“Mr. Swanson is a busy man,” I said. “What we want is someone who can come here and address the club as a club. I thought that possibly the State Agricultural School might help us out.” Swanson threw up his head at this like an old war horse scenting a battle. “Huh,” he grunted, “what do them fellers know ’bout farmin’? Half of ’em never held a plow handle in their lives.” “Maybe you’re right,” I said, “but if it’s true I’d like to have one of them down here and help show him up.” “What they don’t know ’bout farmin’ would fill a book,” he growled. “We’ll put you down in the audience and let you pop questions at them,” I laughed. “Anyway it ought to keep up the interest of the club until spring. No harm done anyway. I put the motion that I be instructed to write the school and see what can be done.” “Seconded,” chirped in Holt. Swanson didn’t object, and so the next day I sent off my letter. In it I told briefly what we had done and what we wished to do and asked for advice. To my surprise I received at once an enthusiastic letter from the president himself asking for a personal interview. CHAPTER VIII THE NEW WAY In conversation with a dozen or more of the better farmers of our town in an endeavor to get at the most important features of what in the way of instructions we needed, I was surprised to find that suspicion of agricultural school methods was general. The farmer looked as much askance at these teachers as he did at college men. They thought them steeped in book learning and without practical experience. If they admitted that at the experiment stations these men produced fine results, it was only to add, “But thet ain’t runnin’ a farm by a long shot.” In some cases farmers had actually sent soil to be analyzed and had followed instructions about seeds and fertilizers, whether accurately or not I don’t know, but certainly without gaining confidence in the new methods. This seemed to me a pity for the farmer if he was wrong and a pity for the taxpayer, who was furnishing funds to support these schools, if the farmer was right. So while I didn’t receive much encouragement for this new feature of our enterprise I went to town to meet the president of the agricultural school, primed with a few opinions which I thought might wake him up at any rate. I will call him Dennison. I found him a gentle, scholarly-looking man of sixty, with earnest eyes and with an air that impressed me at once with his sincerity. There was, however, about his mouth an expression of weary resignation as of a man who has fought a long fight without particularly encouraging results. He was very cordial and wanted to hear at once just what our scheme was. I told him briefly how our ultimate hope was to arouse the pioneer spirit in the village and of the very practical incentive we had given to rouse, first of all, the ambition of the men to till the soil.