The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1906-04-07
CITY BOY MAY WELL BECOME A GOOD
FARMER.

In the worlds dictionary the farm
er is defined as a plain tiller of soil
and the agriculturist or planter as one
who has lifted the farm on to the
plane of business. The term farmer,
however, covers that vast company
of workers who, by the planting oi
the seed, raise any kind of harvest,
or who breed and raise cattle and 9th
er stock. The planter of the south
and the agriculturist of the west are
both farmers, but by right of cour-
tesy are described by other titles, be-
cause they carry farming into bust
ness, or rather apply the methods OF
business to planting and harvesting.
The railroad may cease running, and
things will continue to live. The
stock board may board up its doors,
and the world will continue to move
as it has been moving for centuries,
subject only to transient financial
cloudiness. Most business men may
60 out of business, and the professional
may no longer continue to practice,
yet people will continue to live and
to propagate. But when there is no
longer any farmer, there will be no
longer any people, for the world will
have starved to death.
The farm, with what the farm
stands for, is the essential factor of
human maintenance. The farm,
then, is an indispensable necessity,
without which the nations would
never have begun their existence.
The wealth of the world is not in its
business, is not even in its mineral
resources, but consists In the cultiva-
ton of the earth's surface-in the
farm. The farmer is the original pro-
ducer of that which makes life posi-
Bile, and without which no life can be
maintained.
The fundamental corner stone of
all physical progress was originally
placed upon the farm, and there it
will remain so long as we have phys
ical natures and require material
food.
FARMING GREATEST INDUSTRY.
Farming is our greatest industry,
the industry preservative of all indus
tries. Notwithstanding the existence
of hundreds of abandoned farms, and
the constant exodus from the farm to
the city the farm in its numerical and
financial strength is to day the great
est power in the whole civilized
world. The farmer is not recognized
as he should be, because he seeks
neither notoriety nor prominence,
but quietly does his work, allowing
others to play at society and to re-
ceive its shallow reward. Here,
however, has been made a grievous
mistake. The farmer, like the law
yer, should be proud of his profession
sufficiently apprsciative of it to con-
tribute to it the FULL measure of his
self-respect. Because he does not do
so, he has lost both the social and
business prominence which really be-
longs to his calling. To be in love
with ones work does not fully suffice.
1t is necessary to have the love for
the work to appear before men that
they may honor us, and by respecting
US be more willing to become of us or
to help us.
There are many classes of farms,
altogether too many to allow for COM
plete enumeration. They range from
the rocky eastern farm to that of the
fertile western prairie.
Some farms do not pay, partly be-
cause some farms can not be made to
pay. The totally barren farm is a
worthless piece of property. The
sooner it is abandoned the better.
The tendency to day is unmistak-
ably away from the farm. The farm
er's boy, partly because he wants a
change, but largely because the great
unknown shines with light apparent
ly brighter than all the lights he has
ever seen, desires to leave the farm
and to earn his living under entirely
different conditions away from nature
as he has experinced it, where he
may lead a life diametrically different
from that of his childhood. But the
farmers boy is not altogether to blame
for leaving the farm. The fault, in
more than half the cases, IS due tc
the farmer himself and to the way
the farm is conducted. The boy.
brought up upon the farm which /:
not properly cultivated, and where
most of the work is drudgery, or is
made to be drudgery, where intellec
tual growth is stunted, naturally II
the ignorance of his youth, assume:
that all farms are like the farms o
his childhood, and that the oppor
tunities of life must be elsewhere
Therefore he gravitates to the city
not so much because he loves the city
but because he feels that that which
he knows nothing about, although h'
may think he does, is better thar
that which he does know about from
actual boybood experience.
FARMER DRIVES BOY TO CITY.
The farmer, rather than the farm
is driving the boy to the city, ant
the boy is going to the city simpl,
because in negative way he has beef
forced cityward.
Farm work is hard. There is nj
denying it. The farmer, as mucl
as any other man, earns his living b.
the work of his hands and by th
sweat of his brow. Farmers, as
rule, are the hardest of our workers
except the miners. They literally
bend to their labor, and many of then
bend altogether too much in their as
sumption that the success of the farm
is dependent upon the quantity rath
er than upon the quality of thei
works.
If the average farmer works harde
than does the business man, it is no
always because he thinks he must
1 do not deny that there is much o
/ IL &c G