his privileges and rights, and we wonder what sort of material he must be made of. Carelessness, indifference, a desire to shirk his responsibilities, any one of a dozen or more reasons may move him to put aside his great opportunities and allow some one else to take his place, and he feels sure he is missing nothing by so doing. Very often it happens that people put aside lightly the great inheritance of life, thinking it too much trouble to take it with its responsibilities and blessings, and are content to live on a very low plane until they drop out of existence. "Too much trouble" is the common excuse of mankind, so the finest things of life are never enjoyed simply because we are forever living beneath our privileges.

And what is true of mankind in general is true of farmers in particular. If. ever a class of people lived beneath its privileges, it surely is the rural population. "Heirs of all the ages," they deliberately set aside their high rank and never feel the loss of the inheritance they put by so lightly. It is always an unhappy state of affairs when people do not know, but when they do not know that they do not know, the situation is hopeless. A man who is ignorant may learn if he possesses a willing mind, but the man who is ignorant and refuses to believe that he does not know, can never be helped. He is beyond the reach of all aid. There are men and women all over the country who are merely asleep and need to be awakened, but there are others who pride themselves on their lack of wisdom and so place themselves beyond the reach of help.

Take the subject of orchards for example. A drive through the country will show one farm well stocked with fine fruits for family use and the market, while the very next place is entirely devoid of fruit trees. O, there may be a few snaggy, untrimmed old apple trees, planted by some former owner, that are suffered to remain because they furnish a roosting place for the few scared fowls, but there is really no orchard. If there are any children on the. farm they early learn to steal from the neighbors' fruit trees, but the parents never dream of setting out an orchard for themselves. They will argue that it doesn't pay to tinker with fruit, and the land can be more profitably employed raising corn or wheat and the money used to buy the fruit for family use. However that may be, the money is seldom used to buy fruit. The wife and mother picks what berries she can around the fence rows and the family does without all the good things that might be had in abundance. A small plot of strawberries, currants and berries, together with a well kept orchard, would not overwork the farmer, but he refuses to see that he is missing one of the great blessings of farm life by doing without fruit.

Some farmers will tell you it costs too much to buy trees, so they are forced to do without fruits. They should take lessons from the courageous ladies who have begged plum sprouts from the neighbors, planted cuttings of grape vines and currant bushes, saved the seeds from fine peaches, and in various other ways set up a little fruit business of their own, when their husbands were too stingy or too prejudiced to undertake the work. Not an ideal way to get fruit, perhaps, but it was the little leaven that in time leavened the whole lump, and shamed the man of the house into buying a few trees. Every man should consider it his duty to plant trees wherever he goes, for a farm without fruit is desolate indeed. Everyone knows that orchards add to the value of a farm, but not every farmer has profited by this knowledge.

In many country communities education receives little attention, yet there are few farmers not directly concerned with this important subject. Scarcely one farmer in a hundred ever goes to school to see how things are getting along, yet the boys and girls are the most important crop on any farm. It takes hard work to get the fathers and mothers together for a picnic on the last day, and

as for coaxing them to come on ordinary occasions, that is out of the question. If the teacher doesn't happen to suit the children, the parents express their opinions very freely, but when it comes to speaking a good word for her or encouraging her by a visit, that is too much trouble. The money spent for teachers in most townships, together with all other school expenses, would provide a township school building and carry the children to it in comfortable wagons, but it takes years of agitation to accomplish such things. "What was good enough for my father is good enough for me," is the motto of many farmers. Talk about ancestor worship in China! We have some phases of it right here in Ohio in connection with school work. The centralized school is not perfect, but it is a step in the right direction, and gives the bright boys and girls a chance for higher education right in their own townships. What is to be thought of men and women who are not anxious to make progress? If they really informed themselves on the subject and knew why they were arguing for separate schools, it would not be so absurd, but when it is only a case of sticking to old customs, it surely is unreasonable.

Many boys and girls in the country are eager for advanced studies, but their parents are refusing to allow them to go on. "You don't need much book learning to count up butter and egg money," said a country mother recently to her bright daughter. "Your pa and I never went to school after we were fifteen, so why should you?" Is it any wonder bright young people plan to leave such homes? There are fathers and mothers who deliberately mispronounce words and take pride in their contempt for education, thinking to impress the young folks with their great superiority, but they only succeed in doing something far different.

