THE ORGANIZATION OF A CADET CAMP
In organizing camps for supplying cadet labor it is well to keep
in mind that they are to be established on the basis of a business
proposition; that they are not primarily play camps or recreational
camps; that they are not to be located on a river or lake because there
happens to be a good place for boys to swim, if there are not paying
jobs near that river or lake on which the boys may work; that they are
not to be established at random without reference to the continuity
of work during the season, or without any real knowledge of the local
demand for labor.
Out of considerable experience during the past year it has been
discovered that there are three great elements: first, the boy; second,
the farmer; and third, the job. In addition there are the elements of
leadership, of housing, and of cooking. Of course there must also be
considered the elements of recreation, religious observances, and the
general social life of the camp.
With reference to the boy it would seem that he ought to be one of a
group which belongs to a public-school system, or to an institution,
or to some society or organization which is ready to coöperate in
placing him in a farm camp. We are hardly prepared as yet to take
individual boys, unassociated with any organization, and bring them
together in a camp where the lack of unity will give the leader little
hold. A number of boys from New York City were picked up at random and
sent out to a distant place up-state under the direction of a leader
who had never seen them before. The boys had not met one another until
they were put on a train in New York. Not coming from any single school
or organization, they felt no particular responsibility to anyone. All
they knew about the proposition was that they were to go to a certain
place, where they would be met by someone who was to conduct them to a
camp. They were undisciplined and later proved to be unmanageable. At
the very start the plan lacked that coördinating influence which would
have existed if the leader had been a teacher in a school from which
these boys had come as one group, or if a Y.M.C.A. boys' secretary had
organized a group from his association. Of course, some day a way may
be found to bring together a group of boys independent of previous
association and place them in a new environment in about the same way
that adult labor is gathered up in the streets of New York and shipped
by employment agencies to some distant point. But boys are not men.
The responsibility of sending a more or less irresponsible youth to a
distant point by the same methods that are used by employment agencies
in sending men is too great for any state or community to undertake.
It is generally understood that the best boys for farm work are
those who are over 16 years of age. This is true, of course, of boys
who engage in general farm work, such as plowing, milking, horse
cultivating, haying, and harvesting grains and potatoes. Many such boys
were placed in the dairying and general-farming regions of New York
State. These boys, in most cases, lived with the individual farmer and
were paid by the month. But it has been found from experience that the
14-year-old boy is often better adapted to certain types of farm work
than is the older boy. For example, the young boy, with his adolescent
enthusiasm, his nimbler fingers, and his general physical alertness,
is more desirable for picking small fruits, such as strawberries,
currants, raspberries, blackberries, gooseberries, and cherries. _The
14-year-old boy must, however, work on a different basis from the one
who is over 16._
It is necessary for the boys to pass a physical examination, because
no state authorities care to assume the responsibility of taking the
physically unfit. It is taken for granted that the boy is to fit into
the organization of the camp as a business proposition and that he is
to stick to his work, pay his share of the cost of the food and its
preparation, respond to leadership, and in every way do his part toward
promoting the general efficiency of the camp.
The enlistment blank used by the New York State Military Training
Commission is shown on page 276.
The farmer is as important an element as the boy; yes, even more
important, for the boy gradually loses his individuality in the camp
conscience. The individual farmer remains an individual. He has his
notions of what boys can do; he compares the work of the inexperienced
boy with the adult foreign labor which he has previously employed.
The latter has, until very recently, been available. Women with their
children came to his farm and picked the small fruits without much
regard to the length of the day's work or to living conditions, and, of
course, without any reference to the social life of the community. This
labor went out as it came in. If it did not like the job because the
pay was insufficient, it demanded higher wages and got them or left the
job and moved on to the next one.
