The Atlanta constitution. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1885-19??, 1900-10-08
THK FARMER rs HK rs.
SOMETHING OF His kIPK.


that not one out of every hundred farmers
are ever out of debt 1t is this condition
that makes 1t nece ssary for women anu
children to work In the field. and that
makes a good crop mean so much. and
failure to bring SO many heart-burnings-
Yes. even tears.
No one but the thoughtful farmer can
ever more than half realize what 1t means
for him to lose his crop. To him it means
more than the loss of time and labor. 1t
means more than the price of little COM
forts AMI luxuricS IL would buy. 1t
means more than the loss of warm gar
ments AMI shoes for his wife and "hil-
dren. 1t means more than proper food
and medical attendance in sickness.
He remembers then. and with a pang
which only a parent can feel. how he
called his little ones from their morning
siUmbers. He remembers the tasks he
set them In the field. He remembers how
their little necks and arms and noses
blistered, and how their little backs bent.
Ii seems he can almost feel the hot sweat
pouring down their grimy faces. He re-
members how day after day they toiled,
not dumbly and despairingly. but with
many a merry jest. and shout, and laugh
ter Yes. when disaster comes he remem-
bers these things with keen pang In his
heart. for when he loses his crop 1t al
ways seems to him as If so much of his
children's lives went with 1t.
But even while this sacrifice Is burning
around his heart he must begin the strug-
gle anew.
When I hear a man speak lightly,
slightingly, of the farmer. l know that
that man speaks without thinking. There
is no one In any walk of life who has
more to contend with than the farmer.
He must know every condition of earth,
air and sky, and take advantage of them
all. He must study the birds or the air
and the beasts of the field, and over
come the harm they might do. He must
learn the good ana the bad qualities OF
every insect, from the largest to the
most Insignificant, and destroy them
or turn them to his use. His eye must
read the mute pleadings of the pale
shoots from the seeds he has planted, as
they break through the crust. anc tend
to their needs. And L wager the
tenderer feeling in his heart. and more
solicitude for the welfare of everything
living about him than many people be-
lieve.
And when / hear a man say that the
farmer is independent l know that that
man speaks whereof he knows not, for
the farmers success does depend on so
many things. l have heard him sing in
the field In the morning, and before night
his hopes and his harvest have been
crushed into the ground by little cloud
coming across the sky, bringing a cloud
burst or a hailStorm. a week too much
of sunshine might cut his crop In half,
and a week too much of rain might do
the same thing. season of drought has
put him at the mercy of the merchant
and the money lender, and a season
of wet weather has put him and his
on a diet of cornbread and barley coffee.
An epidemic among his horses and cattle
has taken every cent of profit from his
crop for that year, and eaten hole into
that of the next.
Again, when | read the advice to farm
ers given by men who have graduated"
from the farm to the editorial sanctum,
am sure that these same men, had they
staid on the farm and practiced what
they preached. would either have starved
To death or become objects of charity.
Every farmer knows this.
There were never two crops raised
that were planted and cultivated the one
just like the other. What is planted deep
one year may have to be planted shallow
the next. one time 1t is necessary to
cultivate the land fiat, and the next time
IL may be just as necessary to run the
ridges high. Under certain conditions an
extra blowing may increase the yield,
and under other conditions the blowing
may grow too much to weed and may
have to be checked, and the next year
1t may be slow in growth and may have
to be encouraged. There can be no rule
for these things. Still the farmer likes
to read what the editor has to say about
them, and pays him to say 1t.
A good season generally repairs the
harm done by a bad one, but Edwin
Markham's poem, The Man With tie
Hoe" has been the means by which the
willfully ignorant has done the farmer
an almost irreparable injustice. There
never was a poem written which was
truer TO It's subject. 1t Is a true inter
probation. the living voice of the picture
which inspired 1t. But Millet's picture
does not represent any type of farmer.
He found this thing" half brute half
human. in the field, alone and abandoned,
and transferred 1t to his canvass Millet
painted a freak picture, Markham wrote
freak poem.
But when priests, preachers and lay
men, journalists. brevet journalists and
hacks all over the country took IL into
their heads that the picture and poem
applied to the tiller of the soil of this
country and wrote long dissertations 10
prove 1t, a wrong was done which IL will
take years to repair. or the farmer to
forget. There have been many cruel
flngs at the farmer, but none that has
gone deeper into his soul than this
No one but a farmer can know how
intensely farmers feel. AS a rule they
lack expression. Their thoughts must
come out in action. You might talk TO