The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1916-09-04

Fromd the Memphis News-Scimitar.
Happy the man whose wish and care
A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breathe his native air
On his own ground.
Whose herds with milk, whose fields with
bread
Whose flocks supply him with attire;
Whose trees in summer yield him shade,
In winter, fire.
~ o he wrote Alexander Pope, or
nNdlched words and ideas from the
second ode in the fifth book of Hor-
ace Pope knew nothing whatever about
farming or farm life, and Horace did,
because his good friend Maecenas had
given him a little Sabine farm on which
he lived at certain seasons of the year
So or similarly wrote Theocritus-Si Singer
of Persephone" So wrote Virgil. who
learned to write aclogues from his Greek
master, who flourished three centuries
before Christ. So or similarly wrote the
Ettrick shepherd, and so or similarly
wrote all the pastoral poets from the
earliest time. They expended the wealth
of their genius on praising the country
and country life and country life at that
time was not what it Is today. Horace
praised country life because people coulo
get away from the sound of the bugles
and the crowds of the city. but he had
to pillow his land with oxen hitched to
wooden plow, because it was centuries
later before even a metal point or plate
was attached to it. The returns were
meager and the life was most squalld.
The farmer ate black and coarse bread,
because it was composed of grain broken
in fragments and not ground and sifted
and separated as it is today. He ate
his meat torn from animals or twisted
off wherever there was joint, because
they had no butcher knives or saws
in those days. Coffee and tea and sugar
he had none, and had to depend for his
sweetening on honey, and his drink was
a vapid wine carried about in smelly
goatskins, as it is today In some parts OF
Mexico and which people of ordinary fas-
tidiousness keep away from.
Farming in the days of the great
writer's was but a small business Gin
mand of an army, had only little bull
tongue affair made of wood and drawn by
one OK, and his entire domain consisted
of four acres. If the great poets of the
past could have seen the modern farm
and the modern farmer there Is no telling
| just what they would have written, and
1 their words and music might have been
| orchestrated and sung by the heavenly
choir. The modern farmer rides on
spring seat and does his work by ma
chinery He is development of civiliza-
ton He has no ancestor in the remote
past who can legitimately claim kin with
him. Truly indeed Is he sovereign OF
all he surveys. and his rights there are
| none to dispute He Is the benevolent
car of his own kingdom. and the ruler
of his domain. He can tell the world to
go hang. He is the only really tndepen-
dent member Of our entire population. He
"a = world unto himself. At home, and
with the power and facilities for produce
| ing a bountiful sustenance he does not
| care whether tho laundry men or the
street car men. the bricklayers or the
railroad men go on strike. He Is not
affected by stringent money market.
nor Is he frightened by periods of in
flation. Money has no control over him.
and he can leisurely learn Of war and
politics with equanimity, because he is
above and superior to them. He is the
one individual who has no concern with
prices. His only interest is in values,
and that is casual. One of his chickens
has just as much nourishment and just
as much value at one time as at an
other, whether the price be high or low,
and It Is the same way with his eggs, his
meat. his bread and all other necessa-
ries. In the outer world. and among
the scrambling. exigent masses in the
/ conkested districts. price means every
thing To him in his quiet seclusion and
orderly Independence price means moth
ling, and he concerns himself only with
. values and with those things that 50 r