The following data show the incomes of the United States Land Grant colleges for the year ending June 30, 1897. The table is condensed from one recently published by the United States Department of Agriculture:

Income of the U. S. Land Grant Colleges for the Year Ending June 30, 1897

States
and
Territories		Interest
on
Land Grant
of 1862		Interest
on
Other
Funds		U. S.
Appropri-
ations,
Act
of 1890 		State
Appropri-
ations 		Miscella-
neous 		Total
Alabama (Auburn)$20,280.00...$12,012.00$8,746.83$2,821.20$43,860.03
Alabama (Normal)......9,988.004,000.0016,898.4430,886.44
Arkansas (Fayetteville)10,400.00...16,000.0026,911.001,200.0054,611.00
Arkansas (Pine Bluff)......6,000.00...418.256,418.25
California (Berkeley)43,619.33...22,000.00133,415.4612,180.48311,212.45
Colorado (Fort Collins)3,238.99$109,997.1822,000.0038,892.01...64,131.00
Connecticut (Storrs)6,750.00...22,000.0026,800.00...55,550.00
Delaware (Newark)4,980.00...17,600.00...1,620.7424,200.74
Delaware (Dover)......4,400.004,000.00...8,400.00
Florida (Lake City)9,107.00...11,000.005,000.001,896.8827,003.00
Florida (Tallahassee)......11,000.004,000.00...15,000.00
Georgia (Athens)16,954.00...14,666.6629,000.001,600.0062,220.66
Georgia (College)......6,333.00......6,333.00
Idaho (Moscow)......22,000.006,000.00339.8028,839.80
Illinois (Champlain)23,241.10500.0022,000.00121,214.9341,305.09211,591.60
Indiana (Lafayette)17,000.003,830.4822,000.0058,562.9629,552.35127,115.31
Iowa (Ames)47,729.75...23,000.0037,232.1049,397.49157,359.34
Kansas (Manhattan)50,689.50...22,000.0016,557.709,323.8898,571.08
Kentucky (Lexington)......18,810.0032,429.326,680.6157,819.93
Kentucky (Frankfort)......3,190.005,000.0076.008,266.00
Louisiana (Baton Rouge)..................
Louisiana (New Orleans)......11,346.009,000.00439.4620,785.46
Maine (Orono)5,915.004,000.0022,000.0020,000.0020,001.1371,916.13
Maryland (College Park)6,142.30...22,000.009,000.0018,000.0055,142.30
Massachusetts (Amherst)7,300.003,820.2314,666.6615,000.001,920.0042,706.89
Massachusetts (Boston)5,896.0035,000.007,666.6725,000.00253,076.23318,638.90
Michigan (Agricultural College)39,009.66386.3422,000.0010,000.0012,825.6284,221.62
Minnesota (St. Anthony Park)27,410.5521,856.0023,000.00174,332.5974,496.48321,095.62
Mississippi (Agricult’l College)5,914.50...10,217.0822,500.0014,597.9653,227.54
Mississippi (West Side)6,814.50...11,000.007,000.00...24,814.50
Missouri (Columbia)16,100.006,469.5820,804.023,762.345,022.7352,158.67
Missouri (Rolla)4,025.006,469.585,201.005,476.652,192.1623,364.39
Missouri (Jefferson City)......1,195.98......1,195.98
Montana (Bozeman)......22,000.002,500.102,439.5726,939.57
Nebraska (Lincoln)......22,000.00123,572.507,801.53153,374.03
Nevada (Reno)4,464.891,803.5522,000.0016,250.00327.3544,845.79
New Hampshire (Durham)4,800.003,880.5023,000.005,500.001,148.0040,328.50
New Jersey (New Brunswick)6,644.00...22,000.00...21,170.3749,814.37
New Mexico (Mesilla Park)......22,000.0019,792.01875.7042,667.71
New York (Ithaca)34,428.80314,407.5122,000.0025,000.00191,660.07587,496.38
North Carolina (West Raleigh)..................
North Carolina (Greensboro).........12,500.00157.9212,657.92
North Dakota (Agri. College)...392.9622,000.0027,000.003,446.6252,839.58
Ohio (Wooster)31,450.581,511.6322,000.00118,906.53175,140.39349,009.13
Oklahoma (Stillwater)......22,000.00500.003,391.0025,591.00
Oregon (Corvallis)7,164.68...22,000.001,854.791,342.3732,361.84
Pennsylvania (State College)25,637.435,382.5722,000.0045,000.008,340.27106,360.27
Rhode Island (Kingston)1,500.001,000.0022,000.0010,000.006,000.0040,500.00
South Carolina (Clemson College)5,754.003,512.3611,000.0054,053.29700.0075,019.65
South Carolina (Orangeburg)5,000.00...11,000.0013,000.001.0029,001.00
South Dakota (Brookings)......22,000.005,900.008,038.1235,938.12
Tennessee (Knoxville)23,760.001,650.0022,000.001,674.007,271.8956,355.89
Texas (College Station)14,280.00...16,500.0022,500.009,361.3962,641.39
Texas (Prairieview)......5,500.0015,700.0010,836.7832,036.78
Utah (Logan)......22,000.0022,000.005,811.8349,811.83
Vermont (Burlington)8,130.001,500.0022,000,006,000.0016,603.0954,233.09
Virginia (Blacksburg)20,658.72...14,666.6715,750.0012,352.4863,427.87
Virginia (Hampton)10,329.3630,264.617,333.33...109,110.46157,037.76
Washington (Pullman)......22,000.0029,000.00...51,000.00
West Virginia (Morgantown)5,223.001,485.0017,000.0038,060.0010,315.1372,083.13
West Virginia (Farm)......5,000.0014,500.00600.0020,100.00
Wisconsin (Madison)12,250.0014,000.0023,000.00285,000.0047,000.00381,250.00
Wyoming (Laramie)......22,000.007,425.00775.5930,200.59
Total$609,992.64$574,120.08$1,009,097.07$1,821,072.01$1,239,902.90$5,203,580.82

