observation by the average farm boy of eighteen or twenty years that
would be of little or no value to him in most other occupations; and
in this respect I should be handicapped if I leave the farm life and
begin wholly at the bottom in some other profession. Perhaps
agriculture is not a profession, but I think it should be if the
highest success is to be attained."

"I surely hope you will be successful, Percy, and your reasoning
sounds all right; but other occupations seem to lead to greater
wealth than farming."

"I very much doubt," replied Percy, "if there is any other
occupation that is so uniformly successful as farming, in the truest
sense. It provides constant employment, a good living, and a
comfortable home for nearly all who engage in it; and as a rule they
have made no such preparation as is required for most other lines of
work.

"But there is still another side to the farm life, Mother dear, or
to any life for that matter. Your own life has taught me that to
work for the love of others is a motive which directs the noblest
lives. If agricultural missionaries are needed in India, they are
also needed in parts of our own country where farm lands that were
once productive are now greatly depleted and in some cases even
abandoned for farming; and. if the older lands of the corn belt are
already showing a decrease in productive power, we need the
missionary even here. If I can learn how to make land richer and
richer and lead others to follow such a system, I should find much
satisfaction in the effort."