The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1909-08-21
THE FARMER AND REFORM
The Man Who Fills the Soil Fails to Find the ssMore Abundant Lfe'' Because He Has Not Been
 Accustomed to Team Work

rals for a change meet with the stock argument we've always got along argument to meet. It's the last re-
 sort in forensic eratoricaIs. The farm CT does many, many things in a long and laborious fashion that could cas-
 here and there and by the aid of sci
 ence. Brains could frequently substi-
 tute for brawn for the good of all
 were it not for this attitude of almost
 fet1ch worship. He. often brides him.
 self on his 'practicality' when a little ! analysis displays his practicality as a slavish dependence on tradition or custom. Conservatism of the true type is the safe guard of the country but
 when it assumes the form of ances- t-al worship and slavish repetition,
 when it becomes an accompanist of irrationality, it loses its claim to be- ing a virtue.
 This lack of respect for science and the rational element in farm activities has no doubt been one of the factors that drove the boy from the farm. This influence of tradition accounts for many instances of a. sustained farm architecture that is out-worn unadap- ted and unscientific. People still plant beans in "the moon' and over look the important truths that later science has revealed to them concern ing the importance of obeying some of the mandates of nature in prepar- ing the soil and pay little less at | tSALlOu lO d uChlc HOOn. put IL CIO moon does have something to say re- garding the growth of beans, let us know. This is what adds zest to farm ing and puts it in line with other vo- for the farmer who has caught the vision. It is for those who haven't seen the star of hope.
 A man does not necessarily become a full-fedged candidate for the Heav- enly Kingdom because he is born in a flower garden has mt around him. It helps but it cannot wholly save the sinner. Environment does much but it cannot do everything. Beauty is a great element for good in our surrounding but it cannot purge a man entirely of his sin. On the whole, however, the silent influences are powerful often in inverse ratio to their noiseness. Waiving all sentiment gerations of the love-sick youth, we still maintain that the surroundings of the farmer are superior to any other class in the creation of noble traits of character, providin he en- ters into them. Here is the trouble. He doesn't see these things in their proper relations and proportions. Again and what is more nearly the truth in himself with spectacles whose orbs are two gold eagles and he stuInbles through the furrow blind to the truth that would come in and make him free. The dollar has caught him, blind-fold- ed him, gagged him and left him help less so far as ability to realize spirit ual freedom is concerned. The best that's in him is now gone. Every body sees more in the beauty and the freedom of the farm than the farmer. This beauty is not deception. It's not a mirage, neither is it a hallu- cination nor an allusion. It is a stern fact. When he gets his nose some what farther away from the grind stone of daily toll, when he looks from corn to hogs, from hogs to dol these to more of life's conveniences, to something better for his kinsmen, instead of casting envious and greedy eyes at the timing forty.'' will he learn the lessons that the farm has to teach.