It has been thought strange that the farmers did not more quickly see and appreciate the valuable opportunities offered to their children. But why should they at once appreciate and value the princely provisions which were being made for them? With no opportunity for education along the lines of their profession, following a more or less despised calling, from being the butt and jest of those who had had educational advantages from time immemorial, how could they at once understand the value and far-reaching effects of the new order of things? Then, too, these liberal provisions were made somewhat in advance of the times. The pioneer must first redeem the land from the wilderness, fight the physical battles and endure the hardships of a new country. As soon as these primitive conditions passed away, the farmers made an effort to bring their profession up to a high intellectual plane and make it a delightful and honorable calling. The evolution from the primitive to the complex, from the age of toil to the age of thought, from excessive muscular effort to a more intelligent direction of energy, from the narrow and prejudiced to the broad and liberal, from the coarse and ugly to the refined and beautiful, is proceeding rapidly, and is in part realized. What happier task than to give direction and help, sympathy and encouragement to these new-born desires! The part which the youths on the farm are taking in this evolution leads naturally to a higher intellectual plane, and hence to a more rational understanding and fuller comprehension of what the rural home should be. This desire to gratify the love for the true and beautiful, which has been growing up by reason of the better education, leads directly to the securing of an income sufficiently large to gratify the more refined and newly acquired tastes.

Taking the rural population as we find it, with added wants and new aspirations, and with a somewhat better understanding of the value of a more extended culture, it will be seen that a more rational system of agriculture, a more economic expenditure of energy, and a clearer comprehension of the highest and most economical use of money must be secured if the objects sought are attained. To secure the results desired, it must be shown how a competence can be secured without excessive toil, how the results of work may be put to the best uses, and lastly, but not least, it must be shown what is really valuable, what real, what substantial, what polite, what beautiful, what worthy of intelligent Americans. On the other hand, vulgar display must be shown to be vulgar, shoddy must be unmasked, the effect of aping the uncultured rich set forth, and that which is unreal and that which goes for naught but vanity displayed under their true colors,—that comparisons may be made, and that truer conceptions of life, its duties and obligations, may be secured.

