------------- W. J. Millican, Bend, Texas The question assigned me is how to create an interest among the boys and girls in the pecan industry. First: I shall mention the fact that the fundamental principle of this thought is the boy or girl should love nature to a degree and think much of the beauties of the handiworks of God. And they should have a yearning desire to acquaint themselves with horticulture. They should have in mind the beauty and the grandeur of plant life. And above all is the desire to be something and to do something worthwhile in this life. And this is not for the benefit of themselves only, but for their fellow man and for the generations to come after them. They should have an inspiration to achieve the topmost round in life in knowledge and otherwise. And in this light the older heads should stoop to give the encouragement so much needed in the young life of our boys and girls. Second: The parents should have the utmost confidence in the child and believe that it can and will do things. If the proper encouragement and inducement is offered the boy and the girl then they feel willingness to try, and keep trying. Third: A co-operation of the parents and teachers in the public schools. Here the instructors should have the moulding of noble men and women in mind. Inculcate something higher than the mere making of dollars and cents. The instructor should teach a practical knowledge of doing for themselves and thinking for themselves. We might have all the Greek and Latin books contain, but without the practical experience of doing things we become “as sounding brass and tinkling cymbal.” Let us take cognizance of whence we came and where we are going. Fourth: There should be the co-operation of a live County Agent. I am talking now of the County Agent who wants to earn his wages and is worthy of his hire; one who boosts the pecan industry, visits the public schools and can give practical lectures and demonstrations on the industry, and will set a time and place for this work among the boys and girls to show them the different ways the industry may be improved; such as planting pecan trees, culture, grafting, budding, and top-working, and can and will take the time to explain the revenue to be derived from the industry and the possibility of enhancing the value of father's farm. Sooner or later, all the work done along this line will pass to the ownership of the child. We have our great institutions of learning among the city people, and we do not begrudge them these advantages, but too oftentimes the boys and the girls are overlooked in the rural districts. It thus behooves us, among the common herd of pedestrians, to see that our children have at least a common knowledge and education in books, and by the proper precaution, along the lines above suggested, they may have a knowledge that the boys and girls of the city have not. Fifth: We would not dare leave out the Chamber of Commerce and the Business Men's League, with a live wire as secretary. ‘Tis here that most any enterprise for the betterment of the town and county can be ac-complished. When the business men and their organizations get behind the boys and girls, great things can be done; things that in after years the fathers and mothers may realize that their lives have been well spent; things that will gladden their hearts that the boys and girls stand out four-square for the best things in life, and the public conscience will say there is a noble character. May God bless the young lives of our country, the growing rulers in government, school, church, state, and whose every heart-beat is in sympathy with the scientific pecan men and the greatest growing industry of Texas land.