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NEW YORK STATE MILITARY TRAINING COMMISSION |
| BUREAU OF VOCATIONAL TRAINING |
| ENLISTMENT AS FARM CADET |
| |
|Name________________________________________________________________ |
|Residence_____________________________________________________Street |
|Age________yr. Height________ft.________in. Weight________lb. |
|Place of enlistment_________________________________________________ |
| (Name of institution, club, or association) |
+=====================================================================+
|I desire to enlist for farm work |Kind of work desired; as |
|and will report for service: |picking fruit, vegetable gardening,|
| |general farming, etc. |
+---------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
|From mo.___day___to mo.___day___ | |
|From mo.___day___to mo.___day___ | |
+---------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
|Can you drive a team?______________Can you milk?____________________ |
|Can you drive an automobile?________________________________________ |
|State briefly any other farm experience you have had. |
|_____________________________________________________________________|
|I have examined the applicant and do assert that he is physically |
|fit to do farm work. |
| ____________________________________ |
| (Physician's signature) |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
|I permit_________________________________)to enlist for farm work as |
|stated above________________________________________________________ |
| (Parent or guardian) |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
It did not mind shacks which lodged vermin. It was not particular about
sanitary conveniences; it was not particular about anything except
wages. In shifting from adult foreign labor to boy labor, the farmer
was obliged to readjust his mental attitude. Not only that, but he
often had to readjust the physical, economic, and social conditions on
his farm.
In April, at the time the New York agricultural census was taken, the
farmer said that he needed labor. He even said he would take boy labor,
but when it came actually to engaging such labor, he was inclined
to ridicule the idea. Untrained city boys were not in great demand
in May, but when the foreign labor did not appear on the scene and
strawberries were ripening on the vines, the farmer suddenly discovered
that he could use the untrained city boy. But he had expected the boys
not only to work as many hours but also to pick as carefully and as
much as adults. He expected the boys to work at the same price as had
foreigners for years past, regardless of the advance in price of food
and the standards of living. Of course he was disappointed, and this
is where the leader of the camp, through his authority, represents the
interests of the boys and the newer conditions of farm labor which have
come out of the employment of boys.
An instance of what happened in Highland, New York, will illustrate the
power of leadership on the part of a camp leader and the coöperative
instinct of a group of city boys who have considerable familiarity with
the principles of strikes, lockouts, picket duty, and street-corner
oratory. The boys were being paid one and one-half cents a quart for
currant picking. In years past this had been the usual rate. They
could, on the average, pick about 40 quarts a day, which brought them
$3.60 a week, assuming that they worked for six days in the week
and there was no rain or other interruptions. Meanwhile each boy's
proportion of the board at camp amounted to about $3.50 a week. At
this point a combination of training in school debating, listening
to speeches of industrial disturbers, and a knowledge of trade-union
methods came into play, for these boys gathered together and determined
to demand two cents a quart. They held a meeting and voted to strike
for two cents. They marched around the berry-storage houses, each
wearing an empty berry basket as a cap, on which was marked "two cents"
and which was decorated more or less artistically with bunches of
currants. A meeting of all farmers of the district was called by the
general camp supervisor of the district. The boys had presented their
arguments to the individual camp leaders, and in turn the supervisor
presented them to the farmers. The farmers, in turn, presented their
difficulties. They said they could not afford to pay more; talked about
middlemen, commission-men, express rates, greater cost of baskets and
crates, mortgage on the farm, and everything, in fact, except the
federal income tax. But the boys won out, and the meeting resulted in
a new price never before paid for picking currants. And the boys who,
up to then, had been able to pick only 40 quarts a day, were able to
gather many more after the advance in rate, picking 60 quarts a day
instead of 40 quarts. There are people who can read into this short
story an economic principle.
It is absolutely necessary to have a clear understanding between the
boy-camp group, through its leader or the organization sending the
camp, and the individual farmer or the group of farmers employing the
boys, as to fundamental points of remuneration, type of work expected,
length and permanency of service.
The boy-camp-group problem is wholly different from the problem
of the individual boy who works for an individual farmer and has
no established relations with any camp. The latter is a contract
relationship between the boy and the farmer. The farmer usually hires
the boy by the month for general farm work, and the duties incident to
such a job are familiar to everyone. The hours may be long or short,
the work hard or easy, the food good or bad, the boy's room clean or
unsanitary; but there is nothing unusual in this problem.
