Dreary Winter Chore Work Important to Farmers

Must Keep Cattle Contented, the Need of an Agricultural School in the District, the Rural School Situation

Date of Publication Not Known

Just what to write about at this time of the year is a problem. A neighbour passing by hailed me with the usual: "What are you doing these days?", and the only answer I could give was "chores".

That seems to be about the sum of the farming activities just at present . . . . .

This column is supposed to be devoted to farm interests, but as I said in my first article; a Potato Patch contains a good many more things than potatoes, and farm interests of today stretch out in so many directions that the farmer who can only talk in terms of cattle, crops or cusses, is miles behind in the race. Just imagine what a lovely shock I received when I opened my News-Chronicle for December 11 and turned to the leading articles to read "Agricultural School". Time and again have I argued for a Technical School of a university for our North country, and of course in the main it would have been for the benefit of the urban dwellers, so I suppose it is quite on the cards for the city editor to come forward with a proposal for an agricultural school on behalf of the farmers. The article advocating such a school is to the point. A logical reason is given for its need--our Northern soils and conditions are entirely different to those that obtain in Southern Ontario.

Everyone who came in to these districts to take up farming had to learn from the bottom up. If he had farming experience previously, he found that it did not work out when up against the real thing here. Today the older generation has a wealth of experience that would go a long way in making such a school practical and successful. If we are to keep our young folks on the farm in the North, we have got to train them in Northern science and that can only be obtained in the North. I must thank the editor for that article of his; it is expressive of conditions up this way. I quote from it: "Yet itis recognized that farming is as highly technical as any trade, and could perhaps be compared to a profession." Why, oh why that "perhaps". . . . . .