Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1903-10-22
ELKLAND GRANGE.
Address by Lyman B. Speaker, Of Hills
grove. KNOWLEDGE That Comes From
Years OF Experience.

Years OF Experience.
To our worthy officers, members
and visiting patrons, greeting
| have the pleasure of speaking to
you to-day in behalf of Elkland
Grange. This pleasant duty of ex-
tending welcome to you brotheIs
and sisters who have left your quiet
farms and peaceful homes to come
over these rough and rugged hills to
meet us here to-day, to gladden. our
hearts and lead us to higher privi-
leges in the benefit of the Grange
this high privilege should have been
delegated to more able and cOmpe-
| tent minds. But as resident of
Sullivan county / will be free to say
that you as members of Pomona
Grange No. %, we trust will receive
a cordial welcome from the members
of Elkland Grange and citizens of
Western Sullivan. The Sullivan
county members of the Grange who
are identified with agriculture and
rural life, that were to renumerate
the trials and hardships of the early
settlers of the western part of the
county or indeed the major part of
it, many would join me in speaking
words of welcome to our friends
from distance.
To-day we are enjoying the bene-
fits and pleasures they had intended
for their children, after these pleas
ures the result of their labors, we
offer to you this sociality, arising
from education and knowledge gain
ed by our own experience from the
results of crops raised on the farm.
AS you are aware agriculture is de-
fined as the art of cultivating the
ground and obtaining from it the
products necessary for the support
of animal life.
1t is not my purpose to give you
instructions as to the modes or
methods of farming even were !
capable of the task. We read in the
early history of the science and art
of farming that Cain was tiller of
the soil and Abel feeder of sheep,
thus finding that in its infancy these
Two grand denizons of agriculture.
The tilling of the soil requiring the
labor of the head and hand, and the
rearing of animals constituting the
life of shepard.
improvements in the modes of liv-
ing is gained by experience and OBJ
servation and come by slow degrees.
Reliance on the spontaneous growth
of the earth furnishes only meager
subsistence. In the early tilling of
the soil by race doomed to toll,
necessity soon sharpened the power
of invention. AS time passed and
the race multiplied their progress
sought Oltl tIlC lSltllV NoiiS y . oii't th
gagged in tilling the ground.
We also read that with their in
struments of husbandry Noah plant
ed a vineyard while Others became
the OWL IS of herds of cattle. Abra-
ham was 'ch in them, while Lot
had fiocks and herds and tents.
Elisha when sought by ELIZA to re-
ceive the mantle of prophet was
found plowing with 12yoke ofoxen,
team that wosld astonish us even
in these modern days.
We know that Egypt from the re-
motest recorded times was noted as
the land of corn. Our Sullivan
county farmers will no doubt be
amazed at recital of their methods
of farming. The exceeding fertility
of the valley of the Nile, a strip of
land few miles in width and grad
ually sloping to the river for sever
al hundred miles in lenghth, is well
known. During a portion of the
year this valley is submerged with
water and when it subsidies the top
is of the richest possible character.
The cultivator had only to cast the
seed then turn on herd of swine to
tramp it in and await the harvest.
The ancients probably suffered more
from want of proper agriculture ma
chinery than from any other cause.
Can we form any idea of the number
of persons engaged in grinding corn
by their primitive methods, for the
wants of vast empire? The me-
chanical arts languished and nature