The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-12-17

Wsn NIJ AlH N &l MI 8M VIII MllhH MNMMna nalMaAM lclothe the thought in most forcefui isentence for us In talking to us out at the State Fair, he said: Our farmers loften talk of the cost of the few papers lthey take and the expense of q few Idoliars devoted to reading matter. but I ask them Did you ever think how imuch it costs you not to readr." Let Ius review this matter together, and see some of the items of cost entailed upon us, by not reading more.
 First. reading is a habit God has made our physical body to demand or Icrave it's proper supply of food, for Its
 maintenance and growth. The mind, | however, feels this appetitet only in proportion to the stimulus given by the flood taken in to promote It's develop Iment and growth. The more you feed your mind the more 1t demands food. Those farmers who think they haven't time to read. are simply the ones who have not acquired the habit and taste flor reading. Their minds, never having felt the stimulus of this Quickening power, do not feel the necessity for it. Tor realize it's value or importance to them.
 Secondly, 1t costs us much loss, in a financial way Knowledge is power, and just as great power upon the farm as in other vacations. There Is no way to increase our fund of knowl- | thoughts and experiences of those who are travelling the same road that we are called upon to travel Besides the Ivast fund or valuable facts opened to Jour choosing, our faculties of percep- fare both quickened and strength ened. Those who do not read, lose money by not being up, upon the best methods and from being ignorant of many technical items that we can turn Unto greater production and hence into more money. Those farmers who at- tain the highest degree of success are Ireading farmers Muscles in no avenue of life commands the high price paid to brains. Ignorance cannot compete with skill and knowledge. Because 1t lis negative or unknown quality does lnot prevent our money loss from be- ling annually enormous, from the lack lof knowledge we might obtain from Ereading and assimilatlng the valuable I Information at our command. If far imers only had the eyes to see the enor- nous amoqnt 1t costs them In dollars and cents mot to read, then no other largument would ever need to be given them.
 Thirdly, 1t costs us much loss in pure pleasure and moral force. No man re- lveres or loves the pure and simple hearted farmer more than we do The lstyle of City folks and the outward, ex- lternal show of worldly success does not loverawe our minds.
 But we know the refining influence of culture and we have felt the pure tjoys that can only come from the con-
 tact with higher intellectual develop ment. So we would have our, farming lclass. to taste these sweets also. and in cohsequence, to be uplifted and saw led from many low and sordid influences
 that tend to drag our human nature flower. Our natural force must be ex- | ad a hfryh nr 1t descends to the low and debasing. While we would like our farmers to make more corn and cotton, we want
 them also to know
 How this globe was forged and how our stars were hung and be able to trace to their very source the springs of life;H and we lose this if we do not
 read. ~
 Fourthly. it costs us much in our Influence in this world and in our pre- Iparation for another. The farmer who does not read, loses in his home life
 In the influences upon his children, in the ainteresting power around his
 heartily in his power and influence fa the community. We are all conscious lof this when we talk to a man who
 reads and Informs himself We are no lpreachers and do not feel that respon- lsibility to fit men. for a future life; but rather to help them along in this; Ibut the two are intertwned and me
 Is best prepared for a future life who makes the best of this" We are unable to conceive of any high degree of i'm morality for us, that is not founded upon some high mental and moral de- velopment while livng here. So who can tell the eternal loss Co that human Tsoul. who had the opportunities to un- fold its wings which alone can upIift and bear us above the realm of the brute, but. who never improved them?
 Some wise man has written: Tt is ! in the imponderables (things that cam not be weighed) that move the world heat, electricity anl love" The most potent power Is often the immaterial: for to 1t Is given the power to change the form of the material and bring or- der out of chaos and beauty and worth out of inanimate matter. Since our loss from not reading is often an invisible quantity to us, it Is nevertheless a most real and stupendous one; it Is so vast indeed that many of us cannot fully comprehend it. Fellow farmers, realize that the twentieth century de- mands, not that you improve one, but that you improve all your opportuni- | ties. And reading is one of the most potent opportunities within our reacEfs -Southern Cultivator.
 BOIs D'Arc More Printable Than Cotton Cyrus w. Hogan in Farm and Ranch.
 The more this writer, a native Tex an nearly SO years old, reads and hears and sees of the needs of lasting posts, ties and wagon and buggy timber in this United States, the more he intends l to advocate the growing of bois dare upon our waste and overfIowed lands of the great Southland. The boIs dare
 Qike this writer) was found here by the surveyors when they arrived. I am aware 1t takes great deal of jogging Iprodding, pushing, pulling and nersuad- , ing to set the average Texan out of a rut, the cotton rut especially, so again I urge the readers of this article to gather at once some seed of the bois dare from any trees you can and start Ia nursery if you only faise 500 trees for next fall planting on some over flow land. It will be a start. Do 1t now Do it now. As I travel over Ellis coun- ty find the apples under every hedge row by the hundreds, and by the thous- ands, believe Fifty apples will make
 the 800 trees and 100 apples 1000 ' NIa fa arIxy Fc,,