The one which is discussed here is that of the labor camp, where a
group of boys are projected into a strange community to work at a job
unfamiliar to the majority of them,--working for a farmer or a group
of farmers who have never before employed such a type of labor. Any
single employer of farm labor who is in a position to employ a group of
boys may be assumed either to be conducting a large farm on which there
is a great diversity of crops extending over a wide range of time of
harvesting, or to be a specializing farmer working in an intensive way
on a comparatively small area with special crops which are harvested in
short periods of time. Perhaps it may be better to think of three types
of jobs, or rather, three types of employers who have jobs to be filled
by groups of boys.
First, there is the individual farmer who is a specialist. Such
employers grow berries and other small fruits. Here the boys get very
little farm experience. They do obtain an idea of country life, and
they have excellent camp experience, but in order to learn much about
the fruit and berry business they ought to be on the farm during the
time of spraying, pruning, and fertilizing. In reality these boys are
but factory hands under farm conditions. Of course this type of work is
extremely well adapted to the inexperienced boy.
Second, there is the type of employer represented by the vegetable
grower. In this case it is readily seen that crops are put into the
ground as early as April, and seeding may continue until the fifteenth
of August, and with weeding, thinning, and cultivating, the work may
continue practically throughout the season. The harvesting of certain
crops may start late in June and continue until the ground freezes. In
this work the boys obtain the very best sort of farm experience outside
of that obtained from general farm work. The work which they do is
diversified, and they learn about many farm operations.
Third, another type of employer is the business organization made up of
farmers; as, for example, the shippers' or growers' association, where
a group of farmers unite under a more or less compact organization for
the purpose of raising and moving crops. Another illustration--somewhat
different for the reason that the organization is not made up of
farmers, but rather is allied with farmers--is that of a canning
company. In working for such a type of employer the boy may or may not
gain considerable agricultural experience, depending entirely upon
whether he is working on diversified crops for long periods of time or
doing specialized harvesting. It is necessary to keep in mind these
different types of work as represented by different types of employers.
It is clear that in some sections, under certain agricultural
conditions already described, the job might be guaranteed a group of
boys from the middle of April until the first of November, with almost
steady work for six days in the week. The nature of crops and weather
conditions determine continuity of work. A heavy rain means a good deal
of cultivating and weeding immediately afterward in order to conserve
the moisture. A light rain means that the boys can work for part of
the day in the fields, while in the case of small-fruit farming even
a slight rain prevents the picking of the fruit. Again, in vegetable
farming a boy may work all day if the fields are not too hot, without
any injury to his health or to the crops, because the vegetable plants
cannot be injured by handling, no matter how hot it is.
In the case of the specialized farmer, there is little or no guarantee
for work beyond a short and definite period; that is, the period is
necessarily short, but whether or not it is definite depends a great
deal upon the weather and prices of crops. It is obvious that an
abundant crop might cause a low market price,--a price too low to pay
for picking,--and employers who early in the season thought that they
wanted a group of boys might decline to accept them at the last moment.
They might even contract for the boy-labor camp and after the boys had
picked for a few days desire to drop the whole enterprise because of
a fall in the market price,--a fall which would not be evident until
the crops commenced to come. Or, again, the employer might contract
for a camp of boys to pick strawberries, for example, and complete
arrangements might be made for bringing the boys to the locality,
only to have the camp project abandoned because a week of rain had
absolutely ruined the strawberry crops. Such an experience was met
in New York State the past season. A hailstorm in Chautauqua County
completely destroyed in a few minutes the prospects of a camp for the
harvesting of tomatoes. Now, it is evident that it is a difficult
matter always to guarantee a job.
The Bureau of Vocational Training of the Military Training Commission
of New York State requested the zone representatives in the
farm-placement bureaus to see to it that jobs were guaranteed to
boys and that the time of service, place of service, and pay should
be clearly stated. It furthermore recommended that the job should
be guaranteed in writing by a single farmer, by a group of farmers,
or by the corporation desiring these boys; that the employing party
should state the kind of work, the pay, the number of boys needed, the
duration of service, the living conditions, the provisions made for the
food supply for the first week, and so on. It made it clear that there
should be an assurance in writing of what the boys were to expect, and
that someone should be delegated to see that the employer lived up to
his agreement. Out of a theory not based upon any previous experience
it was obviously easy to write up such a statement, but to expect it to
be carried out without a hitch in all parts of the state and for all
kinds of work and all types of employers, not taking into consideration
climatic and market conditions, to say nothing about the prejudices and
idiosyncrasies of employers and boys, was to count the chickens before
they were hatched. About all that can be said at this stage of this
movement is in illustration of the way the job guarantee was handled.
