Many of our successful business and professional men have a farm background and while they may never have left the farm, the true-hearted man never severs his ties with the Past. Often he will in his thoughts make a pilgrimage to the homestead of his youth, probably first in the barn. There he sees the same red fanning-mill with the hen's nest in the hopper; the same dancing bars of dusty sunshine; the pigeons and swallows under the over-shot, marked by the broad-axe; the door-post worn smooth by the rub of rump; the hoof-and teeth-marks of Ginnie, Sailor and Dolly on the feed-box; upstairs in the barn, the empty, dangling hay fork and carrier on its rusting track; the initials carved by the "busheler" during the threshing-bees; the wooden swing, built by the oldest son for the entertainment of his school pupils on a visit.

Smells and sounds and sights have disappeared, though once familiar. These include the friendly, comfortable coal and wood-burning Happy Home range; the coal-oil lamps and lanterns; the old pump-organ; the churns and the coffee-grinders; the pine cupboards with hand-painted china and glassware; the layers of newspapers in the spare-bed; the blinds drawn in the parlour except when company came.

No longer do we hear the morning-call of the flock rooster, nor see the clucking hen parading her brood in the barnyard. Stilled are the team and wagon on the gravel road, the old dinner bell clanging its message to the men in the field; the sleigh bells on a frosty night and the clamorous din of the steam-engine chugging the threshing machine into the yard and up the barn-bank.

Gone too are the three-legged milk stool, the buggy, the stump or rail fence, the smoke-house, the butchering - and schnitz - and quilting bees, the barn-raisings and the barn dances.

Although we have moved from scarcity to abundance, we have not learned to live with abundance. It has brought with it a need for more machinery, more chemicals. The next few years will reap a heavy toll of those farmers presently 55 years of age and over. Their farms will be taken over by a son and carried on in similar fashion, but only so long as he is a willing, hard worker, satisfied to leave the earnings of his labour in the business. Others of these farms will be absorbed by neighbours with ambitions to expand their holdings. Agriculture will continue its rapid change and only those who can accept and integrate into this change can survive.

It is unlikely that the present, though disappearing, concept of mixed farming will long continue. The trend to specialization is evident. A maximum of two different crops and one animal unit, intensively cared for, is replacing the varied crops and the three or four classes of livestock. Specialized research and technology are making the old adage of "Don't put all your eggs in one basket, no longer apt."

May we add the thought that time alone will help us to discard this false concept, that farming and agriculture are synonymous. This interpretation and validity when the farmer was self-sufficient. Today farming is but a small cog in the great wheel of agriculture, an industry which uses 20% of all our petroleum products, 10% of all chemicals, 5% of electric power, 6% of steel and enough rubber to re-tire a year's production of automobiles. The investment per worker on the farm exceeds on the average that for the worker in industry.

In conclusion may I quote from the Holstein-Friesian Journal, from an editorial, The Shorthorn World: "Probably the most striking facet of the current age-change is that the less educated and the less interested are leaving the farm for the city. Remaining behind to till the land is a younger and better farmer charged with the management of an increasingly larger enterprise. He is intensely interested in improving his productivity and has in general taken on a whole new air of sophistication."

We feel a bit of regret, watching the Old pass but at the same moment we welcome the change. Tomorrow's agricultural field will be a much better place in which to live and work, because of the higher calibre of new men and women who are staying on the farm."

This is not only change - this is progress!

FENCES: Stump and Snake