How are you to treat a lad who has naturally an inclination for the work on the farm?  In the first place do not provide him with any spending money unless he earns it.  The prime thing necessary is to give the boy a personal interest in what is going on upon the farm.  Give him a plot of land as his own, let him understand that anything he may grow upon this land shall belong to him, but do not give him this plot and say, “There, take that; do as you like with it,” he will wonder what to do with it.  He will need somebody to help him by teaching him what he is to do.  Enter into a partnership with him at the start, give him some instruction as to what it is best for him to do with his plot.  Find out his inclinations; give him sympathy and help.  Bring out his natural aptitude for farming life, teach him method in his work; teach him to think his way out; and, best of all, teach him to work for definite results; that is what is wanted in any line of life, especially in farm life.

Let the work of the boy have a meaning and a purpose.  Let him understand that certain results cannot be accomplished in any other way, and give him chances to go outside and see what other people are doing.  Let him see good scientific agriculture and be encouraged to pursue such methods.

Provide for him the very best reading that can be found in agricultural journals and books.  Let him have three or four years at an agricultural college.  All the influences there point to agriculture as the best calling for a young man who is fit for it, whereas in other colleges the influences are all in the opposite direction.  At our agricultural colleges a youth has all the necessary advantages of general education, and also an education in the lines fitting him especially for the calling he has selected.  (United States Department of Agriculture, Bulletin 138, condensed.)

“Among farmers and gardeners not enough thought is given to the whys and wherefores, or cause and effect; as a rule, they go on year after year without profiting by the personal opportunity afforded them of observation, or by the results of experiments at scientific stations.

“With rare exceptions the young farmer and gardener takes up his work, not from the scientific side, but strictly from the labor side; and he begins at the bottom, meeting the same difficulties as did his father and too often not acquiring information beyond what his father possessed.

“This should not be; agriculture should be taught in all our public schools in country districts, as it has been taught for years in Germany and Austria.  It should be elevated as an art; in its higher estate it is already an art.  No pursuit possesses a greater scope for development; the field is almost unoccupied by leaders, scientific and practical.” (Burnett Landreth, in 999 Queries and Answers.)

In accordance with these ideas, the Baron de Hirsch Agricultural School at Woodbine, New Jersey, is giving practical courses in agriculture to Jewish boys, on the principle of individual plots—­all free where necessary.