In what follows it must be kept in mind that much of what has been said
or what may be said about the proposition of guaranteeing the job is
not at all difficult to carry out in the case of general farming and
is only moderately difficult in the case of vegetable growing.
Every camp failure due to the lack of a workable contract justifies the
original contention that guaranteeing the job is extremely important.
MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING IN REFERENCE TO THE SOUTH LIMA (NEW
YORK) CAMP
Between the New York State Military Training Commission
Farm-Cadet Bureau, West Central Zone (Nathaniel G. West, Field
Inspector, Rochester, New York) and the Growers' and Shippers'
Association of South Lima, New York.
* * * * *
The Farm-Cadet Bureau, West Central Zone, agrees:
1. To furnish 25 or more unskilled farm cadets, 16 to 19 years
of age, for labor on muck and upland farms.
2. To furnish a camp leader, who shall have general charge of
the camp of boys, who shall hire out the boys to near-by farmers,
collect all wages, and purchase supplies.
3. That the camp leader shall keep an accurate account of all
wages paid to farm cadets and percentage collected, such accounts
to be open for inspection by committee designated by the Growers'
and Shippers' Association.
4. To furnish a competent camp cook who shall prepare all meals
for the farm cadets.
5. To pay each week, through the camp leader, to the Growers'
and Shippers' Association a sum for overhead expenses, as explained
below,--such sum to be procured by adding to all wages earned by
the cadets a sum equal to five per cent of such wages.
The Growers' and Shippers' Association agrees:
1. To provide work, as continuously as possible, for each of
the farm cadets in the above camp from June 11, 1917, to November
3, 1917.
2. To pay wages for each farm cadet at the rate of $2 per day's
work, such day's work not to exceed ten hours.
3. To pay at the end of such week to the camp leader all wages
earned by farm cadets during that week.
4. To pay in addition to the above wages a sum equal to 5 per
cent of the wages, such sum to be turned over to treasurer of the
Growers' and Shippers' Association for payment of overhead expenses
of the camp.
5. To arrange for rental of suitable quarters for the cadets,
furnish two ranges and fuel for same, furnish 27 or more cots,
tables, benches, and chairs for the quarters, install a telephone,
and arrange with local grocer for two weeks' credit for the camp
leader for the purchase of supplies.
6. To pay for the items mentioned under 5, above, out of the 5
per cent received from the camp leader, as agreed above.
MASSACHUSETTS PLAN OF INDIVIDUAL AGREEMENT
WITH FARMER
To the Committee on Food Production and Conservation
(Department of Mobilization of Schoolboys for Farm Service)
Dear Sirs:
I hereby apply for ____________ boys to be employed by me
as general farm labor according to the terms and regulations
on the reverse side of this application.
I shall require these boys to begin work upon ______________
and probably require their services, if satisfactory,
until ______________________________________________________
I agree to pay each boy $4 per week for the first two
weeks, and $6 per week thereafter; such payment to be
made on Saturday of each week. (Afterwards changed, see
chapter on "Farm Cadets," p. 250.)
If the boy lives in a camp, I agree to pay $4 per week
for his board, and if he lives with me, I will furnish his
board; the above to be in addition to his wages.
I agree to employ the boy on rainy days as well as fair
days, and on rainy days to use his service as far as possible
under cover.
I agree, if the boy is unsatisfactory, to give him one
week's notice or one week's pay, providing him with a
statement in writing giving my reasons for his discharge.
Whenever in the opinion of the local supervisor, the conditions
of living or of labor are not satisfactory, the boy may
be withdrawn without prejudice to him.
