Cameron County press. [volume] (Emporium, Cameron County, Pa.) 1866-1922, 1906-11-22
FARMS AND FARMERS.
Alfred Truman Writes Entertain
ingly of Observations as to
Tilling of the Soil.

1t was a common occurrence some
three or four generations ago for young
men to marry and TO start out in life in
the pursuit of agriculture, whose first
great task was the clearing and making
a farm out of the natural forest. Very
many began their careers under equal
conditions, and to those who witnessed
many of these beginnings, and have
carefully observed the life-work of
these same people, it is interesting, in
many cases, and extremely melancholy
in others, to see and to contemplate the
various results. Many of these families
succeeded only in eking out compar-
atively poor existence, and have left,
from the fertile acres they wrested from
the lap of nature, land in the last
stages of desolation and ruin. An ex-
tremely limited few have developed
natures resources in the arts of agri-
culture, and have created a higher
order of human advancement, while
the tendency OF their neighbors has
been toward the conditions from which
human existence originated.
Circumstances may bring many into
the work of agriculture who have not
single qualification for conducting the
industry they accidently come to fol-
low, and all such cases demand fair
measure of sympathy-if not even pity.
But viewing the great agricultural sub
lject on its merits, believing it to be the
fundamental basis Of the worlds ad-
vancement, forcible examples of the
art of civilized progression by some,
and an evidence OF degeneration on
the part of others, may be seen in all
rural communities, and, l fancy, par
ticularly SO along the road which leads
from Brookville to Reynoldsville.
There are farms adjoining the road
in question, SO poor that if all the soil
in the United States was reduced to the
same degree of nproductiveness, the
country could not support one-tenth of
its present population, in fact it would
not sustain in civilized condition the
very creatures who might seek to exist
upon it. There is, however, in the
midst of this agricultural squalor, a
little community of men whose farms
are an honor to themselves and credit
to the country, and the star in this
galaxy of progressive fellows is Mr..
Levi Schuckers.
The vital Importance to the world
between good and bad agriculture is so
| fro 1npd hot x.,ta t0
to do justice to Mr.. Schuckers, and to
those who have followed and are fol-
lowing his splendid example, l feel /
shall fail to find expressions of suffi-
, cient force to express ones admiration
of the conduct of these men in the
worlds best occupation. The produc-
ton of Mr.. Schuckers' farm, although
our seasons are limited to less than five
months duration, are equal both in
quantity and quality to the best farms
in the counties Of Lancaster and
Chester, spot we call the garden of
America. And if all the land the
country cultivates was made as pro-
, ductive as is the soil Of Mr.. Schuckers
| pCPNlieiIioh va AOlsl i1liuOTCu
of people could be sustained. His aver
, age production of wheat per acre is
double that of our western praries,
and his yield for this year is 500 bush.
els. When the census report for his
township was read by the census Off
cials at Washington, for the year 1900,
the figures giving Mr.. Schuckers' pro
duction of crops for that year, were
discredited and the report returned, as
the officials stated, for correction; but
as absolute facts had been given in the
first instance, there were no corrections
to be made.
Mr. and Mrs. Scluckers began their
career of perseverance and success in
the year 1861. The land they have
succeeded in making so fertile and
productive was at that time dense
forest. Along with the laborious task
of clearing the land, they engaged, al
so, in the lumber business-to the ex-
tent of utilizing the timber as the land
was being cleared. To render large
proportion of their land productive
they found it necessary to construct
several hundred rods of permanent
drains. All this labor, together with
that of clearing tho land of stumps,
was assduously carried on and contin-
ued year after year, until the noble
aspiration and ambition OF these real
benefactors had been brought to a
state Of happy realization No single,
separate monument could do justice to
the man who has manifestly improved
the agricultural conditions of his coun-
try. His should be a great central
figure, surrounded by emblems repre-
sentative of every civilized industry