The Savannah morning news., 1903-09-14

When persons new to farming take
up this avocation they eagerly read
books on the subject. subscribe to the
agricultural papers, quickly grasp the
business to suit them, and frequently
they write copiously for the agricul-
tural press says the Times Union. They
buy the latest style OF improved i'm
plements and begin the work with en-
thusiasm, looking with secret pity or
contempt on the Old-fashioned ways
simple life and close, economical hab-
It's of their neighbOrs, who are ac-
Customed to rely wholly upon their
farms for a living.
Meanwhile, these plain neighbors, so
methodical, so unenterprising, so we'd
ded to old practices, in their turn look
upon the newcomer and among them
selves begin to estimate how long he
Will last as a farmer two, three, four
if he has considera BILE outs'9" ~'o-
sources, five or six years is about th9
limit OF duration t,ss.e4.~,. ~ $1,000.
Occasionally one with a genuine taste
for the life and a teachable spirit,
with energy and resolution in his
makeup, as he approaches the bottom
of his purse begins to grasp the posi-
biities and the impossiblities of the
farm, and squares himself to his work
Ill IlSHI ldSIllOIl. DlNIl d OllGS Ce1SlltlB
aside his own ideas, his glowing ideals,
begins to suspect that these plain,
weatherbeaten men may, after all,
know more of the real thing than he
does. He begins to adopt their meth
DDS, not consciously perhaps, but drift
ing, getting into position to combat
those enemies of the farmer, frost
drought, food, wind, blight and other
drawbacks which he had not written
down in the bright lexicon of youth"
He dismisses forever that falsehood
ANY fool can be a farmer" He dis
covers that those veterans are dia-
monds in the rough; that their heads
are filled with the lore of the sod and
the rain: their memories are like the
Indians stick on which every day for
fifty years they have cut notch
some notch of weather combinations
the sprouting seeds, the rust or
blight or smut and how to prevent it,
The old man carries in his head re-
markable lot of matters, of which the
entire category may be found in the
books, perhaps, but not set down IN
fine right arrangement, for every year
the weather shuffles, cuts and makes
a new deal
Agricultural books and papers of a
sensible, careful sort are not to blame
for the decisions and breakdoWns OF
these inexperienced enthusiasts These
n1DerS give In6 ldClS NlllNli AOOAN
tiful on paper, and they are facts but
they do not, like the enthusiast, put
two and two together and call 1t SIX
teen. No journal can graft hortlcui,,
tural scion on a poetical stock and
make it live and bear ounces.
Go slow. No man can galvanize the
crops or the seasons. Farmers are
conservative, and farmers are right.
Years ago one of these summed ana
,,.aatbered ancients who was full OF
money and slow, drawing humor'
leaned over the fence and said to the
writer. "Now. If you want to get
rich, sell that gimcrack for wna5 you
can get and use an old-fashioned ma,
80 ,ile vour father used, and you Will
begin to make money. -, s-o
He was right, too--not IN ms dep H'7t
citation of improved machinery. , nu1
in his implied, thorough, mei be the
e eSot.h of the vast majority oil
tanners who succeed at all.