The nature of the work for which the boy is required is
_______________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________
Sign here _____________________________________________
(Farmer)
Phone ____________ Street address _____________________
Date ________________________ Town ____________________
The right leadership in a camp is very essential. The camp, after all,
is but the lengthened shadow of its leader. It is not difficult to
write the qualifications essential to leadership in a boys' farm camp,
but it is another matter to find any one person who will fill all
the conditions that are peculiar to a labor camp. A hundred-point man
capable of measuring up to the problems involved in camp leadership
must have had experience in school or Association work. He would have
knowledge of cooking utensils and personal equipment necessary to
take to camp; capacity to arrange for transportation for the boys by
the most direct, convenient, and economical route; ability to deal
successfully with the problem of the first night in camp,--a night when
boys cannot or will not sleep, when they are stirred up by the novelty
of the situation. He would be able to recognize good, substantial,
nourishing food, and to see that the boys had proper food in such an
emergency as the camp cook's suddenly being taken ill or deserting his
job. He would have had experience in adjusting working conditions,
would know how many quarts of fruit, for example, the average boy
can pick; would be able to help these boys get the most out of their
work by showing them the most effective method of harvesting; would
understand how to use first-aid equipment. He would have to see that
the boys kept up correspondence with their homes. He might have to sit
up all night with a boy who had eaten more fruit than was good for him.
The right leader will also have to think of reading matter for the
camp and of the problem of having the boys attend church services on
Sunday when the membership of the camp has varied religious beliefs. He
may have some orthodox Jews in camp when the country village has only a
Methodist church. He must satisfy the boys who want to have a minstrel
show, or the townspeople who offer to entertain the boys. He may even
have to arbitrate in labor disputes. He may be the local placement
bureau. He should be able to drive an automobile, in order that he may
carry a flying squad five miles from camp for a day's work for a farmer
who is in immediate need. He must be able to answer the questions
asked on blanks sent out by the state departments of agriculture
and education, by city boards of education, by state Y.M.C.A.'s, by
child-labor bureaus, and by all other organizations more or less
directly interested in the new aspects of old problems. If the boys
have been excused from school, he must certify that their labor-camp
work has been equivalent to the school work which they otherwise would
have had. He must be the banker of the camp and help the boys conserve
the money which they earn. He is accountable to the group for the
expenses of the camp, in order that these may be divided pro rata. He
must be able to buy supplies at the least cost.
It is with deliberate intention that this list has been made lengthy
and of wide range, in order to show that no man exists who could meet
adequately every condition imposed. He is bound to be "born short," as
William Hawley Smith would state it, on some of these angles. If he
is a social-minded man of the Boy Scout or Y.M.C.A. type, he will be
long on entertainments, recreation, food requirements, knowledge of
personal equipment, group work, first aid, and sanitation. If he is
of the school-teacher type, he will probably be strong on discipline,
efficient in looking after details of school credits, camp expenses,
records, moral conditions, letter writing, and keeping boys busy. If he
is a technical man in agriculture, he may know nothing about baseball
on Saturday afternoon or how to organize a minstrel show, but he will
probably know how to do more than keep boys busy. He will keep them
effectively busy; that is, he will arrange to have certain boys do the
lines of work adapted to their skill and knowledge. He will discover
ways of utilizing the labor of the unskilled boy. He will be able to
judge whether or not a boy is working to his full capacity, and he may
be somewhat pitiless if the boy does not measure up to a farm-labor
standard. In other words, such a man will be very largely interested
in a working camp. He will be interested in meeting the conditions
imposed by the farmers. He will know that the berries must be expressed
by four o'clock and that the picking may have to stop promptly at
two. He will know that a leaky crate of raspberries means a low price
for possibly a whole carload. He will be less interested, perhaps, in
the balanced ration and more interested in using the products of the
community on the camp table. He will not be interested in the records
required by school officials so much as in those expected of him by the
farm-bureau agent. In short, his idea is to promote agriculture and not
to promote the county Y.M.C.A. movement, the back-to-the-farm movement,
or any other movement which may be allied with the farm-cadet service.
