Evening star., 1897-04-10

three or four clubs previously and when
man came around and offered to propose
me for the Mckinley Club l gave him the
seven dollars and told him to go ahead.
That is how l came to be in politics.
II suppose that what you want is place
In the diplomatic service"
NO I never studied up on diplomacy
much 1 think / shall go into the Agricul-
tural Department. 1 know all about farm
ing 1 have prepared myself especially for
that branch of the government service
You don't look it.
when | made up my mind that l would
come here and get an office went straight
to see practical farmer whom L met dur
ing my vacation last summer. He is a
man of exceptional intelligence, and
seemed to take great pleasure in giving
me information. l asked him to tell me all
about farming, and he stopped in the mid
die Of his work and took an hour and 4
half explaining it to me. He made me tell
him what l wanted the knowledge for, and
he made some very valuable suggestions"
$50 you're all prepared to start in to re-
form the department, are you?"
Not all at once. But one of the first
things l will have to do is to call the at
tention of the Secretary of Agriculture to
a mistake that he made. He said that the
farmer of this country is raising too much
corn. AS matter of fact corn-raising is
still one of our coming industries, for the
reason that smokers are beginning to get
some idea of how to get the most enjoy
ment from the weed, and the manufacture
of corn-cab pipes is inevitably destined to
be one of the greatest industries of our
continent"
You have good memory, haven't you"
said his auditor, admiringly.
II seldom forget anything that Is really
useful" was the response in a tone of
pride. zone Of the great faults of the Ag-
ricultural Department, as previcu usly con-
Quoted, is that it neglected to encourage
the culture of egg-piants for the use of
poultry farmers, and 1T was the most short
sighted Indifference (which now causes the
bivalves in the Chesapeake to be starving
for the lack of1a few oyster plants"
your friend-in the country didn't call
your attentionefto the fact that a good
way to mend worn-out land is to SOW a
patch Of rag-weed on 1t, did he?' Queried
the watchman.
mo but that's a. good suggestion, and
I'll make a note ofdt. He laid great stress
on the fact that with all these new electric
railroads coming into use. farmers are so
lacking in enterprise as to totally neglect
the cultivation of wire-grass. You have,
of course, observed how often the farmer
is depicted as going around with one or
both of his suspenders loose What Is the
reason of that? The simple circumstan nee
that he has never been aroused to the i'm
portance of raising button-wood trees.
What he wants is an administration that
hance and precaution must be shown in
agriculture, the same as in any other busi-
ness. The day when a man could stick
few seeds in the ground and go away ON a
visit to his relations while they grew is
past The threatened disappearance of our
forests Is warning that as civilization adj
vances the area in which things grew wild
decreases. and they must be tended The
American farmer can never hope to sue
ceed II he goes on neglecting to raise
chick-weed Tor the chickens, milk-weed for
the cows and burdock for the biris.'