New national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1870-1874, 1873-09-18

KNOWS how II make, save, and apply il
My advice tn you Is to 20 and do likewise
l our first maxim should be let nothing h,
wasted! Nothing that will rot in the rr5unf
ia useless, and nothing should be allowed /,
decay unused. The very water and soar
employed in washing your hands and clothe.
should find their way to your trimly-arranged
bed OF compost. The bones from your table
should be made also to do double duty. The
soil Of England is richer and Yields better
crops to-day than two hundred years ago,
and the reason is the same there as in China
They attend to the wants of the soil as well
as to their own. Feed the land and it will
iced you. Starye the land and it will starye
you!
AGRICULTURAL BOOKS AND PAPERS.
/ knowledge is power. There is no work
that men are required to do, which they can
not better and more economically do with
education than without it. The trouble with
US as people has been to work without a
knowledge of the theory of work. We could
| build ships if some one would draft them
/ We could build house if some one would
draw the plan. All that we have done has
been by rote. We have farmed without the
knowledge of the philosophy of farming We
have used our muscles, but not our minds
Under the old regime we were not expected
We were not allowed to profit even BY our
own experience, and to do things in the
easiest and best way which our practical
knowledge might suggest. The master and
the overseer directed every stroke, and we
were but living machines. All is changed
now. The machine must begin to think, and
in this the reading Of agricultural books and
papers will materially assist. 1t used to be
said, If you want to keep a secret from a
negro, put it in book or newspaper. This
must be so no longer Every eolored farmer
and mechanic should take and read one or
more of the many excellent mechanic and
agricultural journals. If you cannot read
yourself, let your son or daughter read to you
Depend upon it, an hour spent in this way
will do more for you than the labor Of any
other hour in the day. Muscle il mighty,
but mind is mightier, and there is no better
field for the exercise of mind than is found in
the cultivation of the soil.
THE FARMERS NATURAL ENEMIES.
| shall attempt no solution of the origin of
evil in the world. Whether it came by the
fall of Adam or the fall of anybody else, |
neither know nor care, for it does not matter.
1t is enough to know that we have it and it
is in abundance, and that the best use we
can make Of it is to resist and destroy it as
far as we can. All nature teens with it, and
the life of a farmer is a constant battle. He
not only has to contend with the elements,
but with all manner of destructive insects.
Flies, bugs, worms, caterpillars, grasshop-
pers, ami locusts spring out of the ground
like armed warriors and endeavor to flank
and defeat him. He must fight or die. His
foes will neither treat nor compromise. tits
skill or be killed." Not an hour is to be
lost. Time gives strength to the enemy and
weakness to the farmer. This insect host
must he met and stamped out without delay.
The advantage of q single hour will some
times enable the caterpillar to ruin Your fruit
crop. Prevention is better than cure, and it
is better to destroy those enemies in their
eggs than to wait until they are full of life
and activity. The warrior uses the telescope
to discover his enemy. The farmer should
in its use, he can anticipate his foe. Indeed,
you should go a step further than this. You
should not only make war upon the enemy,
but upon the conditions Of his existence.
Like most of the enemies of human life and
welfare, they originate in darkness and in all
manner of unclean and unsightly places.
Break up the nest Of weed, brier, and thorns
in your fence corners. Take away your old,
rotten and wOrm-eaten ground rail. Put a
sound one in its place. Let III the bright
sunlight and the pure air. summon fire and
crs of vermin to prey upon your crops. For
when you have done all in your power, you
will still see more to do, but you will at least
be rewarded by abundant returns for your
wisdom, courage, vigilance and industry.
UNION AND IMPROVEMENT.
Gentlemen, approach this subject with
less confidence of meeting your approval
than at other points. As race, we have
g. 10
arrangement on the one hand, and undue
praise on the other. / propose to err on
neither side. This question of improvement
or non-improvement involves the whole sub
ject of Our destiny as part of the American
people. In other words, it is the question
whether we shall advance or recede, rise or
fall survive or perish for one or the other
of these things must necessarily happen TO
us. To stand still is utterly impossible. If
we even could hold our own, and stand where
we now are, the effect of Improvement in all
around us would make our standing still pos
tive retrogression. OF course, gentlemen,
we stand to-day in point Of civilization far in
the rear of our white fellow-citzens. We
are, in fact, wearing the old clothes left by
by-gone generation. The books We read,
the sermons we hear, the prayers we repeat,
are all obtained from the white race. We
have neither made books, sermons, prayers,
nor hymns. We have no science nor phi.
losophy of our own. We have neither history
nor poetry As Andrew Johnson used to
say Of Congress "We are hanging on the
verge" of the white mans civilization, 1t
is painful to make such an admission as this
but nothing is gained by concealng the truth
either from ourselves or from others
The question, which the future has to an
swer, is i: Whether the negro is what be is
to-day because Of his mental and moral con-
stitution, or because he has been enslaved
and degraded for centuries. If it shall be
found, after the lapse Of twenty-five years OF
freedom, that the colored people Of this coun-
try have made no improvement in their social
condition, it will confirm the opinion that
the negro is, by his very nature, limited to
servile condition. But if, on the other hand,
we supply the world with the proof Of our
advancement TO a plane, even a little above
that on which slavery left US, we shall prove
that, like all other men, We are capable Of
civilization, where its conditions are access
sble to us. Still further, to simplify the
question, which the present Is pressing upon
US. 1t is Whether the black man will
prove better master to himself than his
white master was TO him.
This, then, is the work to which We have
to address ourselves as a race. We are to
prove that we can better our own condition,
and that by the development of our own self
contained qualities. l need not stop here
to point out the particular modes Of action
by which this can be ACCOMPLISHED 4 will