When it comes to church life, in country neighborhoods, there is much to be desired. The first thing a man mentions when he wants to sell a farm near a country church, is that it is "handy to meetin'," but it might as well be miles away as far as it concerns his life. On Sunday he strolls off to a neighbor to trade doubtful stories, and the church seldom is honored by his presence, unless a funeral is announced. There might be better preaching and more effective service and better music in many country churches if only the people of the neighborhood supported them. It is too much trouble to dress up on Sunday for services, or they manage to get up a mild little feud with some member that furnishes the shadow of an excuse for non-attendance, and the church languishes. What might be a city set upon a hill in the community, becomes a struggling little light in the midst of darkness, and the few weary workers are all but totally discouraged as they see people with time for visiting, entertaining, baseball, fishing and loafing, but no time for God and His cause. The man who hesitates to buy a farm where there is not a live country church supported by live, intelligent people, is doing the right thing. If people I will not keep up the country churches because they are loyal to God, they will have to learn that a neighborhood without a church is far below the standard, financially. Perhaps when pocketbooks are touched there may be an awakening on this subject.

Social life on the farm has long been the theme of novelists and newspaper reporters. We have read again and again of the utter loneliness, the drudgery, the isolation, the poor fare, the absence of social life, and everything else, until we are familiar with their statements. And they are true to a certain extent. We have men and women in every community who absolutely refuse to live any but lonely, unhappy lives. It is unfair to judge the whole community by what part of its members are, but there is no denying that there are drudges in the country. There are women who actually take pride in wearing ragged,

unwomanly garments and allowing their hair to go uncombed from morning till night. Their whole conversation runs to the amount of work they do, and they call the clean, orderly housekeepers of the neighborhood shiftless, because it is a part of their creed that it is time wasted to dress up. Some women have no higher ambition, seemingly, than to tell that they "did not sit down all day except to eat my meals." They are too busy to help with church work, the Grange, picnics and all the other things that make life in the country sweet and pleasant. There may not be as much going on in the country as in town, but no country communuity need be without wholesome social joys. It has been remarked time and again that the country people who move to town go right into church work and social life, so they must be made of the same clay and have about the same qualifications as their city brethren. The majority of country folks are too distressingly humble, anyway, and feel that it isn't worth while to undertake anything in the way of entertainment because it will surely fail. Anyone who has ever worked to get up a concert or social in a country community can testify to the amount of coaxing and begging necessary to induce men and women and children to help along with the undertaking. The country ladies, especially, are living far beneath their social privileges.

And now someone will surely say that this is a very dark picture of farm life. On the contrary, it is a very hopeful one. The men and women who are gathered here are the ones who will say at once that they have neighbors who answer these descriptions perfectly. And the men and women here today are the ones who are acting as missionaries to bring other men and women to a knowledge of the joys of country life. The church, the Grange, the schools, the farm papers and many other agencies are at work striving to awaken the farmers and their families to a sense of their high inheritance, and are urging them to "go up and possess the land" at once. One discouraged worker gave it as his opinion that there was no use trying to educate the adults. "Let them alone till they die off," was his advice, "but look after the children." But even an adult is converted to right methods occasionally, and it pays to keep on trying. One of these days the dark homes will be opened to the sunlight, the living rooms really made to live in, the grounds made beautiful and profitable with flowers and fruits and shrubs, the church will be exalted to its proper place, the schools receive the attention they need and the social life shared by every member of the community when the farmer comes into his own. It will no longer be too much trouble to assume the responsibilities of his position, and he will enter upon his inheritance with joy. May that time soon come!

Ohio Department of Agriculture

Division of Nursery and Orchard Inspection

Sixth Annual Report of

the Chief Inspector

OHIO DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE,

COLUMBUS, OHIO, December 31, 1907.

To His Excellency, Andrew L. Harris, Governor of Ohio:

SIR-In compliance with the law I herewith submit the report of the Nursery and Orchard Inspection for the year 1907.

This contains a brief synopsis of the work done by this Department. While the work has been a success, and much good has been accomplished, we have been handicapped to some extent by being compelled to change Chief Inspectors twice within the past year. This was caused by the demand from other States offering more salary than the State Board feel justified in paying.

Respectfully submitted,

OHIO STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE,

T. L. CALVERT, Secretary.