The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1881-07-02
BOOk.Farmers.

A few years ago the phrase 'book-
tarmer'' was used as term of reproach.
It was intended to refer to man vision
airy, ignorant, impractical, and, of
course, unsuccessful. 1t was used by
persons who believed that the art of
farming could all be learned behind the
pillow, and that nothing remained to be
known beyond what was already known
by the most ignorant man who ever
plowed furrow. Now, it is sad and
serious truth that none think they know
so much as they who know the least,
and it has turned out that those persons
who were used but few years ago to
scorn a boOk-farmer, or farmer who
read agricultural papers and books, have
been more helped and benefited by these
very studious men than they know of.
In fact, they owe nearly all that they
know to books and book-farmers, for if
they have learned something from other
farmers, and have adopted plans and
methods and the use of tools and imple-
ments and seeds and crops from them,
they have either directly or indirectly
gained this knowledge from book-farm-
ers, who learned it from books. There
is nothing new under the sun, we are
told. And book-farming is by no means
new. Some persons are apt to think
that the present age is the only one in
which men knew much, and that the old
times were scarcely worth living through,
so ignorant were the people of those
days. But this is great mistake.
There were no railroads or telegraphs
in those times, and people were
not so refined or cultured as we
now claim to be, but so far as farming is
concerned very much of what we know
and practice now was quite commonly
known then. Some of the highest arts
of farming were practiced thousands OF
years ago. The merino sheep was at its
best at the time of the Roman Emper-
ors, whose royal robes of imperial pur-
pie were woven from the finest fleeces
from Spanish merinos, which were care
fully protected by coverings wrapped
around the sheep. That old book-farm-
er, Virgil, teaches us the art and prac-
tice of the selection and breeding OF
seed, and our modern 'pedigree" corn
and wheat is nothing more than the
practice OF what ne advised. III n1any
things those old Romans could give
odds to our best farmers, shepherds,
cattle-breeders and feeders, horsemen,
and even bee-keepers, and take the pre-
MUM every time. After them certainly
came dark ages, in which the arts of
peace were lost in the midst of wars and
bloodshed, but when men emerged from
these the books, fortunately, were left,
and there were some book farmers then
who read these books, profited by them,
practiced their suggestions, and other
farmers learned by the example of these
reading farmers.
And so we come down to what we
may call the modern age, that in which
America was peopled; and in a measure
we may claim it as our own age, because
our country and people we're planted
and began to grow at the beginning OF
it. And if we 90 back to that period,
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
we may find not only book farmers but
books on farming in plenty. The farmer
who filings gibe at book-farmer to.
day may be told that it is to an old book
farmer that he owes the knowledge OF
clover as farm crop; that the practices
of drainage, of the rotation of crops, of
green manuring, of summer fallows, of
cultivating crops, of soiling cattle, nay of
the very practice of ensilage, about which
some person are at their very wits end
of excitement, as being something de-
cidedly novel and worthy of the very
highest consideration, because they have
been experimenting on it-that all these
and more, in fact, are all mentioned in
old books, and moreover, that those per-
sons who wrote about these practices
were treated very much by farmers of
that day as books and book farmers are
treated by some now. For it was nearly
sixty years after clover was first de-
scribed and recommended by an English
author in book on agriculture that it
was tried in small way, and then only
after second book was written about
it and a prominent and wealthy land
owner imported seed for distribution.
We can easily fancy the farmers of that
day joking about this new plant as the
vagary of a book-farmer, and treating
it as something to be despised and re-
jected because the knowledge of it came
to them in book. But the fact should
not be lost sight of, because it goes to
show that some things may be learned
from books that never could be learned
in the field.
But it may be said, Why lay so much
stress upon this matter, now that we are
learning better about itp To which
might be replied, 1t is very well, so far,
that farmers are discovering that some
knowledge can be gained from books,
and are frequently ready to sit on the
fence of a book-farmer and watch his
new methods and criticise them, and
when he sees their value and advantages
to adopt them; to beg some new seeds
from him; to borrow the services of his
breeding-animals and the use of his i'm
proved Implements; all this is well, SO
far as it goes, but it does not go far
enough, for we would have every farmer
to be a book-farmer himself, that is, to
be a reading farmer, studious and
thoughtful man, and one that finds a de-
light in knowing all the ms and outs and
the secrets of his business.-Henry SteaC-
art, IN N. Y. Times.