found in the appendix.* It is doubtless not complete, but it will enable readers to find reliable information on most subjects connected with farming.

The most important sources of information for farmers are the publications of the state and national governments. I have already (page 49) alluded to these, and the appendix will indicate how any farmer may obtain them. They are, for the most part, sent free on application, and when a price is fixed, it is the exact cost. I call these the most important because they are the most accessible and cheapest. They are nearly always brief monographs on special subjects, and do not by any means serve the purpose of more extended treatises by the same or equally competent gentlemen, which are published as books by private publishers.

The agricultural press as now conducted, is of very great value to farmers. All farmers worthy of the name take one or more agricultural journals and find them essential. At the same time there are various limits to their usefulness. The first and most important is the necessity of publishing such a paper that the income will pay its expenses, and if possible leave a profit. A paper which does not pay must soon stop. For most agricultural papers, however, there is little or no profit in subscriptions. It costs so much to get and collect them that if it were possible to obtain an income from advertisements by printing only a sufficient number to supply each advertiser, in a great many cases the publisher would be a gainer. But the circulation is necessary in order to secure advertising, and it is kept up by canvassers, by sending the paper on credit, which always involves large losses, by "premiums," "clubbing" arrangements, and other devices, all of which cost money. The advertising space in papers going exclusively to farmers is also of less value than in papers of general circulation, because farmers are considered as having least money to spend.

The necessity, therefore, of an advertising patronage in order to publish any agricultural paper, in various ways

*See Appendix D.

interferes with its value. A manufacturer of fertilizers will not advertise in a journal which persistently advises its readers to compound their own fertilizers; and if the money is needed, the editor must keep still, whatever he thinks. The commission merchants will not advertise in a paper which urges the farmers to form cooperative marketing associations, or the insurance companies in those which advocate farmers' mutual insurance companies, and so on through the list. In fact, to most agricultural journals the free discussion of the real merits of any article or interest in which private capital is involved, is practically impossible. Wild horses would at the present time be unable to drag from any agricultural editor his printed opinion as to the relative merits of the competing milk separators. We may say that this is not right; that the subscriber pays the journal not only for the infor mation which it gives, but for the best judgment of the editor on all questions that concern agriculture. The reply, however, must be that the farmer does nothing of the kind. As a class he pays next to nothing for the paper, after deducting the cost of getting the business. There are, of course, some agricultural journals of which this is not true, but of the majority it is quite true. They get their income from others than farmers, and must so shape their course that those who keep them alive are satisfied. If they do not they will die. They do the best they can, and seldom or never lend themselves to actual deception, but free discussion, wholly in the interest of farmers, will never be possible until the farmers supply the income to support it. On these terms they can get it any day.

Another limitation is the intricacy of modern agricultural affairs, the constant intermingling and conflict of agricultural interests with each other and with competing interests, and the world-wide ramifications, which it requires world-wide information to comprehend. There is also the constant progress of science, which must be followed and treated. Before all this the agricultural journal is positively helpless. No such journal in the world can pay from its receipts the expenses of adequate treatment of agricultural topics.

The agricultural press, therefore, on such matters is compelled to fall back on public documents and the utterances of experts at Farmers' Institutes and similar gatherings. Of these, fortunately, the supply is abundant, and one of the most useful functions of the agricultural press is the republiIcation and condensation of this material.

The journals of special industries, like the dairy, the poultry yard, or the fruit farm, are usually conducted by successful specialists in those lines, and give much original information. Of the important papers of general agriculture probably all are conducted by those who are or have been successful farmers. Many of the editors own and live upon farms, but this tends to be otherwise, because no man can be a good editor and successful farmer at the same time. To do either will require all his energy, and he will tend to give up one occupation or the other.

The live agricultural paper keeps the farmer well informed as to improved methods, progress of science, and the introduction of new farming industries, and for this purpose it is worth to the farmer far more than he pays for it. It gives him a great deal of definite information of value to him, and shows him how to investigate further. It will always gladly investigate special problems, as to which, although the editor may know little, he is usually in a position to ascertain the facts.

In an agricultural journal nothing is read with more interest, or is really of more value, than the correspondence which it contains from practical farmers on practical subjects. It is also true that few things are more valuable to the farmer than the habit of contributing his experience to his agricultural paper. In the first place, the act of writing condenses his ideas into a compact form, and discloses to himself any errors of reasoning or gaps in information. It puts his knowledge into more workable shape, for his own use, or for imparting to others. To an extent which will surprise himself, it will also make him known to his community, and to the extent that his views are sensible, he will find himself respected and influential, which is always a pleasure. One who is in the

habit of contributing, over his own signature, to an agricultural journal, will be astonished to find how many have heard of him, and are glad to know him, should he happen for the first time to visit a state fair or other large gathering of farmers. The habit of writing also leads to the habit of study and self-improvement.

Some farmers who would frequently contribute valuable experience to the public, are restrained by the feeling that they can not express themselves well, perhaps can not spell well, or write well. These need not trouble any one. The writing must be legible, and be written on one side of the paper only. Otherwise it does not matter how it looks, or what the spelling is, or how it is expressed. If it is all right, it will save the editor some work, but that work is what he is paid for, and what he has to perform on the majority of communications sent in. As it appears in the paper it will read all right, and nobody but the editor will ever know that it was otherwise, and he will forget it in a week. Any editor who can obtain valuable suggestions or narrations of useful experience, is only too glad to put them into proper form, provided only that the communication is legible, and not written on two sides of the paper, which always involves copying out for the printer, which no editor will do unless the subject matter be more than ordinarily important.

The agricultural press does its very best for the farmer, and should be cordially sustained by prompt payment of subscription money and the contribution of experience and suggestions for its columns.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE STUDY OF THE FARM.

Τ'

HE foregoing review of the principal agencies external to the farm which the farmer may employ to increase

his knowledge, has prepared us to consider that greatest of all means for self-improvement, which is the study of the farm itself. If the somewhat elaborate study of other agencies has led any reader to imagine that I suppose that any one can become a good farmer by any other means than by faithful devotion to the duties of the farm, I beg that he now recognize that he is in error. It is only on and by the farm that the man can become a farmer.

It is this feeling which all engaged in any industry possess that only by the practice of an art can the art be learned, that is doubtless at the bottom of the farmer's distrust of "book farming;" his error consists in supposing that any intelligent. person believes otherwise. The external aids in the way of schools, lectures, books, and experiments, are to be understood as aids and nothing more. They put the farmer in possession of information acquired by others, which he may apply to his own advantage upon his own farm; and the farmer who thinks. that he can successfully compete without more or less of this aid, and refuses to accept it when offered, is in all probability a lost man. Any farmer who could by any possibility be considered smart enough to succeed with only his own experience as a guide, will be the first man of all to avail himself of the experience of others. But of all studies, that of one's own farm is the most important.

In the study of a farm, it is probable that hardly any two men would proceed alike. Each man, knowing certain things, would endeavor to add to his knowledge in such directions as he felt a lack, and in so doing would proceed according to the