It is not possible to find any one man who is socially, pedagogically,
and agriculturally minded. If he claims to be good in all three fields
he probably is mediocre. The experience of the past year, however,
shows some remarkably fine work done by leaders of boy camps. Some
have been public-school teachers who have given their summer services
for nothing or for a nominal fee. Some have been released from their
duties as Y.M.C.A. secretaries in order that the association might make
a contribution to the farm-cadet movement. Some have been physical
directors in public schools. Some have been scout masters among the Boy
Scouts. Others have been agricultural teachers who saw that this work
was, after all, in the line of their usual duties.
The following illustrates one of the hundred things which a camp leader
must know about:
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| INSTRUCTIONS TO FARM CADETS ENLISTED FOR CAMP-SQUAD |
| SERVICE IN NEW YORK STATE |
| |
| _WHAT TO TAKE_ |
| NECESSARY ARTICLES |
| |
|Bed sack 75 × 30 inches (to be stuffed with straw at camp) |
|or cot mattress; enamel-ware plate, cup, saucer, sauce dish, also |
|knife, fork, and spoon; dinner pail or box, two heavy blankets, |
|small pillow, working clothes, sweater, gymnasium shirt, raincoat |
|or old overcoat, heavy shoes, toothbrush, tooth powder, small |
|mirror, towels, extra socks, rubbers or rubber boots, extra underwear,|
|hairbrush, comb, soap, handkerchiefs, pajamas, a good |
|disposition, and a spirit of loyalty to the camp and its aims. |
| |
| DESIRABLE ARTICLES |
| |
|Musical instruments, camera, baseball, glove, bat, needles, |
|thread, safety pins, notebook, pencils, writing paper, envelopes, |
|good books, magazines. |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
The methods of housing the boys differ widely. Ordinarily one thinks
of tents as being the most feasible, but the scarcity and high cost of
such equipment during the past year prevented the boys from living
under canvas. Generally speaking, it would be better to think in terms
of something more permanent than tents, as these do not last more than
three years, and if the camp idea of harvesting crops by the use of
boys is to continue,--and many believe it will,--it is advisable to
plan for a permanent and inexpensive type of building. A rough board
shack with a good roof is highly desirable in the early spring days and
in the late fall.
Many of the cadets in New York State camps were quartered in berry
houses (which are really packing and storage houses located in the
berry fields), in vacant houses, in schoolhouses, in grange halls, and
in buildings located on the fair grounds. Most of these berry houses
were two stories high, the first floor being used for the commissary
department and the second floor for dormitories. In such cases the
berries were packed in temporary shacks adjoining the berry houses. In
other cases the boys have used the first floor for a sitting room and
built a rough shack back of the berry or storage house for kitchen and
dining room.
One of the most significant camping places was that of a two-room
schoolhouse, where cots for fifty boys were put into the rooms, and
the basement was used as a kitchen. The boys built a table outside
and put up a canopy over it for a dining room. They next dammed up
a brook which ran back of the schoolhouse and made what they termed
a "bathtub," which was capable of holding about six boys at a time.
They also put into fine condition the rather disreputable schoolhouse
latrines. These boys made the schoolhouse ring at night with their
popular school songs; the old piano did its best to bring together the
heritages of the East Side and of the Highlands of the Hudson.
There are several ways of making provision for camp equipment. One
is to develop, under state, county, or local auspices, a series of
permanent camp quarters located in small-fruit, large-fruit, and
muck-land districts. This equipment need not be expensive. It will be
located very near the source of labor demand and can always be used,
whether boy or adult labor is employed. Fruit and produce growers and
kindred establishments have in the past provided, more or less, for
such an equipment.
Another plan is to use schoolhouses, grange halls, vacant farm
buildings, and agricultural-fair equipment. It is unfortunate that so
much property ordinarily used for public purposes lies idle for long
periods of time. Some may say that the city boy will not leave country
property in good shape, but experience so far has shown that the city
boys have left things better than they found them.
Still another type already spoken of is tentage, and perhaps the best
way to provide such an equipment is to have the state furnish it
through the adjutant general's office.
The sanitary aspects of any type of camp are highly important. In
Massachusetts the committee of public safety, which established boy
camps, required that the sanitary conditions of these camps should be
inspected by the board of health, and the committee furnished full
directions and a blue print for the building of a sanitary latrine.
