The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1896-11-27


ception of the cause of under-consump-
ton, which results from inability on the
part of those who need more to purchase.
III the light of these facts it would
seem that the Farmers Institute should
be encouraged as an instructor of the
farmer in order that he may be enabled,
by the knowledge he may acquire through
the Institute, to ascertain the cause of the
depression i'll the price of farm products
and the remedy for its removal.
The Institute aims to deal in a higher
and more scientific method OF agriculture,
requiring more thought and investigation
on the part of the farmer, calculated TO
lift him from the hum drum method
which farmers are prone to fall into,
owing very much to their isolated condi-
ton and laborious habits of manual labor.
These are the great drawbacks which have
beset the farmers through all time, and
made them virtually the servants of their
brethren. The Institute aims to lift the
farmer out of this old condition Of bond
age which he seems willing to accept
while he grumbles against it. His very
isolation has inclined him to court isola-
ton and exclusion from society, and per-
nit himself to be pushed aside by every
other calling. The consequence is that
the brightest, most ambitious and self
asserting of the rural population, and the
very class agriculture most needs, leave
the country in early life for the city and
help keep up the supply of the class who
are best fitted to win i'll life's struggle in
the cities.
The Farmers Institute is intended to
assist i'll removing this evil from farm life
by introducing higher order or degree OF
scientific intelligence among farmers, to
change them from class of mere delivers
to class of thinkers, from a class of dull,
careless men and women who are willing
that other classes should think and act
for them in all matters of public concern,
the inevitable result Of which is to assign
them to a lower place i'll society and bus
mess, which must, i'll generation or two
transfer them from land owning to tell
ants t-will-farmers.
The Institute is an effort to check this
result which is already in rapid progress.
Other classes do not desire this condition
for the farmer but they cannot avoid it if
they would, while the farmer seems by
his apathy to court such result while he
No individual or class of persons can rise
above the lowest plane of society without
putting forth their own efforts. Unwilling
to stay at the bottom, as the farmers as a
class at present evidently are, they will
be permitted to remain there while the
more self-respecting, intelligent and am
bilious oftheir class will desert their ranks
to join other classes who prey upon and
live on the wealth their labor produces.
Every farmer knows these things to be
tue if he can summon sufficient mental
effort to shake himself into a state to
consider his condition, environments and
habits of the fraternity.
The grange and other farm associations
were instituted to stop and turn back this
downward tendency of the farmer, but
the farmer gives them but little attention
and afterwards, by his own criminal ne
glect having strangled them, condemns
the institutions for what is entirely his
own fault, and denounces them as "no
good"
Let us try the Institute. The farmers
are taxed by law to support it and it will
succeed. Its salaried officers will conduct
il whether the farmers are willing or not.
If the Grange was established by State
law with salaried officers to manage it, it
would be a success also. Every neighbor-
hood could have voluntary monthly or
bi-monthly Institute if the farmers so
willed, where discussions Of everything
pertaining to domestic economy, agricul-
ture, and public affairs could be intelli-
gently conducted, and subjects assigned
for the members to write or speak upon,
and where the discussion would be rigidlv
confined to the subject under considera-
ton by the presiding officer, and where
the Younger members of the population
would form an important part of the
membership. But nothing of the kind
will be ever attempted by the habitually
slothful- thinking farmer.
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