Oxford Democrat. [volume] (Paris, Me.) 1833-1933, 1915-01-19
Agriculture In the Thirtieth Century.
NOT MUCH THAT is NEW, BUT FOOD FOR
THOUGHT WELL SAID.
(E. Davenport In Hosrd's Dairymsn)


THOUGHT WELL SAID.
tE. Davenport In Hosrd's Dairymanl
What will this country look like a
thousand years from now? What kind
of crops will be growing on the land?
What kind of cattle will be grazing in
the fields? What kind of houses will
the people live in, and what kind of
paintings, il any, will ornament the
countryside? How will Americans
dress and deport themselves a millen-
mum hence? What will their amuse-
ments be and how will they spend their
money? Will the future American be
peaceful, or warlike industrious or lazy,
and what will be contribute to art, to
science aud to progress? In short, what
will America look like and what will the
people do and be in the year Three
thousand?
At the present rate of progress there
is time to accomplish wonders in even a
hundred years. Men are yet living who
remember when the Irdian possessed
the western half of the continent, and
the New Ulm massacre is only half a
century old. Within the period of q
single long life we have developed the
railroad and the steamboat, the moving
machine and the reaper, the linotype
and the power press, the telegraph and
the telephone, not to mention recent
wonders.-the aeroplane, the submarine,
the wireless and the automobile. Mod
ern methods of heating and lighting,
like steel and cement construction, are
new. Even our standard fruits and
vegetables are recent creations and most
that We have and use in our daily lives
represents progress since the times OF
our own grandfathers.
IL was our fathers and We that cleared
the timber from the virgin forests west
of the Alleghanies, that "broke" and
subdued the thousand miles Of prairie to
the westward, and laid the rails for
half dozen transcontinental lines, con-
Meeting the two oceans with arteries OF
trade. We have begun the construction
of permanent bridges and buildings; ana
If the activities of the present and the
preceding generation can be projected
indefinitely, this country will blossom
as the rose, for within another hundred
years every farm can have it's commodi-
GUS homestead in a setting OF shrubbery
and great trees, prophetic OF what
Heaven lie, and surrounded by produc-
tive fields where man works with GOD In
the sunshine and in the rain. The very
roadsides may be avenues OF beauty and
the roadway perfect if only We will
husband our resources and bestow them
as intslligently in the future as in the
past.
Every man, if he will, may sit under
his own vine and fig tree or ride in bis
own chariot, and even the humblest citi-
Zen may live in comparative comfort
thousand years from now, and less, u we
can all be wise and devote the revenues
Of soil, of forest, aud Of prairie; oil shop,
of factory, and of counting house; OF
hand, of brain, and Of heart to the really
useful, substantial, and enduring things.
We and our fathers have been obliged to
do this iu the past in order to "get
along" Will We and our children con-
tinue to be wise after the pinch OF DIRE
necessity has passed? Ii is Inevitable
that we shall have enormous accumuia-
tions from the products OF the earth ana
the fruits of labor. Will they % amass-
ed and used to important ends or will
they be dissipaied and wasted as rapidly
as they can be made TO assume tangible
form?
The evidence which history presents
at this point is most disconcerting. VI
the great nations of antiquity, only
China is eft,-aud she is asleep. Baby
ION is in heaps. Assyria is not. Egypt
is wasted. Greece is a memory, Rome
lislbroken. Every one of them has either
wasted or neglected its opportunity un,
I'll too late to repair the damage, and
civilization has passed on without them.
IL is true Of races even more than OF
men There is a tide in the affairs OF
men which, taken at the flood, leads on
to fortune"
It has been the weak ness OF man that
as soon as he has succeeded In subduing
the earth and compelling IL to yield to
his support, with something TO spare, he
has wasted his accumulations either IN
destructive warfare or in frivolous or
riotous living; sometimes IN ooth. Inc
hosts of Assyria, the chariots OF Egypt,
and the legions of Rome have their full
counterpart in Europe to-day, where the
same havoc is being wrought with the
results of civilization in our race that
war has always worked in the destruc-
ton of other races, tearing down IN
months what it took centuries to build,
with only splendid ruins to show for 1t
10 the end; aud back of it all, by all ac-
counts, has been a false standard oil lv-
ing, a frivolous and inadequate philoso-
ply of life.
And we ourselves are beginning the
first chapters of that weary drama that
race after race has enacted before us.
When our fathers were young they were
also poor. The spirit of the pioneer
was upon them and they worked because
they had a visiop-a vision OF q home
aud little ones. Now is the time for
larger vision, a national and racial pas
sion for highly developed civilization
resting not upon poverty and distress OF
the multitude, but upon the substantial
foundation of individual effort and indi-
vidual liberty as ushered into the world
some two millenniums ago in Palestine
by Him who spoke as never man spake.
On fresh, new soil our Puritan fathers
began new career and lived and labor
ed ''for the glory of God" Narrow aud
blpoted they may have been but their
vision was bright, their purpose exalted,
and We need its beneficent influence
now. We need il because we have tax
en- the first steps in the wrong direction,
along the way that has led other races
only to destruction.
when We were young and unknown
We enjoyed the full fruits Of all our Ia
bors, and our accumulations went into
further improvements. But now that
We are great and have our seat In the
parliament of nations We pay dearly, IN
deed, for the privilege. Only one hun
dred and thirty eight years old, We are q
| nation in the bud, yet our war oudget
for three years would macadamize every
mile of highway in state like Illinois;
Yet We are not at war, and We are told
By experts that We have an inadequate
navy and no army. In Heavens name,
what is adequate, and how much must
We pay out OF our earnings to arm our,
selves against our "civilized" neigh6ors!
So We 90 on travelling in the mud, pare
ly conscious of the tax We pay out OF
our accommodations for living in civilized
times when we must devote the mass ol
our accumula' ions to defence agains'
other Christians, rather than to further
improvements in the conditions OF iiv
ing. A..