Dioat?h. from Wyoming. Outlaw they called you, all because They never broke you to their will; Outlaw they called you, and their laws At last have laid you cold and still: Scarred were your sids from rowelled heel, And scarred your flank from cruel quirt, But, spite of what the flesh miRht feel. Your dauntless spirit was unhurt. Outlaw they called you In the dust Has ninny a braggart rider whirled; Your strength was fed by wrath most Just, Your courage was as flag ne'er furled; You heard the whimper of the cur As 'neath your hoofs the coward rolled; Outlaw they called you hot thoughts stir At what men term the proud and bold. Outlaw they called you did one hand In kindness ever stretch toward thee? Did aught save despot's harsh com mand Fall on your ears, black horse now free? The lariat, the branding blaze, The cruelties 'neath which you chafed, Outlaw these made you all your days. With djath the one kind act vouch ' safed. Arthur Chapman, In New York Sun. PS! i ! 1 . J1I I Kindly remember, too, that the germs that cause milk to sour are ever present in the barn, in the dairy utensils, and where the milk is kept. Can't be too careful in handling milk. Tht HEARTS WH54T A NATIOVS BREAKFAST EVERYWHERE 15c If your dealer does not handle, send 15c stamps for regular aizt package by Parcel Post to MORGAN MILLING CO. tiOIUliNDAl.E, WASH. THIS CATA 1 LOG truthful. lypresentt and illus trates the noit de sirable varieties ol eed for the North west The best of everything tot the market or home garden, the farm, the orchard, the poultryman and the bee-keeper. A rrliable and ssfe guide to your purchases and a rdemee book which should be in the hudf ol every grower. Ask ior catalog Na. 05tt Portland Seed Co. Porflimi, Oregon Buy it now We farmers can bring back prosperity at once by buying our Spring needs now, instead of waiting. Boys and Girls Start Making Money NOW Beautiful rosTKR STAMPS are the latest collection craze in the East. All children have the fever. 1 will show you how to have the first and hes.t collection in your town and at the same time H.tKK THE MONEY to buy anything you have long wanted. Send t, 'otn'n for samples and my plan. It Is easy and profitable work. R.C.FISKE 412 I'u nam a nulldlnK, Portland, Orrcoa. HOW TO GET 320 ACRES FREE Do You Want a Homestead? U.st of Oovernrnent lands In eacb stale subject to homestead and for what fiest adapted. Also description of Oregon by counties. Send for 249-page book, "Advantages of Oregon." Price 60 cents, postpaid. R. C. FISKE 410 Piunia Bids., Portlaad, Or. MILITARY ACADEMY A Sleet Xnn-Pectarlan Boarding and Day School for Boys. Military Dis cipline Smnll 'Masses; Men Teachers. Careful supervision secures results that are not nttained elsewhere. Send lor catalogue. Marshnll Street, Portland. Or,