St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1879-02-08
Fundamental Agriculture.

It is a trite, and also a true saying
that the fundamental principles OF agrl-
culture are the same everywhere. Never
thelrss, the man who argues to himself
that therefore he can learn nothing from
books or newspapers, because his father
taught HIM farming as his grand father
understood it, is quite 40 far out OF the
way as he who accepts writer's theory
Of practice, adapted perhaps to Euro,
pean agriculture, to the New England
States or New York, and attempts to
apply it on the prairies OF the Middle
States, or the South. The fact is the
intelligent farmer of to-day does, not
care to be instructed in planting, ploW-
ing, sowing or reaplng. These are
things that any observing man may
easily learn for himself by a little prac:-
teal instruction, or even from 1ntelil-
gent observation.
Here is one reason why an intelligent
man, who has perhaps been raised III
the city, may go out upon wild prairie,
and in a few years not only make INN
self more comfortable, but become a
better farmer in all that pertains to the
art than another man reared on farm
perhaps with little or no educatlon, and
without an intelligent idea OF the vast
progress made in agricultural art with
in the last twenty years. The one takes
the best agricultural paper he can find,
perhaps two or three, buys few OF the
more standard works on agriculture lac
can find, and by using common sense,
starts fair with present systems. The
other follows in the track laid out for
him by his father, scorns all reading,
plants q truck patch, sows o little wheat
to " bread him." plants a little corn to
F,,o Il fox,- CT ctnnl-
ming on the range in summer, or shit
ing pretty much for themselves by
poaching in the fields in winter. He
ekes out bare living for himself and
family, carrying but little to market ex
cepC the product of his rifle OF traps.
AS the country gets "played out" for
him as he expresses it, that is becomes
settled around him, he bitches up and
goes farther on. Each successive state
! in the Union has seen numerous specl-
mems of this genus homo.
No farm can now -a-days be success
fully carried on by the reading
man. Success in farming, as in every
other business of life, consists i'll keep
ing pace with the times. The best ag-
ricultural papers Of to-day are those
which deal broadly with modern appii-
ances and Improvements, which, While
| insisting upon ueEelopcu dSlicaltuiS
every where, advocate such special
crops as may be best adapted to the
particular sections Of the country over
which they circulate, which leave poll
tics to those journals whose province
it is to attend to party and partisan prin-
cipleS. Agriculture is broad enough in
| itself and contains so much every day
| that is new in the art, that even the best
weekly journals often find it hard to
discriminate what to accept and what
to reject.
Hence those whose circulation will
admit spend much time and labor in
condensing from all known sources
matter of value to their readers, and in
answering the many questions conclsely
and clearly, that are from day to day
flowing in, or i'm using chem as texts for
more elaborate calculation. snch jour
! nails are those which have been the most
useful integers in drawing emigrants
from foreign shores into the country. and
causing an immigration into the West
and Northwest, and Southwest, as has
already made it the seat of empire, and
the granaly of the world. Yet there are
MANY we'll meaning men who sheer at
" book farming" and farmers papers
forgetting that they themselves are the
ones who are being left behind in the
struggle for life as between the appilca-
ton of mere brute force as against ine
telligent endeagor.