Devils Lake weekly world. (Devils Lake, N.D.) 1911-1914, 1912-02-09
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j. LINCOLN ON AGRICULTURE. ;:
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+ LINCOLN ON AGRICULTURE. +:
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Extract from an address delivered
by President Lincoln at Milwaukee
Wis, Sept. 80, 1859.
"Unqucstionably it will take more
labor to produce fifty bushels of whea,
from an acre than it will ten bushels
from the same aero; but will it take
more labor to produce fifty bushels
from one acre than from fves IN.
questionably thorough cultivation will
require more labor to the acre; but will
it require more to the busheli If il
should require just as much to the bush.
Ell, there are some probable, and sew.
eral certain, advantages in favor of
the thorough practice. It is probable
it would develop those unknown causes
which of late years have cut down our
crops below the former average. It is
almost certain, I think, that by deep
blowing, analysis Of the soils, expert
ments with manures and varieties of
seeds, observance of seasons and the
like, these causes would be discovered
and remedied. 1t is sertain that thor
ough cultivation would spare half, CT
more than half, the cost of the land,
simply because the product could DO
got from half, or from less than half,
the quantity of land. This proposition
is self-evident, and can be made no
palmer by repititions or illustrations.
The cost of land is great item, even
in new countries, and it constantly
grows greater and greater, in compari-
son with other items, as the country
grows older.
% No other human occupation opens
so wide a field of the profitable and
arceable combination of labor with cul-
tivated thought, as agriculture. I
know nothing so pleasant to the mind
as the discovery of anything that is at
once new and Misunderstanding 20
lightens and sweetens toll as the hope
full pursuit Of such discovery. And
how vast and how varied field is ag-
riculture for such a discovery! The
mind. already trained to thought in the
country school, or higher school cannot
fail to find there an cxhaustless source
of enjoyment. Every blade of grass is
a study; and to produce two where
there was one is both profit and
a pleasure. And not grass alone, but
soils, seeds and seasons - hedges,
bitches, Understanding, droushts and
rrigation-plowing, hoeing and har-
moving and thresh-
ing-saving crops, pests in crops, d.
scase of crops, and. what will prevent
or cure them-implements, utensils and
machines and their relative merits, and
how to improve them--hogs, horses
and cattle, sheep, goats and poultry
trees, shrubs, fruits, plants and flow
ers-thc thousand things of which
these are specimens-cach a world of
study within itself.
"In all this book learning is avail
able. A capacity and taste for reading
gives access to whatever has been dis.
covered by others. 1t is the key, or
one of the keys, to the already solved
problems. And not only so. It gives
relish and facility for successfully pur-
suing the unsolved ones. The rudiments
of science are available, and highly
available. Some knowledge of botany
assists in dealing with the vegetable
world-with all growing crops. Chem
istry assists in the analysis of the
soils, selection and application of ma
nures and in numerous ways. The me-
chanical branches of natural philosophy
are ready help in almost everything,
especially in references to implements
and machinery.
"The thought occurs that education
thought-can best be COM
bined with agricultural labor, on the
principle of thorough work; that care
less, half performed, slovenly work
makes no place for such combination;
and thorough work, again, renders suf-
fcient the smallest quantity Of ground
to each man, and this again conforms
to what must occur in a world less in
clined to wars and more devoted to the
arts Of peace than heretofore. Popula-
ton must increase rapidly, more rapid
~ than in former times, and ere long
the most valuable of all arts will he
the art of deriving comfortable sub
sistence from the smallest area of soil
No community whose every member
possesses this art, can ever be the vie
tim of oppression in any of it's FORMS
Such community will be alike indepen.
dent of. crowned kings, money kings
and land kings"
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