Local store men have coöperated in giving the lowest prices, feeling that otherwise the trade of the camp would go to the city, and therefore choosing the opportunity of large business with aggregate large receipts on small profit.
Breakfast consists of fruit, cereal or eggs, and milk, cocoa, or postum, and sometimes corn bread or griddle cakes. The boys carry a cold lunch with them, consisting of a pail of cold cocoa; four good thick sandwiches of peanut butter, meat, or jam; a piece of frosted cake; and a banana. Sometimes they take a pot of jam, which is disposed of by the group. For dinner they have a roast or steak; potatoes and other ordinary vegetables (beans, peas, lettuce, carrots); shortcake or pie or pudding; cocoa, postum, or milk.
The boys take care of their own beds, wash the dishes, and keep the place clean.
They have a study hour every evening from eight until nine, and the same is true of the boys placed out with farmers. One boy, going to Princeton in the fall, kept up his studies and took the Regents' examinations at the country school, passing them with as good a mark as he would have obtained at his home school.
After drill on Sunday morning the boys at camp have a baseball game. They have had entertainments for the benefit of the Red Cross. In the group at camp are the gold-medal orator of the school, two excellent pianists, four mandolin players, and a whistler. All the boys are good singers.
Rexford's application blank asked for the weight, age, previous experience in farming, church preference, and habits as to smoking.
The teacher had the coöperation of the farm bureau. The farmers wrote to the bureau for help; Mr. Rexford and the farm-bureau manager went to each farmer, looked over the situation, and if everything was satisfactory, furnished the workers. Mr. Rexford will not leave boys on any farm without proper supervision. He visits the boys once every week, neither the farmer nor the boy knowing when he is coming.
At first no wage scale was set, the arrangement being that the farmer should pay what the boy was worth. If he was worth nothing, then it was all right, and the boy ought to be the first one to know it. However, most of the boys started at 20 cents an hour; soon this was raised to 25 cents, and now the pay is 30 cents.
Most of the farmers in the vicinity had never done any spraying. They now apply to Mr. Rexford when they want such work done and he sends out two boys and horses and his own spraying outfit. The work is done at a cost to the farmer of about 70 cents per acre for spraying potatoes, in addition to the material; that is, 25 cents per acre for each boy's work and 20 cents expense on the spraying outfit, for nozzles etc.
There was no illness among the boys during the summer, not even colds. Sometimes the boys got wet through, but came home, took a dip in a hole in the creek, and followed it by a good rub.