Some of the camps burn their garbage in home-made incineration plants.
Ordinary garden hose with a watering-pot sprinkler attachment, or an
elevated barrel with a sprayer attached, and filled by the use of a
pail and ladder, were shower-bath devices worked out by the boys in
various camps.
All the camps devised some method of keeping food cool, ranging from
those that had a real city ice chest down to those that cleaned out a
spring and set in it a bottomless, covered box.
The job of feeding boys in camp is not a sinecure. Every scheme has
been tried, from engaging at a salary of one hundred dollars a month
a Pullman dining-car chef down to, or shall it be said up to, a boy
cook. The cook problem in a labor camp is as difficult to handle as
is the so-called "servant" problem of the city. The average cook knows
more about cooking than he does about dietetics. He is very likely to
lack adaptability. He is usually untrained for camp cooking and is
not particularly open to suggestions. Experience seems to show that
the best cook is the one who has done work in a Y.M.C.A. camp or in
a Boy Scout camp. Of course, this year there was a great scarcity
of the latter class to be found, as they were needed in their own
organizations, and therefore many camps were obliged to employ a
local woman of the matronly type to cook for the boys; sometimes an
experienced camp leader has developed some good cooks among the boys
in camp. Perhaps the best results, however, were obtained from boys
who before the opening of camps were given from two to four weeks of
camp-cooking instruction in the school system from which they came.
These boys were ready to use the products of the localities, such
as peas, beans, tomatoes, radishes, lettuce, and corn, while the
professional cook often seemed more familiar with the use of the can
opener.
The quantity and variety of food was practically in the hands of
the boys themselves, assuming that the cook was a good one. If the
allowance of fruit for breakfast, for example, consisted of four
prunes or one banana or half an orange, and the group as a whole
desired a larger portion, it was perfectly possible for them to secure
it by so voting, for it must be remembered that the food expense of
the camps was divided pro rata among the boys. Under these conditions,
however, it was found that the boys were very economical and frowned
upon the few malcontents who wanted to gorge themselves.
The cafeteria style of serving prevailed generally.
Providing amusements in recreation camps is always a problem, but farm
cadets require little in the way of entertainment after eight or ten
hours of field service. Camp-fire talks on agriculture, corn roasts,
toasting marshmallows, giving musical entertainments and minstrel
shows, holding mock trials, playing baseball on Saturday afternoons or
Sundays, constitute the chief forms of recreation. In every instance
the lads have been well received in the local communities. They were
popular features at church entertainments, Red Cross benefits, and
country sociables. Often the boys, especially in the berry-picking
regions, went swimming about 4 P.M., after the crates had been sent by
the afternoon express.
In every instance the village church and the county Y.M.C.A. took an
active interest in the farm cadets. Many of the boys played musical
instruments, and their confidence in themselves was contributory to
many supplementary boy choirs. The country pastors evidently made it
a point to do what they could for the pleasure of all the boys, and
without exception there seemed to be no religious distinctions. In
some camps the Catholic priest expressed his fatherly feeling for the
lads. In others the Jewish and Catholic boys attended the union village
church. In brief, the boys entered into the spirit of the rural life,
and both the country folk and the youth of the city were the better for
it.
A study of the different camps in operation in various parts of the
country seems to indicate that they might be grouped under six heads as
follows.
I. _Concentration, or training, camps._ These are usually located in
agriculturally strategic sections of the state, where boys may receive
preliminary training in camp life and in farm work under disciplinary
and instructional conditions. Of course such a camp can do nothing more
than give the boys a training in the elements of farm activities (such
as harnessing a horse, running a hand cultivator, using a hoe, driving
a team) and serve as a trying-out period for weeding out boys who are
unsatisfactory. These camps cannot be considered places which will give
a preliminary agricultural education, for that is very different from
giving a preliminary idea of farm operations. After these boys have
received a course of such training, they are sent out under leadership
to work in a section of the state where a group may work for one farmer
and live at the camp meanwhile or may work for individual farmers
and live with the employer. Obviously it is taken for granted that
such a camp is located in a good agricultural section and that its
surroundings have something more than fine swimming holes or beautiful
scenery. These boys must be trained in an environment and under
conditions similar to the farm life in which they are to participate
later. It would seem that the agricultural colleges of the country
and the secondary schools of agriculture would, generally speaking,
offer splendid locations for establishing training camps. Here
would be found, or ought to be found, good land. This is not always
true, because occasionally an agricultural college has been located
irrespective of good land. The technical and dormitory facilities,
however, would be available for the boys in training.
