Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 November 1876 — Boys on the Farm. [ARTICLE]

Boys on the Farm.

One-of the best hints we have met with ,as to the way in which boys may be kept «fromßeaving the farm, came to us when we Were attending a fair in Connecticut a Jew days since. It was at the exhibition jof* trained working oxen and steers. We were greatly Interested and somewhat astonished at the performances of the oxen in drawing, and especially in backing the heavy.loadto which they were hitched. But we were more interested when two young’sons of an old-time neighbor came on with a pair of steers each, two-year-'olds and yearlings, which they had trained. The steers seemed to be as well broken and as handy as the old oxen Which’we drove in our youth; in fact thev were more so; for we must confess, we never drove a pair of oxen that were so cdmpletelv unrtej- control, and so ready to do what was required of them as those steeds were. But the training of the dumb animals was not the only thing we thought of. What interested us more, and hitexhvelt more in our thoughts since was the training which those boys received amusing themselves with the young steers. We know not what career may be before those boys; perhaps one of them will yet be President. But we are more confident in predicting that they will be farmers, and that, too, not because they arejnotsmart enough to be anything else, an imputation which one look at their bright and handsome faces would deny, but because it will be their choice, and the business in which they will always : feel a deeper interest than in any other. Farmers! If you want your boys to stay on the farm, encourage In every way whatever will interest them in the things of the farm. Let them yoke the calves, pnd halter-break the colts to their hearts* content, and do not grudge them the time tttttriffidg expense may be required. You can not make a better investment.— Vermont Record and Farmer.