Southern standard. (McMinnville, Tenn.) 1879-current, 1890-07-26

opportunities Wnlle IL Catches Onej
but he who holds fast gets all. Ifthe
product is cheap, he holds fast to it
for month or a year, and gets fair
price.
OF farm laborers there are good
and bad. 1 believe that the latter
outnumbered the former; yet know
that it is possible to get good help.
A good laborer demands more for his
service; but he is cheaper than the
indolent, careless, thoughtless labor
err. The best is the cheapest. 1t is
very poor policy to let good laborer
become "a cheaper man will do"
after harvest, or after seeding, Keep
the industrious, energetic man, and
find labor enough to keep him busy.
This is easy enough, Make the
fence yet stronger; fill that gulley;
clean up the woodland; lay walk
to the clubhouse. A hundred things
to do may always be found for the
looking, on the farm, and they are
profitable things to do. And by so
doing you keep the good laborer
until the next busy season. A man
always works best when he has held
out to him the reward of steady en-
ployment for good work. This man
has learned you and your methods;
he has learned your farm and your
animals; he can work without direc-
ton. This makes him yet more val
liable; he is "a jewell" hold fast to
him.
The farmer is the farmers capital.
The amount of his capital is measur-
ed by the preductiveness of his land.
He may make large income by im-
poverishing his land. This is as if
some merchant were to draw part
of his capital out each year; as if he
allowed his stock of goods to decline;
this would increase his income for
awhile, but who would say it was
good financial policy? BY so doing
he would not, in fact, increase his
gain. Intimately he would reduce
it, for he decreases its source. The
farmer who allows the fertility of his
land to decrease, may get larger
income for time, but in the end he
will get lose than to gain fertility.
Even Incidence helps to
pull down; but only hard work will
build up. 1t is easier to hold fast
to fertility than to let it 90 and get
it again. We are nearing that day
of the year wherein we are made to
feel that our fathers left us precious
inheritance; and not the least of that
inheritance was much fertile land.
BY our treatment oft we Jamestown
our unworthineSs of it. 1t behooves
us to do better and to hold fast to
what remains.
Land is impoverished, not so much
by large crops, as by vicious tillage,
There is much plant food in the soil,
but we allow it to waste or make il
unavailable. True, we make our
land less productive by taking from
it large crops and giving it little ma
nure; but we take thrice as much
from its productiveness by that treat
ment which does not produce large
crops. This vicious tillage comes Of
ignorance and thoughtlessness. We
do not keep up with the times. The
remedy is some good agricultural
paper like the Country Gentleman
This gives us information and sets III
to thinking. Let us, then, hold fas
to it. We cannot afford to have it,
visits discontinued; nor can we affort
to fail to read it carefully through
the busiest season. Hold fast to i
and its teachings; store its teaching
in memory, and it in a good file.
JOHN NJ. STAHL.
Adams County, Ill.