II. _Farm-working, or labor-distributing, camps._ These are
concentration camps in a certain sense, but they are located directly
in the farm district where the boys, after receiving their preliminary
training, are to find work in the community adjoining the camp.
Several camps of this order have started out with the idea of giving
a preliminary training in agriculture in the camp itself, and have
borrowed or bought farming implements and teams and leased land in
order to give the training. But in the majority of cases this idea was
abandoned, for it was found that these boys could receive all their
preliminary training with the farmers, provided the leader of the camp
could establish helpful relations between the boy and the employing
farmer and could, out of his wisdom and experience, protect the boy in
the early stages of the work and guide him in all its stages. In other
words, in this type of camp a city man, acting as leader, comes into a
community with a group of boys who live at the camp but receive their
training with the near-by farmers. A labor-supply camp, composed of
able-bodied boys, is a type which adequately meets the need at small
expense.
III. _Military farm-training camp._ This is a type of camp where city
boys, under the direction of a school or some organization, go into a
farming community and open up new land which otherwise would not have
been put under cultivation. These boys stay at the camp during the
season. They do not work for the farmers near by, or, at least, not
ordinarily,--the intention being to establish a self-supporting and
self-maintaining camp for the use of the boys who attend. The land is
tilled, the seed planted, and the harvest gathered for the benefit of
the boys. Any profits are given to the boys or to the school, and any
expenses for conducting the camp, or overhead charges, usually come out
of the organization or school represented. It is questionable whether,
generally speaking, this type of camp is on a sound economic and
agricultural basis. If such a camp could be carried on for a number of
years with a strong school or other organization behind it, and plenty
of capital, it is very likely that it would succeed. It takes capital
to establish good soil conditions and purchase tools, farm machinery,
and stock, and to put up buildings. It is a highly desirable type of
camp to consider in terms of many years or where a school wishes to
give its boys a military and farm experience. But in the food emergency
through which the country is now passing, it is doubtful if this type
of camp should ever have been started. It is, however, an excellent
type to establish as a permanent adjunct to a city school system.
IV. _Coöperative camp where the boys share in proceeds._ This type
of camp is practically like III, and if the farm land is new and the
camp leader is untrained in agricultural operations and the boys are
unskilled, it is about as likely to be doomed to failure as is the
other.
V. _The village- or country-school type of camp._ This is a camp
where the schoolboys, under the leadership of a teacher, go to the
outskirts of the village and develop a garden. If the land is good and
the teacher knows agriculture and the boys attend to business, they
will most certainly receive an excellent practical training useful to
them in life. They will have learned how to work in the soil, how to
work together for a common purpose, how to stick to a job until it is
finished, how to look ahead from the time seed is purchased until the
crop is placed in the hands of the customer. All these things are good
and they are useful to any boy, but, of course, from the standpoint
of increasing the food supply in any large way through the growing of
wheat, feed corn, oats, rye, buckwheat, potatoes, and large fruits
there is little to be said. The work is to be commended on the basis of
its value to the individual boy.
VI. _Short-term camp, sometimes called "flying squadron"._ This type
of camp is advisable only in an intensive-farming region where quick
service for the harvesting period is needed. The squad itself will
serve to keep a balance between the demand for labor and the supply.
It is easy to picture a fruit region around and through which are a
number of camps. Each one ought to be working to the limit, but, of
course, as a matter of fact in one section there would be a greater
demand for boys than could be met by the local camp. It is at this time
that the flying squadron comes in, when, in response to the SOS call,
a group of temporarily idle boys from one camp may be sent to another
camp which is short of help.