Hutchinson gazette. [volume] (Hutchinson, Kan.) 1895-1902, 1896-01-09
The Farmers Profession.

business means something. Inc OLD
saying that amy fool can be farmer
is true, but there is great and in
creasing force of truth in the modern
maxim that "a fool cannot be good
farmer" Any fool can be lawyer,
and large percentage of the idiots
that cumber the earth have undoubted-
ly reached out in that direction, but
the close, hard work Of the profession
requires a well trained brain in a
sound body. The lawyer destitute OF
energy or sense goes to the wall and
Is laid to financial rest in the same
last ditch with the incompetent farm
er and the same blanket Of debt covers
their unfortunate remains. Farms
are no more properly asylums for hui
man failures than law offices, dissect-
ing rooms, or the thronged halls OF
commerce and trade. Farming has be-
come an occupation for brains as well
as muscle. Inventive genius has
turned the business bottom upward and
inside out during the last fifty years.
The true philosophic spirit which first
saw day in Lord Bacon is turning
food Of light upon every principle and
detail Of the farmers vocation from
the processes Of plant life to the kill
ing of potato bugs. That spirit OF in
quiry, Of research, Of painstaking in
vestigation is constantly at work, I'M
dermining and blowing up popular
humbugs, laying firmly and deeply in
right reason and sound sense the foun-
dations Of agricultural science, and
running leads in every direction for
the golden grains Of truth that may
enrich and beautlfy the farmers pro-
fession. For farming is a profession.
1t was not in the middle ages when
tillers Of the soil were looked upon
as human vermin and christendOm APP
plauded ignorance and lInightly butch
cry; 1t is not to-day in Mexico, where
forked stick serves as pillow and where
1t is almost sin against the Holy
Ghost to have new idea. But in this
country, where intelligent labor Is
| anu WuGIG ldDOl nlOl LOo hAN
colleges and experiment stations and
newspapers and the active brains Of the
farmers themselves are constantly
moving the business to a higher and
broader plan it is a profession of such
importance and such possibilities that
no man should take it's name lightly.
1t requires health, energy, knowledge,
sense and grit to be good farmer.
do not believe that a natural taste for
the business is absolutely necessary for
the successful farmer. A man can be
good minister, or book agent, or poll
tician, or woman's rights man even ii
he doesn't like it. There may be lit
tie waste Of talent, perhaps, in the
clash of sentiment, but grit can fill
that gap and the man succeed. Poets
may be born to their inheritance oil
imagery and song, but the farmer who
is born into the requirements OF his
business is as scarce as angels among
the business men of Chicago. A bust
ness like farming, which gives play t
taste, fancy, invention, originality II
thinking and working, can safely b'
called q profession. The man whit
pounds stone upon the highway ha
no profession. There is nothing in TN
business to call into play his menta
powers, and but few of his physical
The workers in the mills and factorie
of the country move in the deepes
and narrowest ruts of mechanical mo
notony. Numberless farmers drifting
around in the baCkwaters Of by-gon'
practices and ideas have no profession
but the active, progressive, thinking
man who finds in the accumulated
knowledge Of agriculture food for hi!
memory, and in the changing seasons
and fluctuating markets, the ups anC
downs of the commercial barometer
subjects for his reason, and in the un
explored mysteries Of the soil subjects
for enthusiastic research, has pro
fession for which no abilities are toe
great, and no mental culture can be
too thorough. The farmers profession
has the same inherent nobility that any
other respectable occupation has and
no more. Honest labor in any calling
whether in making shoes, selling cali
co, editing newspapers, preaching the
gospel, counting girl, driving mules,
or running a great railroad corpora
ton has the same stamp Of divine APP
proval.-H. c. Adams.