San Marcos free press. [volume] (San Marcos, Tex.) 1877-1892, 1882-11-30
Common Sense.

ence can compensate for the want of
this great quality of mind, because it
is through it that perspicuousness is
made available, and unbiased action
in business controlled, through educa-
ton theories are acquired, and expe-
rience is simply the experiments upon
them, while common sense is the
grand balance wheel of practical appli-
cation, and CONTROLS cratic and illu-
sionary ideas. For instance, farmer
conceives the idea that because an
enormous crop of any one particular
product has been harvested this year,
next year the demand will be
proportbnately less, and consequently
he will either plant none at all or at
any rate very much smaller area.
Common sense would argue just the
reverse, or at any rate dictate the
planting of the same area, taking into
consideration the thousand and one
mishaps that the crop is subject to,
and calculate on a far smaller yield
than the present. The same differ
ence between illusionary reasoning
and common sense is applicable to the
sale of crops. The one tends to spec
ulation; the other to legitimate trade.
A remarkable illustration of this is
shown in the case of a farmer in Ohio,
who, though hard working, industri-
GUS, and economical to fault, failed
to become wealthy, because he believed
that wheat would always bring higher
prices than it did. Hence he held on
to his crops year after year, until the
accumulation of them reached thou
sands of bushels, much of which rot
ted or became damaged during its
storage, and consequently valueless.
Had this foolish man sent his wheat
to market as soon as harvested, and
sold it at ruling rates, at least he would
have had common sense" dollars
against erroneous ideas and bushels of
worthless grain.
Education can be acquired by dill
gent application and under the guild
ance of skilled professors, and the
mind, through books, lectures, and
experiments, carried on to an almost
unlimited degree of exhalation, and
still common sense" need not neces-
sarily exist in the Individual so cult
waited. 1t is mother wit, which is the
subject of these lines, and unless in
nate cannot be impaired. The sur
est remedy for it is that class of liter
allure devoted to the particular branch
of industry which fortune may have
allotted to each man and woman, and,
if the case is not entirely hopeless, by
close reading, and following the ad-
vice thus obtained, many of the evils
arising from it's absence may be
averted.
Brutes have instinct; man, reason.
The one is actuated by certain un-
known laws; the other, by Intelligence;
the former are immutable; the latter
are regulated by common sense"
The greatest merchants, farmers, and
even inventors come, as rule, from
those persons literally endowed with
common sense" and who educate
themselves according to the dictates
of their natural endowments.
AS rule, the farmer who is guided
purely by common sense" succeeds
the best, because no amount of learn
ing or theory can resist the argument
of practical experience and the laws
of nature. At certain seasons of the
year the ground must be plowed, and
at another seeded, and at still another
cultivated, and lastly harvested; this
much done, it should be at once pre-
pared, sent to market, and sold. An
other uncontrovertable law is to
return to soil as much or more of the
same elements which constitute the
food consumed by the crop taken from
it, and without which the yield will
certainly decrease. No amount of
theory or science will do this without
practical application of those materi-
ais which common sense" and ex-
perience have proven to be the best.
These experiences constitute the sub
jects treated of in agricultural journals,
intermixed with scientific investiga
tons of them by chemists and expert
mental farmers, who are constantly
seeking for those ingredients adapted
to fertilizing the soil, and assist the
farmer in obtaining the greatest re-
suits under the most profitable condi-
tons. Let us not be understood to
underrate learning; on the contrary,
we feel certain that a person endowed
with common sense" and who is
educated, is by far the most useful
citizen, though we do assert that ed
ncafinn withont the other Amounts to