The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1881-10-28
A Coed Farmer.

A Coed Farmer.
There is no calling in life that really
requires q more varied knowledge than
agriculture; and when we think how
very short time ago the only requisite
that was regarded was simply knowl-
edge enough to do the mechanical work
of sowing and reaping, it is really a
wonder that our agriculture stands
where it does to-day; and when we
now look over the millions of cultivated
acres in this country, which bud and
blossom with the sweetness of the rose.
and behold the superior intellis ence
which cultivate them, it is still more of
a wonder that the stupidity of older
timos should ever lave existed. Still,
in the midst of all this progress and the
improvements which are now found in
every department of agriculture, there
are those who will persist in shutting
their eyes to the utility of intelligence
on the farm, and still continue to plOd
along as their fathers did. 1t is to such
that we desire to make the statement
with which this article begins. The
farm is no place for a man who does
not know anything. Usually he would
prove as successful, and more so. in al
most any other calling.
A farmer should be educated in the
truest sense of the term. Certainly no
one lldeny that he should be familiar
with the sciences which especially per-
tain to the soil and the growth of plants,
and it will not do to argue, as some do,
that experiment is better than book
knowledge, for what a man learns by
experiment he knows is correct. Sci
ence is the result of experiment. Books
of science are the result of experiment.
Men have spent the time necessary to
teach us the needs of plant growth,
the requirements of the soil for
special purposes, and very much of ev-
erything else necessary to make farm
ing a success; and if we now propose to
20 over the same ground that they have
in order to reach the same conclusions,
we simply show a disposition to waste
valuable time. If by analysis of the
soil we can ascertain that it lacks those
ingredients which the chemist says is
necessary for the production of a GER
tain crop. it surely would be folly to
keep on experimenting year after year
until by chance we should happen to
apply the element which is lacking.
There are fortunes upon fortunes in the
aggregate expended every year in this
country for fertilizers which are almost
worthless, as applied, and wholly so
with reference to the production of the
crop which they are intended to help
grow. They do not contain the ele-
ments which the soil lacks and the crop
needs, and so far as any real good re-
sulting from their application we might
as well try to fertilize the land with our
breath. Farming without a knowledge
of the science of farming, which in
cludes various sciences. is simply q
game of chance-it is the walk of q
blind man on strange ground. If such
a man should attempt to practice medi-
cine he would be called a "quack,"
and if to practice law "shvster." The
farmer should be pre-eminently well
read man. He should read the gist of
all that is freshly written on agriculture,
which he can tind in any first class ag-
ricultural journal. If what he reads is
sound he can profit by it, and if what
he reads is not sound he can still profit
by it by permitting the truth to be more
firmly fixed IN his mind by contrast.
No one should attempt to conduct
farm without being something of a vet
erinarian. knowledge of veterinary
science is almost constantly required on
the farm, and the lack of it is frequently
not only very inconvenient but it is ex-
pensive. Regularly educated surgeons
are often, and in the great majority Of
instances. difficult to get at, and many
a sick animal must necessarily die, or
be beyond the possibility of re-
covery, before the services of one can
be obtained. We sometimes see ex-
pressed in the columns of our country
exchanges, the wish that the regular
physicians would include veterinary in
their practice. This would be of little
advantage. The doctors do not know
anything, or scarcely anything, with
reference to the diseases of animals.
Veterinary science is essentially sep
arate science. There are some prin-
ciples in common between the science
of medicine as applied to man and the
brute. but not enough to enable the
family physician to be good ''horse
doctor.'' Far better would it be for
the farmer to qualify himself to treat
ordinary cases, at least. And now that
our industrial colleges have courses in
veterinary science, it is not difficult for
our young men to acquire some knowl-
odoe in this directiOn
But besides being chemist, botanist
and veterinarian, the farmer, of all
men in the world, should be general
mechanic. He should know something
of all the common mechanical arts,
from that of building house to hoop
ing barrel. Such knowledge would
prevent imposition when it was neces-
sary to employ mechanic, and it would
save a great deal of needless expense,
not only in the actual outlay for
many descriptions of repairs. but in the
destruction of implements, resulting
often from a neglect to regard the
old adage, "a stitch in time saves
nine.' 1t is often very inconvenient
to 90 to the blacksmith's, the wheel
wright's, or the harnessmaker's s. when
something breaks, and the neglect is
the cause of the total de.
of the thing injured.
In this brief outline. therefore. we