How may a competence be obtained? Briefly, by securing a knowledge of the laws which govern the business or undertaking entered into, and by conducting the business or undertaking in obedience to the modes of action or laws which apply to the specific case in hand. What are some of the dominant laws which should govern the farmer and farm practices? The farmer should specialize along those lines for which his taste and training, in part at least, fit him. To be more specific: A farmer will show you his potato patch with pride, but not a word will be said about his work animals and their offspring, which look like Barnum’s woolly horse. Then the first principle of agriculture is, follow up successes. In this case, the man has land and skill in potato culture which should lead him directly to success. Why not each year increase the output of potatoes, and let some horseman breed the horses? I have no ear or taste for music; why should I spend time in thrumming a piano and in making the life of my neighbors miserable? I love a bird and am interested in all its ways, its beauty and its life. Why not study the birds, and let them make the music?

Much of life’s energy is spent in trying to adjust square pegs to round holes and round pegs to square holes, and life may be spent before the adjustment is complete. Modern civilization tends to specialization. Men vary as widely as do the stars. There is a place for everyone and some one to fill the place, if this great mass of unlike units can only be sorted and fitted into the complex problem of civilization.

The first question, and the question which should be repeated often is, What am I good for; what branch or branches of agriculture will give me the greatest pleasure and profit? Having answered this question, pursue the work through all discouragements to a successful issue. It is possible you have no capacity for farm life, and, since you cannot buy a capacity, better go directly to town and there fit yourself into your environment. I have known men to toil many years on a farm, and near the close of life to be driven to town by the sheriff. There they made not only a living, but secured a modest competence in conducting some little one-horse business, the profits or losses of which could be counted up every night. The farm, with all its complexities, with its profits and losses a year or five years in the future, was too large and far-reaching for their narrow understandings. All are not so fortunate. Some remind us of the Quaker’s dog which he sold to his friend and recommended as a good coon dog. The dog proved to be a failure and was returned to the seller, who said, “I am much surprised. Thee believes that nothing was created in vain, does thee not, Ephraim?” “Most certainly I believe that the Creator made all things for some beneficent purpose.” “I, too, believe this, and I had tried that dog for everything else under the heavens but coons, so I was certain he must be a good coon dog.”

A competency is always in sight in this country for those who do well those things which are suited to their tastes and training. A competence may be secured by following those branches of farming which require the minimum of labor and the maximum of skill and training. My friend of Westfield, Mr. G. Schoenfeld, from Germany, has six acres of land, a part of which is covered with glass. He did that terrible thing,—ran in debt for the full purchase price of the land. It and the valuable improvements upon it are now paid for. His modest home is valued at $6,000. While paying for it a large family has been raised and educated, the eldest boy entering Annapolis Naval Academy with a high standing. It is possible that this son will one day be acknowledged as the intellectual and social equal of the aristocracy of Germany should he ever visit the fatherland of his parents. But why this long account of a not infrequent occurrence? To show how it was done: This German, though untrained, succeeded from the first in producing superior carnations. He followed up his successes, and sold the product of brains instead of the fertility of his little farm. Mr. Schoenfeld sold in Buffalo during one year—October 1, 1896, to September 30, 1897—carnations (80,946 flowers) for the net sum, over commissions, of $719.08. The amount of plant-food removed by the 80,946 carnations was as follows:

NitrogenPhosphoric acidPotash
5 lbs. 4 ozs.2 lbs. 3 ozs.10 lbs. 8 ozs.(valued at $1.32)