The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-09-11
PLAIN TALKS WITH FARMERS

The argument, beginning last week and
running through three or four of these
letters, may be summarized as follows:
The farmer is at a disadvantage in his
material conditions as compared with
other property owning classes because he
knows less about his business than they
know about theirs. This was not always
the case, his relative retrogression being
due to the fact that in his isolated life he
has not been so we'll able as others to keep
pace with modern progress; that the ten
dency and inevitable result of this condi-
ton is to deprive farmers, beginning with
the weakest, of their property and reduce
them to the condition of dependents;
that nothing can change that tendency
or prevent that consummation except
the general diffusion among farmers
of such business education as will
prevent them from engaging in I'M
profitable enterprises; that the cost of the
information necessary for the profitable
conduct of farm under modern conditions
is more than the revenue from the farm
will pay after supporting its owner in
reasonable comfort, and that the alterna-
tive confronting the small farmer is COM
bination with his fellows for educational
and other purposes or gradual extinction.
| shall develop this argument as closely
and concisely as l am able, but the above
is its gist, and | do not think there is any
doubt about the conclusion-we must unite
or die; and as we cannot unite until we
fully understand the need of it and learn
how. the first problem to be considered is
the preliminary education.
/ showed last week that in so far as the
farmer is unfortunate ii is due to his ig-
norance. Let us now see what must befall
him if he does not educate himself; and
we must remember that nature is relent-
less and remorseless; the quality of mercy
is unknown to her; she does not consider
abuses but conditions, and whether weak
ness is occasioned by misfortune or per-
verseness the penalty is the same and is
death. To fully understand this we must
leave farm life for little and see what the
evolutionists say. Evolutionists are mostly
professors, breed which some of US farm
ers do not esteem very highly, often re-
ferring to them as fellows with lot of
theories" using the term in the contemptu-
Gus sense OF vague speculations with no
basis save in the mind of the Spectator.
This again is because we don't know the
science of modern days is built upon facts
ascertained and verified with patience
and precision of which we farmers have
very little conception. The scientific
man does not as we sometimes vainly
imagine spend his days and nights in
rapt but dreamy contemplation of the
infinite, but, on the contrary, is mostly
concerned with minute detail; he dissects
pollywogs and extracts the bones from dead
and bad-smelling fish, which he patiently
compares with the petrified relics and i'm
prints of those that died years ago. This
he does not because he likes to clean fish
or break rock, but because he seeks to learn
what has been the rule of life in all ages,
inferring there!rom what now the rule is
and what it shall be. The collection of
actual facts verified by men trained to OBJ
serve upon which modern science now
rests is amazing and daily the store is in
creased. After some lives have been spent
in gathering and classifying facts in a GER
tain line, the mass begins to take shape so
that some law running through it can be
apparently discerned, and with that law
assumed to be true, more lives are spent in
patiently collecting other facts and COM
pairing them with the assumed law: if all
facts as verified harmonic with the work
ing hypothesis, the law is strengthened
and gradually tends to become part of
settled science; but if one undoubted es.
sential fact be discovered inconsistent with
that law, the whole edifice of reasoning is
DESTROYED and the work of rebuilding must
be patiently begun. Hence science must,
above all things be sure of its facts, and SO
endeavors to be.
The facts thus collected, verified, CLASH
fed and analysed through all time
until now show that all life has
one law, and this law, at first merely as
sumed, by long continued observations is
now considered settled and part of science
-one of the things which we know as we'll
as we can know anything in this world; it
is law that has so far run through all time,
operates now, and, SO far as can he seen or
judged, will always operate; it applies
alike to the birds of the air, the trees of the
forest, the floating microbes about and
to man himself; it is universal, unchang-
Ing.
This law is that the only condition under
which any species can maintain itself is by
the introduction of greater number of
individuals than existing conditions will
sustain, the survival of the ittest and the
death of the unfit Could this process be
checked the species would degenerate be-
cause individuals of all species greatly diff
fer in the qualities to secure sustenance
from their environment. and were all %
propagate and transmit their qualities
alike the total result of vigor would be less
than If only the same number of the
strongest survived and left descendants,
and it is necessary that the aggregate vigor
shall constantly increase in order to cope
with increasing difficulties caused by the
increasing pressure of population.
The operation of this law upon man as
distinguished from other forms of life is
modified by the fact that man has reason.
As his numbers press npon the means of