The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1871-11-18
FARMERS, CLUBS.

FARMERS CLUBS.
The long evenings have again appeared
in their annual round, when the farmer, If
ever, has some hours daily, for recreation,
study, or to form plans for the future year.
There is no other class of men manages so
extensive and important an industry as the
farmer, and none other, we believe, has so
little cooperation and concert of action
The greatest drawback upon the agricul-
tural interest is its sole reliance on unthink
ing, delving labor. Any business conducted
in this manner, soon becomes mere drudge,
without excitement or animation for its
devotees. Bankers, merchants, and all
other great employments and professions
have their boards, conventions, ETC., where
broad, far-reaching, and comprehensive
plans are discussed, and formed, and
arrangements made for concert of action.
The new ideas and discoveries which have
been evolved by experience are, at these
periodic meetings. discussed and analysed,
and whatever promises to be useful is
adopted as an assistant in future operations.
The farmer, on the other hand, shows little
of this disposition to better his condition
by utilizing the thoughts and experience OF
the whole to advance and perfect the bust
ness of each individual of the class. With
the close of day he retires to his fire-side,
where he eats, sleeps, and rests his weary
limbs for another days battle of bone and
muscle, against the rugged obstacles which
lie in his path, when the dawn summons
him again to labor. The great, rich store
house of brain, so relied on by all other
pursuits and callngs, is regarded as of
secondary importance in the work of the
farmer. He knows that seed-time and har-
vest, Summer and Winter, day and night,
are promised to the end of all things, and
he seems to model his unvarying round of
labor Oh these unchanging principles. New
demands are constantly being made on the
farmer for other products than he has been
in the habit of supplying, and old crops on
which the chief reliance of the cultivator
of the soil of fifty years ago was placed.
are now classed among the least remunera-
tive, because supplied from richer and more
productive fields. But to these new de-
mands how reluctantly our farmer seems
to respond. This conservative disposition,
and desire to cling to the products and
modes of husbandry his father taught him,
in defiance of the demands of the hurry
ing, progressive world, whose daily wants
he is constantly called on to supply, is in a
great measure owing to his isolated habits.
What our farmers are in most pressing
need of, is to comprehend the change in
everything which is SO rapidly going on
around them; and then concerted effort
to adapt their business to supply the new
demands.
The first step, it seems to us, would be
neighborhood societies or clubs, with a
comprehensive and well defined plan of
business, which provided some work for
each member to do against certain time
This would open new field for thought
and create an interest which would prove
alike pleasant and profitable. There is
nothing more important to the farming
interest of this section of country than
improvement in their stock. Experience
has settled one principle in this matter,
which leaves no doubt as to the proper
mode to be pursued in the accomplishment
of this important matter, namely, that to
improve all kinds of stock, it is important
that the male animals shall be of pure
blood. One pure bred male animal is suf
cient for several farmers such as cultivate
the soil Of Cecil, and by joint ownership
such animals could be procured with but
trifing outlay by each individual. Stock
which will command fifty to hundred per
cent higher price in the market, than the
majority of the present stock kept, will
not consume any more food, but may
require better care, but taking the proper
care of stock will always pay large profit
on the labor expended.
We might pursue this prolific subject to
an indefinite extent; but every farmer, by
a little reflection, will readily perceive that
the public demands many things which he
can produce, that it did not few years
ago, and that cooperation is the only hope
of the small farmer and man Of limited
means. No single farmer can meet the
expenses that new and improved mode of
farming demands, but much could be done
by combined effort.