The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1882-09-01
What Can be Done to Aid the Farmeri

What can be done for the farmerf
How can the toll incident to his vocation
be diminished? How may his yield per
acre be increased? How may impositions
encountered in placing products in mouths
and Ion backs of consumers be obviatedi
These together with multitude of other
similar queries have been propounded
from earliest recollection. As if to afford
relief, conventions have been held, reso-
buttons passed, and platforms made;
Alliances and yGrangeshave been organ
lied; sour neighbor Jones, known to be
q plain, practical farmer, an honest mar"
has been elected to the Legislature, and
afterward to Congress; laws have been
passed regulating" trade and transpor-
tation. Still the evils complained of ex-
list about as before. sg,--,g.,a
Facts are said to be very stubborn
things-dre! This may az well be under
stood first as last. Resolutions, platforms
or enactments, Legislative or Congress
sional, of themselves never made an honest
man of a rogue, or a sober man of a
drunkard- never will. Nor will they cure
the ills narrated, incident to agriculture
and the farmer. These things are well
enough in their places; but at best, they
are simply evidences that something is
wrong and needs to be righted. The real
practical and substantial remedy is indi-
Gated in short article under the head:
Intelligence is the Measure of Success"
When we find that population with %
to 80 per cent illiterate, produces but
14.2 bushels of corn per acre, while
another with but 2 to3 per cent. illiterate,
produces 35.5 bushels per acre, we come
in contact with one of the most stubborn
of stubborn facts. Whoever dreamed of
one engaging in any of the professions or
any branch of mechanics, without first
obtaining special education for that
special calling? When we consider the
fact that all we eat, drink or wear, comes
directly or indirectly from the soil, may
we not consider it important that we be
fitted by education to till it intelligently
and advantageously? DIR. johnson /
think if was, said in some Of his lectures
on agriculture substance-that on it
ga thousand millions of men are depen-
dent for their very sustenance; in its
prosecution nine-tenths of the fixed CAPT.
it probably two hundred millions of men
expend their daily toilv' If the half even
of this is true, why is not agriculture
the farmers vocation-eaual in impor-
lance with any other of the factors that
combine to make a prosperous people!
Why should not the same intelligence
and qualifications be requisite? There
always has been, and still is to an alarm
ing extent, lack of applied intelligent
labor to agricultural pursuits. The less
intelligent always in all things, fall prey
to the more intelligent.
For the condition indicated, there is
a sequel in part at least. The farmer
parents too often apportion the brightest
boy, or boys to the profession, giving the
benefits of education in that direction,
while the dull ones, and that because.
perhaps, they are the most sturdy
physically, are kept OH the farm without
education, bone and muscle being con-
sidered the only essentials. This line
followed, and a race of the less intelligent
will be found at the pillow.
A "better time is coming" however,
near at hand. Our agricultural colleges,
and other means of imparting agricultural
knowledge, and an increasing disposition
on the part of young men to qualify
themselves for this pursuit, contribute to
other desirable and more beneficial re-
suits. Cline was when philosophy
marched along highways, wrapped in
lordly pride, which disdained all associa.
ton with labor. If it deigned to cast
even look across the hedge that divided,
it was to vent its scorn on the dusty and
less intelligent brain there engaged. But
changed! The white hand has clasped
the brown; heteeming brain has grasped
the pillow, the pruning hook and sickle,
and with what glorious results" appropri-
ately says another.-C0r. Rural Ne,s
Yorker.