The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1889-09-17

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OF. The prevalent idea that farming win
not pay is as ~fallacious and erroneous as
any that ever existed. We can make it
pay better than any other and the fault
lies with US that we do not. What
the profession, upon which every thing
else depends the understratum that con-
stitutes the base of all the wealth of ma
tons. will bring a man to poverty and is
degrading for his children to follow2 1t
Is the most absurd idea that ever entered
the head of any of Adams posterity.
The farmers themselves, as a body collec-
lively, are responsible for all this illusion.
The social feature of our order VIII do
more to displace this delusion than any,
thing else and the day is not far distant
when through these meetings, the revolu-
ton that has commenced in agriculture
will advance with electric speed and we
will in a very few years see almost every
farmer making all his fertilizers; we will
see every farm hillside ditched or ter
raced; we will see the product of every
acre doubled if not trebled, and then the
cry that farming does not pay will gradu-
ally die away. When that day comes the
principles of our order will have taught
the farmer to. cease running in debt, to
cultivate less acres but make them pro-
duce more; to diversity his crops and to
prepare and till every acre like a garden.
Then our lands will not sell for from two
to ten dollars per acre but for from fifty
to a hundred, and then it will be known
that farming GOfU pay. We look for these
changes to come on through our social
gatherings more than from all other
sources. Lastly, but not because it is less
important, we come to the educational
feature, OF the order. In all countries, in
all ages,of the world, that people who
neglected the mental culture of them
selves and their children, have been, as it
were, blighted by the hand of the Al
mighty himselfl There is no middle
ground for the human mind in this re-
soect. 1t must advance higher and
higher in the scale of intellectually or it
will sink lower and lower in vice, degra-
dalton, superstition and ignorance. The
countries where the Apostles 6rst preached
the Gospel Of Christ. and where His
sacred feet trod, are now heather lands
There the Moslem temple supplants the
Christian altar!
From midas coral strands to the Hell
lespont and even farther, through all that
gorgeous, Eastern land of miracles and
Song, education has been neglected and
the consequence is the people have
been gradually sinking lower and lower
in the scale of intellectually, their gov
ernments have been time and again sub
verified, and though they received all the
earliest advantages directly from their
Maker himself, and His chosen prophets
from Abraham down to the Messiah. it
has all availed them nothing. They ne
elected education and today they are, by
far, worse off than they were thousands
OF years ago.
Farther westward, through the almost
inteIminable years of the dark ages of
the world, education, though struggling
through innumerable difficulties, was
making slow but sure progress and the
people have all the time been gradually
advancing higher and higher in letters
and of course the arts and science. And
now, upon the threshold of the twentieth
century, with all the lights of the past in
blazing letters before us, with the bless
ings of a free government and the choice
of worshipping our Master as our con-
sciences may dictate, do we not feel inn
pressed, nay verify know, that more re-
sponsibility rests upon the people of the
United States to-day than upon any other
people 10 any age of the world, and more
especially in all educational view7 The
proverb of the wise man Solomon, "to
whom much is given much will be re-
quired, is truly applicable to this day
and generation. Remember, we cannot
remain stationary; we must make adj
vances In education or we will go back
ward in the cesspool of vice and ignor-
ance. We look forward for a great i'm
pulse to be given in this respect through
our order both in the National, State and
subo climate Alliances. Will it be too
much to expect that the day is not far
distant when we will have a national
university, ~rivaling Yale, Harvard or any
of the celebrated colleges of the old
world; that each State will have its own
State Agricultural College at which our
sons can be brought up prepared to adorn
any of the professions Of the land, but
more especially that they may be practi-
cal and scientific farmers, knowing both
from theory and practice what is required
to make a farmer; that each subordinate
Alliance may have its own thorough pre-
paratory school under the supervision of
its directors, which together with a
well selected library, though it may be a
small one, every Alliance could and ought
to have both for its w improvement
and that of the rising generation,) at
which our sons and daughters may be
prepared for the different colleges both
male and female, or where this is not
practicable that they may receive a
thorough education for all the practical
uses of life. This can and ought to be
done with a little effort on our part and
if we fail in this respect we will be dere-
lict to our day and generation. With
what little sacrifice to ourselves could our
small and weak Alliances raise, by sub
scription, or by devoting the proceeds of
an acre, half or even quarter acre for this
special purpose a sum sufficient to pur-
chase a select and valuable library for our
own Improvement, that of our children
and the whole community in which we
/ 1s1a on1 -vIo& - Ill ~ - xxorII H.