Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1884-11-06

these classes of domestic animals: how
to know what kind of food is best
adapted to their wants and necessities:
to know when they are healthy or dis
eased, to know when and how to rive
them attention, and to minister to their
care and comfort when they are sick
and disabled.
This education will, therefore. as YOU
perceive, teach its possessor. how to be-
come aperfect farmer. But MANY an
old and skilled farmer may say that
this knowledge which Z call most inn
portant, cannot be learned from books,
and is only to be acquired by ex-
perience, and will show us his own
career of prosperity as illustra-
tive of the truth of his theory.
But, this is where / believe my
critical friend errs. knowledge is
power" This is correct axiom in
agriculture as well as in any other pur-
suit, and the success or failure of any
two or more persons of apparently
equal surroundings, in any industry is
testimony to the truth of the proverb.
l readily admit that much, very much
is to be learned by experience, but I
certainly know that without the rich
soil of book learning experience is a
plant of slow and sickly growth, yet
with its nourishing and vivifying in
Huences, experience has more healthy
progress, is more easily, speedily and
certainly acquired, and when theoreti-
cal knowledge and practical experience
are joined together, the successful agri-
culturist will have arrived at the very
summit of his dignified and honorable
profession, as he believes it is. 1t is
commonplace belief that the farmers
life is a dull and uneventful one; that
the busy world, in it's lust and greed
for power, for wealth, for social, and
for political position, passes him by
unheeded, unless there may be, in the
race for the latter, an exception during
the few weeks prior to an annual cleo
ton. when he then becomes, upon the
part of the politician, the subject of
interest, attention, and caiolery.
Grant this to be substantially true,
yet from my observation, and with my
belief, do l conclude that the farmers
life ought to be, and is, a contented,
serene and a happy one. That he
lives life of toll is true, yet it is life
undisturbed and peaceful, amid the
thousand troubles and anxieties which
beset his uneasy and care-worn fellow
man who is engrossed in the business
of the world.
"Far from the madding crowds ignolae
strife /.
ellis sober wishes never learned to stray,
"Aiong the cool, sequestered vale OF life
lie keeps the noiseless tenor of his
way
Let the farmer, therefore, be proud
of his calling. Let him remember that
the whole world looks to him for its
life, that to it under the providence of
God, he contributes the means of liv-
ing; that he is the benefactor of man.
kind.
More than one hundred and fifty
years ago, one of the wisest of states
men and political communists affirmed
this truth. and the force and wit of the
aphorism have lost none of their vigor
by lapse of time. He said: "Whoever
could made two ears of corn or two
blades of grass to grow upon spot of
ground where only one grew before,
would deserve better of mankind and
do more essential service to his coun-.
try than the whole race of politicians
put together