COUNTRY HUMOR

Alternative learning
By Jack S. Bray

Hooray! It’s the start of another school year, greeted by hordes of bright-faced, eager citizens.

We mean the parents of school-age children, of course. The kids themselves probably exhibit as much enthusiasm for the beginning of another school term as they would for a relapse of tonsillitis.

New students are flocking to colleges and universities about now, too, and higher education is a fine thing, as long as it doesn’t get in the way of stuff you really need to know. But if you have been farming or ranching for longer than a week ago last Wednesday, you know that most of your useable knowledge didn’t come from the classroom. Mostly, the smarts you use day to day were learned at places like HardKnock U or the Try Try Again Academy.

Several land-grant universities have tried to set up courses in practical farming knowledge, with varying degrees of success. One problem is, most schools don’t do a very good job of teaching common sense, which comes in handy if you’re trying to make a living in rural America.

Maybe we could boil it all down into a practical curriculum; maybe even establish a College of Practical Knowledge, with a course catalog that looks something like this:

Basic Accounting and Finance

Elementary, intermediate and advanced accounting for livestock operators and crop farmers. Students will learn basic accounting principles, computers and accounting software and farm recordkeeping. Graduates of the advanced course will be issued pickup trucks with two large glove compartments. Guest lecturers would include ag lenders, who will discuss the fundamentals of applying for farm loans; when a balance sheet is required; and when begging and pleading are called for.

General Science and Technology

An overview of major scientific developments having a major impact on agriculture in North America, including genetically-modified organisms such as grain futures brokers and livestock order buyers, DNA mapping of farm lenders and other relatively recent scientific breakthroughs.

History

This course would encompass the introduction of domestic livestock and improved crop varieties in the United States; the evolution of soil cultivation from the single-blade hoe to minimum-till corn planters; profiles of Cyrus McCormick, John Deere and Oscar Meyer; hybrid seeds and artificial insemination and the establishment of major futures markets, which coincided roughly with Las Vegas and the multi-state Lotto.

Of course, the courses offered in a College of Practical Knowledge would need to be refined and expanded from this brief description. But this gets us started. However, until parents see how their children might do in this kind of horse-sense course of study, they might want to pay college tuition and room and board only on a weekly basis.

Yards, what are they good for?
By Mitch Jayne

What a whole lot of people wonder these days is just who, in whatever country, came up with the idea of people having yards, or lawns or the responsibility of mowing either one? Did people once just let the grass grow however high it wanted to, or did we all decide at once that it needed to be short to please somebody?

I took this question on a few years ago, when I discovered that lawn mowing was a competitive sport in small towns. Kind of like the “whet-banter” of old time harvesters, who would rattle their long whetstones on the scythe to challenge other haymakers to keep up. I never minded the small town challenge of who could mow the most, and I like bantering with neighbors as much as anyone, but I wondered just what crop we were fussing over?

It turns out, Americans didn’t invent the lawn mower, bless our hearts. That was a British invention, but what we did was make lawns open to inspection by neighbors, which was a lot worse. The Brits were fond of walled in yards they called “gardens” and kept their clipped grass showplaces to themselves. In America, though, one yard joins another and whichever one is neatest causes instant competition.

Most of us are good-natured about this and just roar around our yards with the biggest machinery we can afford (sort of like the way we drive) and settle for out-fertilizing and out-watering each other.

Now, here is the main question: Once the yard is a lawn with grass as neat and disciplined and free of unwanted growing things as a marine crew cut, what do we do with it? The English play croquet, bowl or put up badminton nets on theirs and hold “garden” parties, but not many Americans are attracted to this kind of stuff. We’re more inclined to horseshoes, outdoor barbecues, and noisy jig dancing on a platform—done to a Bluegrass band.

So why all this incessant close-cropped mowing here in the country’s heartland, where the tall grass prairie used to be? What got into us to make every house-yard a little emerald isle of close-cut grassy perfection rivaling a putting green?

I’m sorry to tell you that it was an American—a Yankee named Frederick Olmstead—who designed Chicago’s suburbs after the War Between the States and whose ideas about town lawns spread like wildfire. Fred was determined that everyone’s yard should look alike and declared that people whose yards looked rangy were “selfish, undemocratic and un-neighborly” and for emphasis added, “unchristian.”

Well, I don’t know about you, but hearing about this Yankee has done it for me. From now on, my lawn will only be mowed to keep the chiggers down, and maybe because I don’t like my wife walking through tall grass to hang up laundry, or don’t want ticks taking the place. But get this Fred, I’ll get someone else to mow it!