Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-03-15
HEALTH AND WEALTH
Come Most Surely With That Calling
Which Is as Old as Adam.
BODILY LABOR is A BLESSING.
High Glass Farming Requires Both Mental
and Physical Effort.
MONEY IN CULTIVATING THE SOIL
WRITTEN FOR THE p1sPAroH., (,


WRITTEN FOR THE pIsPAToH.,
We talk about refinement and civiliza-
tion as if artificial end complex life were
their means and end. Civilizing is moral
process more than an outward one, for be-
yond certain point in public and private
convenience every step that we call refine
ment is enfeeblement and leads back to
coarseness and the brute. The flower. of
civilization, the bloom of refinement have
always been found among people bred to
simple, hardy, outdoor living.
For downright enthusiasm and zest of life,
tell me, had you rather be the millionaire
with diseased kidneys who has just made a
coup by adding an express company's bust
ness to his railroad lines so that he can
squeeze the people in freights, passage and
express carrying, all together, grasping S15,-
600, 900 more for his income and a curse with
every dollar-a man who lives in his Office
three parts of his life and walks the streets
or roams the world the other fourth in search
of sleep and digestion-a man who has SO
much money that spending $1,000 has not
the SAVIOR which spending SO has for you or
me7
A Calling as Old as Adam.
Or would you be explorer, soldier, pio-
neor, with Stanley at the Equator and
Schwatka at the Pole? Or, say, with cavalry
colonel hunting Indians through the canyons,
or a railway engineer, hewing his way
through forests and gorges, or of that other
calling, old as Adam and the shepherd
kings, who are in part pioneers, engineers
and explorers, and whose calling holds more
romance than any which survives the build
ing of walls? You have not q remote idea
what vocation it is or what richness is in it.
mean you shall have glimpse of it be-
fore this reading Is out, for on no subject
prosperity is the world SO ignorant as 1t is
on this.
For women, what sort of characters fur
nish the lights of modern fiction and the
dreams of girls? Certainly not the heroines
of Robert Eismere" or John Ward,
Preacher" II anybody remembers their
names. or any other interpretive, highly
finished damsels. Are they not Sheila, the
princess, fearless of sea and storm, bred to
all outdoor and indoor efort-of boat or
household. Armorel of LYonese, keen-eyed
and hardy as she was beautiful, scarcely
living under a roof in daylight, and the
host of Californian girls born to anything but
life of ease and woman's college training.
The Sentimental Idea Of Women.
Mr.. Black himself has given us the con-
trasting type in his few heroines of perfectly
conventional breeding, large-eyed, gentle
and perfectly dressed. who have done such
great things when they have not forgotten
to order whisky for the gillies in the shoot
ing, or to get mullins and jam in plenty for
the gentlemen's breakfast, and whose re-
deeming point is that they do not forget to
drop flowers at sea where a child was lost.
That is delicate piece of sentiment, but
in reality a man or another woman wants
something more in a household goddess than
to be able to order breakfast, answer softly,
or even to scatter flowers on a grave-some-
thing more for mere interest as we'll as serv-
ice. In actual life these ineffably amiable
and perfect women bore one to the verge of
distinction. 1t was deans daughter, I
think, visiting this side of the water-cer-
tainly a most elegant lady-bred parsonage,
movement-that heard young Harvard
gentleman used to the best pronounce "tire-
some as q sheep"
The Training of Actual Need.
80 she was, and perfect as English women
are in breeding, it is remarkable how ready
Englishmen are to get away from their
women, and how little their influence counts
with the men. Nine persons out OF ten,
men or women, would have admired my
English girl, and turned away to talk and
make friends with an ugly, sprightly little
American girl who lived with her mother
much anything needed. There ia nothing
for brains or beauty like the training of ac-
tual need and work.
But the callings Of work are crowded, you
say, and there is little in art or handicraft
which is not overflled with clever workers,
whose places it would be unjust to take
There is one grand vocation which never has
been or will be crowded-the tillage of the
soil, the calling forth of fruits, flowers and
grain-the fine culture which is the highest
point of farming. Is it we'll that the mer-
curry goes down many degrees as you read
this last sentence? You know TOO little
about the matter. To most persons farming
or soil culture of any sort is a matter OF
bowed shoulders and brutiiy1ng toil-of ill
smelling heaps and clay clad footsteps; of
covetous rustics whose only idea of the rich
ness and beauty they create is the dollars to
which comes of reaping hundreds where
nUu0tcoS onoss snouoonos W SoSiSi WIN.
The Standing of the Farmer.
The farmer, I am sorry to say, in the
social and business politics of this country
counts too much for boor and fool. Per-
haps you will glance at Prince Paul Kra-
potkine's article in the Forum of last
August on the Possibilities of Agricul-
ture" and see how farming presents itself to
q man of wide experience and the highest
advantages. That prince thinks of agri-
culture may arrest the attention OF q re-
pu bile loving people. He says:
'The recent achievements of agriculture
and horticulture are not sufficiently we'll
known, and while our gardeners defy climate
and latitude, acclimatize sub-tropical plants,
raise ten crops instead of one and make the
soil for each special culture, economists con-
tinue saying that the surface of the soil is
limited and still more its productive pow
ers."
What do we know of the French peasants
who have in the last 100 years increased the
crop of wheat foprfold in France, and re-
auire at least 80 bushels an acre from their
ground, while a number Of farms In North
ern France regularly yield, year after year,
55 to 68 bushels an acre, and even 80 BUSH
els under special care?
Getting Returns From the Land.