The citizen. [volume] (Berea, Ky.) 1899-1958, 1912-07-11

the corner of his field. Don't You
see that he expected TO live there
and his people for ever. But what
has happened7 Since 1890 that farm
or has decided to sell his farm. He
has put a price upon the doorstone
where he sat at his mothers knee,
a price upon the hosrthstone where
his father taught him. lilo has put
price upon Gods acre, where his peo-
pie sleep. And 30 In New England
and New York the farmers in large
numbers have every man priced his
land, have gone into speculation, not
as real estate agents but as farmers
ready to move.
One OF our college presidents had
said that only those farmers In the
eastern states who brought from Eu-
rope n better method OF cultivaiing
the soil have been able to resist IN
the East the competition Of Western
tree Land. Many OF the farmers Of
New England. Ohio, Pnnsylvania,
and | venture Kentucky and Tonnes
see, have gonc west and gone west
again since the Civil War.
am not here to condemn or praise.
do not say the speculative farmer
is not as good man as tho rest. In
fact. he is as sane man as the other.
Ills church has changed as he has.
Many of ou~ churches arc speculative.
Colleges like this are not supported
by men whose gospel Of life is a gos-
pei Of speculation. They SEQ that
investment in land and oil and rail-
roads pays and they wish to invest
in men.
But | want TO pass quickly to the
fourth type Of church. which | con-
ceiye to bo the destination OF the
farmer OF this country. | will call him
tho husbandman. | am tempted 10
use something like pun. and say
/ he is the man who marries the land.
! saw. passing through Pennsylvania
some time ago. a station named Beu-
lab, and | said Il will go out and ses
how well Beulah Is married" And
the blue sky overhead and the green
below had made n beautiful place.
but that land had not been married
tor II was no longer titled. but In
the center OF the valley was a great
pile whereon had been disgorgcd the
refuse OF the mines. As tho coal and
iron had been taken out they had
! left the huge unsightly deposit which
/ II would take years TO restore. The
speculator Is the man who came 10
the farmer and said. Il will give
you so much for your coal And this
man has turned his land over u
parties who thus would make little.
and has turned his timber over TO
others and the land is weakened and
ravished. And the great trouble Is
that We have been 30 DESTROYS Of
change and alteration In the life
OF the country that everything has
been turned into money. The very
work OF women and children has been
turned into money. Whole communi-
ties have sold their children to the
mills. There arc communities where
II is not safe for parents To tell how
old their children are. These condi-
making laws against putting a price
on anything from the honor Of
woman to the labor Of a child.
But there is now coming a class Of
farmers who love the land and who
have determined that they will treat
the soil as man treats woman
that he loves. For man can treat a
woman whom he loves SO that when
she Is forty she Is more charming
than at twenty. and when she is
sixty she Is more lovely than when
he first saw her. II is just as possi-
BILE for people who love the land to
treat II In such a way that IL Is
richer for every year that they have
lived upon II. The Quakers we're such
people. They learned In England how
to till the soil. They had titled that
land for almost two hundred years,
and at the end OF two hundred years
che land was richer than In any pre-
cecing time. In France there are
peasants filling the soil, raising
seven crops year, because these
men know how to till the soil. And
that land has been under tillage for
more than a thousand years, con-
tinuously feeding man and continu-
ally getting richer. And up here IN
the state Of Ohio there are thirty
four counties that are really produc-
ing less than they produced fifty
years ago. A great part OF the Unit
ed States is producing less year by
year than IL produced In any preced-
Ing time. And they have left II 20
become poorer than It was before.
Now the farmer who is a husband
man Is building a church and a school