You should be a skilled marksman; you couldn't hit a
wash-tub at ten paces. You should swim like a fish, with a hundred lakes
in your country; you'd drown if you were thrown in the middle of one and
left to yourself. You ought to be able to row a boat as well as it can be
done, and cast a line with all the skill any lad of your age possesses.
That you can't make even a fair showing at any sport, results from the
fact that every time your father had a minute to spare he took you and
headed straight for Multiopolis. Here's the golf links at our door, and if
ever any game was a farmer's game, and if any man has a right to hold up
his head, and tramp his own hills, and swing a strong arm and a free one,
and make a masterly stroke, it's a _land owner_. There's no reason why
plowing and tilling should dull the brains, bend the back, or make a pack-
horse of a man. Modern methods show you how to do the same thing a better
way, how to work one machine instead of ten men, how to have time for a
vacation, just as city men do, and how to have money for books, and music,
and school, instead of loading with so much land it's a burden to pay the
taxes.
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