AN INDUSTRY FOR COLLEGE MEN

"Farming for Fun and Profit" Concluding Article of Vocational Series

ON A RECENT morning after a heavy rain I was awakened by the hum of an electric pump used to supply additional water to the reservoir

whenever the main spring runs low. The operator had thrown the switch without investigating conditions. The reservoir was then running over and the energy was being wasted.

The previous evening had been spent considering conditions that confront thousands of college men, graduates of recent years and those about to graduate, men who have spent the maturing years of life preparing themselves for a useful career in some special field of activity and who had left college with high hopes and ambitions, only to meet with the bitter disappointment of either losing the job they already had or being unable to find one. Most of us through kin or friends have intimate knowledge of these experiences of some of these men and know how tragic has been the mental and physical effect.

The incident of the pump impressed me at the moment as illustrating the present problem of college educated society. With the ever increasing diversity in special fields of education, still the number of aspirants for opportunity far exceeds the vacancies, resulting in wasted effort, creating an unbalanced condition to be deplored, and one that must be corrected.

The suggestion of limiting the number by more rigid requirements may have certain merit, but to deny the full measure of education to any and all who are mentally and physically qualified and able to obtain it, would be contrary to our American traditions. What alternative solution then but to increase the field of opportunity.

The trend of aspiring youth has for years been largely through the public and preparatory schools, then to our higher institutions of learning with the ultimate objective of rounding out their existence in what have been called the more honored walks of life, although in recent years many different vocations have been included in this classification.

Still the oncoming host of graduates are seeking and deserving a place in society far beyond the means of the present day situation to provide. Statistics of the National Committee on Hygiene reveal the startling total of six million unemployed high school and college graduates at the present time, with two million graduating annually, and this class is not included in the standard labor statistics of the unemployed. Such a situation is unpleasant to contemplate and will be disastrous if continued. The problem is mentioned here to emphasize the need of finding new and larger fields of activity where they can put to practical use their intelligence and ability, for the fruits of idleness are mental and physical atrophy with a destructive effect on the normal mental poise.

Confronted with such a situation, it is pertinent to consider whether the field of agriculture or farming has not been too largely ignored by college graduates, and whether after all, the full measure of happiness, contentment and service to society is not to be found in this field of activity. Let us not forget that the great and abiding back-log of our national wealth and progress is the farm industry, and that directly and indirectly thirty million are engaged in it, and that the American farm home is still the cradle of our future hope.

I WAS BORN on a Vermont farm 64 years ago and grew up there within hearing distance of the Dartmouth College bell. I was fortunate enough to enter Dartmouth (which I probably could not now), and, after graduating from the College and Thayer School of Engineering, devoted the greater part of my years to engineering and an allied industry. Caught in the whirl of consolidations which took place in the Twenties, I returned to the place of my birth to try and rejuvenate the old farm.

These simple facts are recited merely to indicate some qualifications of experience and training to justify my opinions and to show they are based on retrospect and prospect as well as experience of some years as an industrial manager.

My earliest recollections of a college are those of Dartmouth of the late Seventies and early Eighties when the goal of many of the students was the ministry, law, medicine, teaching or literature. Engineering was respected but the students of the Agricultural College, then in Hanover, were merely tolerated. Prejudice among students and faculty of the classical department was pronounced.

Those were the days of the horse and buggy and the dirt road, the ox team, and the college pump. Commencement was a combination of graduating exercises and midway, and afforded an annual outing for the surrounding countryside, comparable to the circus.

That the average American farmer was provincial was due to a certain degree to the lack of our present day means of communication and transportation. The ambitious farm boy wanted to get away from a circumscribed existence and secure a more lucrative and honored position in life, as the records of our colleges will attest, and very few returned to the farm unless to retire in later years.

More and larger institutions accelerated the movement from country to town or city and the competition for place grew constantly keener. Along with this has continued the aversion of the college graduates to agriculture as an occupation. Agricultural colleges have compensated for this to a large extent, but even those institutions presumably for psychological reasons are often called State Colleges. Many of their graduates are employed in the allied processing or distributing 01 ganizations which handle farm products, or in county or state farm bureaus. However, their contributions to the improvement of the farm industry have been large and of immense value.

Fifty years have brought unthought of changes. Telephone, radio, automobiles and the airplane have annihilated time and distance, and are daily putting the rural home and hamlet in closer touch with town and city. The progress and improvements in industry have been amazing, but the aftermath of a World War and the subsequent financial drunk in speculation, coincident with the era of high pressure sales on the deferred payment plan, further aggravated by a building boom of unwarranted volume and costs, has left us facing our present problems. No problem is more urgent than that of the college graduate of the past and present who finds himself stranded in a world unable to use him.

Does the farm industry offer an outlet where some of these men can find a congenial occupation with reasonable remuneration, a comfortable home life and a respected independence?

FIRST OF ALL let us explode the idea that they are going from the campus to the milking stool, isolated from former associates. If the lessons of our experiences of the past four years are to serve any good purpose, then tolerance, co-operation and service to society in all its phases should abound.

When the present Administration, through the Agriculture Department under the AAA has been working for the past year on the policy of paying a subsidy to producers of our basic commodities in order to reduce acreage and limit production to balance consumption, and is at this moment proposing to apply this policy to the dairy industry, it seems hazardous to predict to what end they are leading us. But they tell us we are on our way.

Whatever the results, for ages past the good earth and soil has furnished man's subsistence and will for generations to come. We still have faith that as long as the sun shines and the rains fall, seed time and harvest shall not fail.

When we recall that our forefathers took possession of this land in the raw, cleared the forest, built their cabins, tilled their soil with the most primitive tools and equipment, and were able to carry on and establish the foundations for this great nation, it seems incredible to believe that with all our modern equipment, improvements and conveniences, the present generation of educated men cannot find opportunity for success in this field of industry.

Great strides have been made in improving the breeds of farm animals, in perfecting the species, eliminating disease and analysing the soil. Artificial incubation and sanitation have revolutionized the poultry industry. And these advances are almost without number. The field is broad, the possibilities are many and the diversity of products and climate are various to choose from. Right here in New England there is need for the educated and trained mind to re-establish declining production. We have been prodigal of our natural resources. On my home street where ten maple sugar plants flourished in my boyhood, not one remains. Yet synthetic products that have no semblance to the real thing are served promiscuously.

Let no man harbor the illusion that the farm industry offers an easy way to fame or fortune. It does not. The trials and disappointments to the inexperienced are many. But to the physically vigorous, mentally alert and resourceful, who would appraise life's values in terms of healthy environment, and assured subsistence, moderate home comforts, pride in personal accomplishment of things well done, with a desire to serve society to him I say there is still opportunity beyond anything our forefathers enjoyed or hoped for.

One Argument in Favor of Farming as a Career! The author finds living at Stonecrest pleasant. He combines his office, winter and summer homes, and has no commuting problem. The extensive farm is located in Vermont, four miles from Hanover, on the Christian Street road west of Wilder. Norwich Village is at the upper (Northern) end of the valley shown in photograph.

Bumper Crop Stonecrest provides all luxuries for its 2,000 gobblers reared annually.

Pedigreed Jersey "Betty Jane," says Mr. Stone, "is typical of the best breed of Jersey cow, combining show and production qualities."