Cedar Falls gazette. [volume] (Cedar Falls, Iowa) 1860-1895, 1871-06-02

Extracts from an Address by Horac'
Greeley, Of New York, at the Stat,
Agricultural Fair, Houston, Texas
May %, 1871.
Ia Agriculture a rerulsive pursuit
That which has been called Farming
has repealed many of the youth Of
our day, perceive; and glory in
rhe fact. An "A merican boy, who
has received a fair common school
education, and has an active, inquir.
ing mind, does not willingly consent
merely to drive oxen and hold pillow
forever. He will do these with alac>
rity If they come in his way; he will
not accept them as the be>all and the
end-all of bis career. He will not sit
down ia q rude, slovenly naked home
devoid of flowers and trees, and
books and periodicals, and intelli.
gent, inspiring, refining converse
ton, and there plod through life of
drudgery, as hopeless and cherries
as any mules. He has needs, and
hopes, and aspirations, which this
life does not and ought not to satisfy.
This might have served his progeni-
tor in the Ninth Century; but this ia
the Nineteenth, and the young
American knows it. He needs to
feel the Intellectual life of the period
flowing freely into and through him
needs 10 feel that, though the City
and Railroad are out of sight, the
latter daily brings within his reach
nil that Is noblest and best in the
achievements and attractions of the
former. He may not listen to Sum-
ner or Thurman in the Senate, to
Ward Beecher or Tying in the pulpit
hut the Press multiplies their best
thoughts and most forcible express
ions at the rate of ten to twenty
thousand copies per hour, and its
Issues are within the reach of every
industrious family. Any American
farmer, who has two hands and
knows how TO use them may, at fifty
years Of age. have a better library
than King Solomon ever dreamed of,
slough he declared that of making
Of books there was no end" any in
felli2pht farmers son may have a
better knowledge of Nature and her
laws when twenty years old, than
Aristotle or Pliny ever attained
The Steam Engine, the Electric Tel
graph and the Power Press, have
brought knowledge nearer to the
humblest cabin than it was, ten cen.
turtles since, to the stateliest mansion;
let the cabin be careful not to dis
parage or repel it. To arrest the
rush of our youth to the cities, we
have only to diffuse what is best Of
she cities through the country, and
[his the latest triumph of Civiliza-
ton enables US easily to do. A home
irradiated by the best thoughts of
the sages and heroes Of all time, ever
though these be compressed within
a few Rusty volumes, cheered by the
frequent arrival Of two or three peri
edieals aud surrounded by such floral
evidences of taste end refinement as
are within the reach of the poorest
owner of the soil he tills, will not be
spurned as prison by any youth not
thoroughly corrupted and utterly de-
PRAYED.
But thousands of farmers are more
intent on leaving money and lands
TO their children. than on informing
and enriching their minds. They
s'arve their souls in order to pamper
their bodies. They grudge their
sons that which would make them
truly wise in order to provide them
with what can at best but make them
rich i'm corn OF cattle, while poor in
manly purpose and generous ideas.
+. Only good Farming pays. He
who sows or plants without reasona-
BILE assurance of good crops annually,
might better earn wages of some ca
pable neighbor, than work for so
poor a raymsster as himself.
III. The good farmer Is proved
su III by the steady appreciation Of hts
crops. ANY one may reap an ample
from fertile virgin soil, the
good farmer alone grows good crops
ut first, and better and better ever
III. IT is far easier to maintain
capacity of q farm than
TO restore ii. TO exhaust its fecundi-
ty, and then attempt its restoration
by buying costly commercial ferti-
lizers, is wasteful and irrational.
~. The good farmer sells mainly
such products as are least e1hdtsttce.
Necessity may constrain him, for the
first year or two, to sell Grain, or
even Hay; but he will send off his
surplus mainly in the form of Cotton
or Wool, or Meat, or Butter and
Cheese, or something else that re-
turns to the soil nearly all that lie
taken from it. A bank accornt daily
drawn upon, while nothing Is de-
10 70
spond mo funds" SO with a farm
similarly treated.
V. Rotation is at least negative
Fertilization. 1t may not positively
enrich farm; 1t will at least retard
and postpone its impoverishment.-
He who grows Wheat after Wheat,
Corn after Corn, for twenty years,
will need to emigrate before that
term is fulfilled. The same farm
can not support, nor endure him any
longer than that. All our Wheat
growing sections of fifty years are
Wheat. growing no longer, while
England grows larger crops thereof
on the very fields that fed the ar
mics of Saxon Harold and William
the Conqueror. Rotation has pre-
served these, as the lack OF it ruined
those.
VI. Wisdom, is ncrcr dear, proCid-
ed the article is genuine. i have
known farmers who toiled constant
ly, from daybreak to dark, yet dieG
poor, because, through ignorance,
they wrought TO disad vantage. III
every farmer would devote tive
hours of each day TO reading and re-
Fiction, there would be fewer fail
ures in farming than there are.
VII. The best Investment a farmer
can make for his children, is that
mhich surrounds their youth Nth the
rational detightS of q bcdutious at
tractire home. The dwelling may
be small and rude, yet a few flowers
will EN- llish, as choice fruit trees
will ennch and gladden. it; while
grass and shade are within the reach
Of the humblest. Hardly any labor
done on farm is so profitable as that.
which makes the wife and children
fond and proud OF their homes.
VIII. Il good. practical Educa-
ton, including q good trade, Is q bet
ter outfit for q youth, than q grand es.
tote Uith the draaback Of an empty
mind. Many parents have shaved
and pinehed TO leave their children
rich, when half the sum thus Laws
ished, would have protited them far
more had it been devoted to the cul-
tivation of their minds, the enlarge
ment Of their capacity to think, OBJ
serve and work. The one structure
that no neighboIhood can afford to
80 without is the school-house.
TX. n sn,dH library Of soeu select
CT books in his home has sared many
% youth from spandcri,tg into the bale.
FIJI udys Of the Prodigat Son. Where
strictness and severity
would have bred nothing but dislike
and O fixed resolve to abscossd ut the
first opportunity, good books and