Spirit of Jefferson. [volume] (Charles Town, Va. [W. Va.]) 1844-1948, 1919-09-02
LINCoLN'S VIEW OF AGRICUL-
TURE.

(From The Jefferson Cooperator.)
1t was during Lincoln's presidency
that the Land Grant College was
formed as the State Institution of
Agriculture and Engineering, and
then Experiment Stations were foun-
ded. In an address before Farmers
meeting at Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in
1859, Lincoln outlined his conception
of the possibilities of the farm and
rural community in that which should
mean to the farmer what his two min
ute speech has meant to the nation.
1t is almost unbelievable that the Lin
coin, unschooled, man hardened by
labor and poverty, SHOULD get SO
broad conception of the future
of agriculture.
'tNo other human occupation opens
so wide a field for the profitable and
agreeable combination of labor with
cultivated thought, as agriculture.
know nothing so pleasant to the mind
as the discovery of anything that is
at once new and valuable-nothing
that SO hghtens and sweetens toll as
the hopeful pursuit of such discovery.
And how vast and how varied field
is agriculture for such discovery
The mind, already trained to thought
in the country school or higher
school, cannot fail to find there an
exhaustless source of enjoyment
Every blade of grass is study; and
to produce two where there was but
one is both a profit and a pleasure.
And not grass alone, but soils, seeds,
and seasons-hedges, bitches, and
fences-draining drouths and irriga-
tion-plowing, hoeing, and harrow
ing -reaping, moving, and threshing
saving crops, pests of crops, d.
sease of crops, and what will prevent
or cure them-implements, utensils,
and machines; their relative merits,
and how to improve them-hogs, horses
and cattle-sheep, goats, and poultry
trees, shrubs, fruits, plants, and
fowers-the thousand things of
which these are specimens-each
world of study within itself.
''In all this, book learning is avail
able. A capacity and taste for read
ing gives access to whatever has al
ready been discovered 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 successful pursuing the unsolved
ones. The rudiments of science are
available, and highly available. Some
knowledge of botany assists in deal
ing with the vegetable world-with
all growing crops. Chemistry assists
in the analysis of soils, selection and
application of manures, and in num-
erous other ways. The mechanical
branches of natural philosophy are
ready help IN almost everything, but
especially in reference to implements
and machinery.
"The thought recurs that educa-
tion-cultivated thought-can best
be combined with agricultural labor,
or any labor, on the principle of
thorough work; that careless, half
performed, slovenly work makes no
place for such combination; and
thorough work, again, renders suf-
ficient the smallest quantityof ground
to each man; and this, again, con-
forms to what must occur in world
less inclined to wars and more devot-
ed to the arts of peace than hereto
fore. Population must increase rap
idly, more rapidly than in former
times, and erelong the most valuable
of all arts will be the art of deriving
a comfortable subsistence from the
smallest era of soil. No community
whose every member possesses this
art, can ever be the victim of oppres-
sion in any of its forms. Such COM
munity will be alike Independent of
crowned kings, money kings, and land
kings"