"Double, double toil and trouble,
Boil, cauldron, boil and bubble."
It boiled and bubbled all right, but the toil and trouble were not particularly evident. All that was necessary was to keep the mess stirred up with a hoe and to keep it boiling for an hour. Even though making lime-sulphur wash comes under the head of science, I would rather undertake to cook a barrel of it than to make a pot of oatmeal porridge without getting it scorched. No one need be afraid of that part of the work.
When finished, the barrel of mixture, according to the most careful ciphering, cost just $2.80. That included charges for both labour and wood—two things no farmer would think of mentioning. As for the labour, every farmer has a lot of it in his system that is bound to go to waste unless he employs it on some job like this, and he would never think of taking it into account. It is the same with the wood. Why put in a charge for wood when all you need is the tail-board of the gravel box or an armful of bed slats or anything else that is not being used at the time? Still, they insisted on counting in the wood, though they refused to add two cents for the extra tobacco I smoked while watching them and sniffing the brew. The barrel of mixture was strong enough to make eight barrels when diluted to the strength required for the trees. This makes the cost of each barrel of home-cooked wash thirty-five cents. This is an important item, as the commercial wash comes to eighty cents a barrel. It certainly pays the man who has a large orchard to prepare his own materials.
But it was when they began to apply the wash to the trees that I really got into touch with my scientists. After they had explained to me the workings of their spraying outfit, which had cost $27.50, they filled the barrel to which the spraying pump was attached and got busy; and right there they revealed the fact that scientists are just as human as the rest of us. The spraying outfit is fitted with two lines of hose, so that two men can administer the spray at the same time, but they were able to use only one line, as they had lost one of the nozzles. My heart opened to them at once. That was just the way things would be likely to happen if I had tried to do the work myself. And I had a decided advantage of them. If I had lost a nozzle I could blame it on the boys, but all they could do was to admit that they had lost it themselves. After this incident I was no longer abashed by the fact that the work being done was of the kind that is called scientific. The bane of my existence is perfect people who never make mistakes and who always do everything right. When I found that these scientists were human like myself I filled my pipe again and began to take an interest in life. The one hose that was in working order ended in a bamboo pole with a tube inside it. This made it possible for the man doing the spraying to reach the top branches of the trees. Here again the work did not seem hard nor of a kind to need special training. Any one should be able to do it. The nozzle was spouting out a cloud of spray and all that was necessary was to direct it so that the cloud would touch every twig and branch of the tree. Of course, a man had to manage it so that he didn't get sprayed too much himself, for that lime-sulphur certainly had some "zip" to it. I got a couple of whiffs of it, and it is my private opinion that any microbe that could stand up against it without sneezing would be able to "stand unabashed amid the war of elements, the wreck of matter, and the crash of worlds."
After all, it was not the work of spraying that impressed me most about the visit of Mr. Clement, Mr. Buchanan, and Mr. Palmer. They did their work well, and no sensible man can doubt that such work is necessary and profitable. But what is coming over the world when three well-educated, cultured, ambitious young men are doing such work at all? They are of the type of clean-cut, intelligent young fellows that you would have found a few years ago preparing themselves for law or medicine or for a career in the world of business. But here they are teaching farming, talking farming, and looking forward to farming as their life-work. Ever since Cadmus invented the alphabet education has been looked upon as a door of escape from the drudgery of farm work. When I went to school no lesson impressed me more than the one about John Adams and his Latin grammar. When the boy found the grammar too hard his father gave him a job of ditching and he quickly went back to his studies and became President. Moral: Get an education and get out of doing farm work. But here are these young men with their good educations coming back to work the land. Are the farmers of the future to be men of this type? I can hardly believe it, and yet it should be true. Farming is one of the finest occupations in the world if taken in moderation. But it will take more than science and profits to keep young men of this type on the land. They will need a very fine quality of philosophy to enable them to see the true value of things. They will have to learn how to realise the possibilities of their own souls while doing the humble daily tasks. I do not know whether they have a chair of philosophy in Guelph or not, but if they have it should be occupied by some one
"High-rife with old Philosophy
And mad with glimpses of futurity."
His course of lectures should be the most important in the college. His work would be to prepare us for a future in which the heavy burdens of the world will be borne by educated men who will understand their rights as well as their work. With such men behind the ploughs, the day of predatory big business will soon come to an end. The men who feed the world will no longer be the slaves of the cunning. But it is still so much easier to make a living by cleverness and cunning that it is hard to believe that the hard work of farming is to be taken over by men of education who will know their own worth and the worth of their work. It is a glorious dream, but the world will have to make more progress in philosophy than it has in science before it comes true. When my scientific friends finally completed their work and left me I felt lonesome and homesick for the outer world for the first time since coming back to the land. In spite of their enthusiasm about farming and farm work, I felt that they belonged to that world rather than to the world in which I am sojourning.
April 16.—"I've given up the danged farm," said a callow youth this morning in response to a civil question about the progress being made with the spring work. At present he is putting in his time as the village cut-up, and when it really becomes necessary for him to work he'll get a job as cook on a gravel train or as oiler in a garage. He'll live in a boiled horse boarding-house and fill himself with husks and other deleterious substances. The "danged" farm isn't swift enough for him.
Unfortunately there are many in his class, though they express themselves differently. They are travelling the school and college route to the over-crowded professions or going to the city in search of a nice, clean job. "The danged farm" isn't good enough for them.