The states-graphic. (Brownsville, Tenn.) 1???-1984, 1918-09-06
FARMING IN
THREE DIMENSIONS

Like a well plowed furrow, farm
life must have the straightahead
quality of length, like the prairie
fields it must have breadth; and like
the lift of the sky, it must have height
When boys leave the country for the
factory, or when the tillefs of the
soil themselves find life Of WEAKNESS to
both flesh and spirit, it is almost in
variably because farm life, as they
have known it, lacks two or all Of
these dimensions.
Farming must have length-that is
it must be practically effective. I'm
less farmer can make his dairya nd
his grain fields and his meadows pay,
he has no incentive to remain on the
land. If the grip of "0ld Man Mort
gage cannot be shaken from the acres
a young man has borrowed money
to buy, he will find life increasingly
not worth living.
"To make two blades of grass TO
grow where only one grew before" has
long been synonym of real achieve
ment. Something of this sort charac-
terizes the farming which has length.
There must be more tons of hay
cut out the river meadow, and there
must be a larger yield of wheat and
corn to the acre. Not only must the
farm grow capable of carrying lar
ger dairy, but each COW must prove
a better investment.
Linnaeus went to GLAND, so it is
said, and found the lands of the far
mers ruined by the sands blown from
the beaches. He discovered that the
roots of certain beech grass were long
and firm. He taught the farmers to
sow that grass along the beach and
so preserved their lands from ruin.
He walked into Thorn and there he
found that at certain period in every
year the cattle fell sick and died. 1t
was curse, the people said--the act
of N.ngry spirits. But Linnaeus, ex-
amihing the pastures, uncovered a
noxious weed and showed the farmers
how the work of one laborer for a
few days every sason would rot it
out.
TIL farming of Linnaeus is farming
in the first dimension. It has length
But farm life Of the right sort must
also have breadth. 1t is all too sadly
possible to get living from the farm
and nothing else. 'The Man With a
Hoe" may have money in the bank,
and yet lead an utterly sordid exist
ence. Breadth of life in the country
is determined by the number and kind
of things the farmer finds to enjoy in
the out-of-doors and in his rural home.
Something is wrong when fermer
has to drive to town or go to the city
to find enjoyment. It the city there
are art galleries; in the country Gods
great canvases lie spread out before
him who has eyes to see, morning by
morning. In the city there are con-
certs, but what is finer than the April
and May choir Of birds?
True, there are seasons when the
farmer must work from sunrise to sun
set, but there are other seasons when
he has leisure for the companionship
of great books. There is a crowd in
the city, but for real neighborly So
ciabilty nothing can surpass a grange
picnic, or an old-fashioned country
church sociable.
Life on the farm has breadth, null
titude of interests and wealth of joy
to those who are alert to its opporu-
niles and privileges.
There may be both length and
breadth to country life, and yet it may
be like living in world without sky,
because it has no height, because it
is lacking in idealism. The out-of-
doors, as Henry Van Dyke suggests in
his Footpath of Peace is Goods OUT
of-doors," and yet there are multi
tudes of farmers who never feel the
presence which Wordsworth felt in
the light of setting suns, in the road
ocean and in the blue sky.
Millet's peasant farmers, in his
great picture, stop their work and
bow their heads in reverence when
the Angelus bell sounds from far
across the fields, but there are hosts
of country people in whose hearts the
church bell does not bring the thought
Of God.
When life on the farm has height
he who plows andplants and reaps
does his work as ever under his great
Taskmaster's eye, he rejoices in shar-
ing with the Almighty in his creative
work, and he lives not only to Danish
the dread of hunger from the world,
but to bring happiness and fuller life
to every soul of man.
To make the tilling of the soil a
ministry to mankind and fellowship
with God-that is farming in the
third and most important dimension.
The Country Gentleman.