The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1892-06-10
TROTWOOD'S TALK.
Interesting to Farmers, Breeders and
Dairymen.
General Interest to the Country
Gentleman.
The Farmer and The school House.
]. ROSENTHAL.


people that any kind of a school is
good enough for q farmers boy; just
so he goes q certain number of
months, eats q certain number of
cold mackerel and sorghum dinners
out of q tin pail, and with the aid OF a
lot OF boys like himself, gives an eX-
cuse for some sorry teacher to con-
sumo what public money may hap
pen to be in that end of the district,
why his schooling is being properly
attended to and his conscientious par
ents go on raising farm products, with
John doing q big part of the work, in
the firm belief that their boys mind
is keeping right along with his mus
cles, and that they are doing the
right thing by him.
Now as a matter of fact, the farm
er's boy needs better schooling that
any other boy. He needs it because
farming needs more brains on it than
any other business. He needs it be-
cause his body gets more develop
ment than any other boys, and rs
the body grows the mind should
grow, as the body develops the mind
should develop; q trained mind and
a trained body should go together.
II this is not done what are the re-
suits? In few years you have a
man in form, but boy yet in mind.
You have that spectacle so often seen,
and SO often spoken OLA young
farmer who knows how to run the
old farm tOIerably well, not any bet
ter and often much worse than the
father before him; who can plant and
cultivate wheat and corn and pota-
toes and other farm products as well
as it was done twenty or thirty years
=, 10 fofh
have taught him, but who is utterly
unable to me ke any new or progress
i've steps, or change or adapt himself
and his methods to the changes OF
the times.
Now farming Is nothing il IL is not
progressive. Methods used to-day
are far ahead of those used even in
those elysian days "befOre the war"
Who plants wheat now as they did
then? Why, the farmer who plants
stalk land wheat in November, you
answer. Correct; and he makes
stalk land crops.
Who cultivatss corn now as they
did thenS Why, the freedman. with
his bull-tonGue plOw. In fact, TO cul
1t short, farming is progressive. I'm
prOgre sive farming means worn out
| land IL means mortgage and his twin
farming should be the most pro
gressive occupation on the globe
every other business, especially the
professions, il more or less the Great
ure of precedents, OF example, oil
fixed rules and customs and laws
But the farm is natures cOnseIVa
tory of hidden wealth and MYSTERIES
the rSipdrop, the atmosphere, the
sunshine, the frost, the heat-each
all, everything has some bearing
produces some effect, touches come
| interest in farming.
The farm is q Veritable world o
hidden results. and that man is thu
best farmer who understands bes
how, by the aid of the knOledge h.
has learned, to turn all these natuTa
resources into profit and wealth
Why should not q farmer be q bette
one II he understood chemistry, o
botany, or geology, or higher mathe
matics? Tic the trained mind tina
counts at last; the masters eye
worth ten hands. An educated man
given the same practice, or it is SAT
to say, less practice, can plow a field
can build q fence, can plant a GRO
better than an uneducRted man.
The great trouble with farmers
lack of progression, and that Is cause
by lack Of proper knowledge. YO
can't get around this. A mind tina
reaches out and learns how to max
"tOo blades of grass grow where on
grew before" will put it in practice
Look over the list of inventions j
farming machinery, which to-da
saves the farmers SO much time an
drudgery. Who invented them
The cotton gin, the sell, binder, tn
splendid pIOws, the disc harrow-th
thousands of others; who invente
them? Nine out OF ten were invente
by some deeply educated mind:
the farmers were as well educated 10
their business as other men are 10
theirs, the farming profession woui
be revOlutionized in twenty years
The mind is there, the strong phys
ique, the willingness, and the assimi
latiOn is easy because the farmer
son is eager as q rule; he need
schools that will perfect his mind i
every branch that bears on his busi
ness, from mathematio and engineer
ing to botany and chemistry.