The Florida agriculturist., 1906-04-04

we like UnlS worthy prlde, anu
would do all we could to encourage
it. but it will take more than mere talk
to accomplish this. 1t can only be
done by developing the highest quail
ties of thrift. If we do not rise equal
to the emergencies, others will come
in, buy up our lands and occupy them.
On the train the other day we were
talking to a farmer who lives in
OcOnee county, s. c.; he said: ''The
farmers in our country are not as pro-
Sressiye and up-tO-date as those in
our adjoining county of Anderson.
Consequently the Anderson county
farmers are more prosperous, and
within the last year they have come
over and are buying up our lands.
Several of our best farms have been
acquired by them this winter" This
state of affairs will be duplicated in
every section that does not keep
abreast of the times. In the language
Of Darwin, THE fittest will survive"
''drOnes" will soon be made known,
and with all our newly-acquired means
of rapid transportation and spreading
of Information as to the condition in
any section, the habitatiOn of all
and the best working bees will soon
servants. But for the South, we hope
for better things. We confidently eX
pect our farmers to realize the full
meaning of the word farming, and car
~ it forward to an embodied reality
While many are not living up to their
opportunities. others are eagerly utiliz-
ing every advantage that comes with
i'll their reach. 1t is these that inspire
us to renewed effort. In this day,
when all the commercial world seems
gone mad in its wild rush for the
dollar" when graft seems to be the
watchword in all political and CONNER
cial life, and integrity and virtue seem
lost from their mOOrings in city life,
it is all the more important that we
farmers. whom God decreed should
be the salt of the earth," should raise
our ideals and improve our standards
We trust to be allowed to live to see
the day when thousands of the South's
best men will see as COwper saw,
when. with prophetic vision, he de
cIared:
God made the country and man made
the town.
What wonder then, that health and
virtues gifts,
That can alone make sweet the bitter
draught,
That life holds out to all. should most
abound,
And least be threatened in the fields
and groves"
Not only this, since the telephone
and rural free delivery have done
away with the isolation of country
life and brought it into contact with
the outside world, the farms can and
should produce men who are mentally
the equal of any in other callings.
The mind grows upon what it feeds,
and that mind which has both pure
IOOd and nOurishing food must grow to
be the strongest in all that constitutes
true wisdom. To finish upon our text
farming means essentially a
knOWer and a dOer. A farmer must
know much about soil, preparation OF
land, fertilizers, plants, varieties OF
seeds, selection of seeds, cultivation,
harvesting, machinery, stock of all
kinds, the diseases of stock, diseases
and their remedies of all plants and
fruits, how to buy and sell, and a
thousand minor details, to make an up
tO-date, successful farmer. Then he
must do many things with his own
hands. He must know the theory and
be able to put it into successful
pr1c 1cticp This 0iVpS him q tyOfold