time when you would be
celebrating Christmas.[5] In previous years the farmers have
walked from 3 to 6 miles to attend; many have come on
horseback, in wagons, and in buggies. You who live so that
you cannot come in daily can secure board near the school
for $2.50 per week. We expect 2,000 to 2,500 to enter this
year."

[Footnote 5: There is a custom among the colored people, inherited
from the days of slavery, which is fortunately now drying out, to
celebrate Christmas for a period of a week or ten days by stopping
work and giving themselves over to a round of sprees.]

And then as a further stimulus to attend there comes:

"_Prizes will be given as follows:_

"A prize of $5 will be given to the person who makes the
greatest progress on all subjects taught.

"A prize of $2 will be given to the person who is the best
judge of livestock.

"A prize of $1 will be given to the person who shows the
best knowledge of the use and application of manures and
fertilizers. And so on through a further list of one-dollar
prizes for all the major activities of the Course."

It will be noted that there is nothing stilted or academic about this
announcement.

Immediately following this Farmers' Short Course comes the Annual
Farmers' Conference which holds its session in January of each year.
To enforce the lessons in canning, stock raising, gardening, and all
the other branches of farming, exhibits of the best products in each
activity are displayed before the audience of farmers and their
families, who number in all about 2,000. These exhibits are made and
explained by the farmers themselves. The man, woman, or child who has
produced the exhibit comes to the platform and explains in his or her
own way just how it was done. In these explanations much human nature
is thrown in. An amazingly energetic and capable woman had explained
at one of these gatherings how she had paid off the mortgage on their
farm by the proceeds from her eggs, her kitchen garden, and her
preserving in her spare moments when she was not helping her husband
in the cotton field, washing and dressing her six children, or
cooking, mending, washing, and scrubbing for the household.

In conclusion she said:

"Now my ole man he's an' old-fashion farmer an' he don' kere fur dese
modern notions, an' so I don't git no help from him, an' that makes
it hard for me 'cause it ain't nat'r