Employing able-bodied boys of city high schools for farm production may become permanent. It may lead to the development of country annexes to our city schools. Camp near Phoenixville, Pennsylvania.
The object of the association, which was formed in the school, was originally fourfold: (1) to teach the farmer that the alert city boy can and will perform agricultural tasks; (2) to increase the food supply; (3) to relieve the help situation by organizing a group of boys to work by the hour or day, and to recruit boys to work by the month for individual farmers under supervision; (4) to fit boys for military service if needed.
Ten boys from the school left New York on May 5, each armed with the money necessary to pay such expenses as carfare, food, laundry, rent of an acre of land, seed potatoes, phosphate, team hire, and spraying materials. They went to Mr. Rexford's farm, located up-state. The New York Tribune contributed some money, and one of the teachers in the school advanced $60 for the boys to grow potatoes for him. Some frail boys, whose parents wanted them to go for their health, were refused.
At first the farmers were skeptical. The boys, however, went to work on the land which they had rented from Rexford. In a week they began to attract attention and farmers began to hire them. Rexford knew some of these farmers by reputation. He believed that men who cannot keep their own boys at home cannot succeed with boys from the city. He was in the habit of having a straight talk with the employing farmers, telling them that the boys must be treated squarely.
A large milk-distributing corporation offered to take every one of his boys, but he argued that it could afford to hire men and did not need boys, as did the farmers who could not obtain other help. It is evident that large farmers have capital and backing, while it is the individual farmer struggling with hard conditions who must have help.
Most of the boys who are with farmers by the month come back to the main camp every Sunday morning for physical examination, general assembly, and to go to church. This coming back to the camp keeps before them the idea of a camp for farm cadets. They return to their work Sunday night. For those boys who go out by the week the teacher makes an arrangement whereby the farmer brings them back to the camp on Saturday night and comes for them the following night.
The people in the community in which the camp is located have established a nonsectarian church in an old cheese factory which has been purchased for $200. Occasionally a minister from a near-by town comes and speaks.
The camp has a professional cook, who was obtained from a college fraternity, and the boys pay pro rata. The first expense was about $2.50 a week for each boy, but prosperity has provided means for the boys to spend more.
All vegetables which the boys raised and which they did not use on the table were canned by the cook and Mrs. Rexford, and they will be used in the early part of next year, before the fresh vegetables are available.