The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1920-11-02
The Law and The Prophets.
From Alabama Farm Facts.

Not much is new under the sun. Most
things in this old world have come down to
us from the beginning. We follow Willingly,
or not, the law OF nature in all our human
relations and activities; and that law was en-
acted at the first session. OF the great assem-
bly, which fixed for all time the rule OF action
to govern all men. Nature enforces its own
laws their violation brings its own punish
ment.
The whole system Of successful farm
management is as old as farming, and farming
was the first thing in which men engaged.
At various periods of time a man OF vision
has risen to the Interpretation of the statutes,
and called attention to their requirements Ill
manner which has impressed their force, inn
PEELED new obedience to their mandates and
for a time drawn enough men to their sup
port to demonstrate their wisdom and their
success.
The younger Knapp in recent years has
preached the doctrine of safe farming, which
he interprets to mean self-support with its
consequent independence. This doctrine is
simply the law of nature construed by one
of natures jurists. The elder Knapp before
him had made the same Interpretation, IN his
own manner, just as one court confirms the
law in its own language.
A quarter of a century ago this same con-
struction was placed on the immortal statute
by one of the south's poetic Missionaries, and
it was given to the world in a language OF
flowers none the less ringing with truth
These words of Henry w, Grady, uttered inl
the fullness of his vision, in the rare concept
ton of his faith, and in the might of his
poesy are worth preserving to all poSterity
as the proclamation of the jurist, as the con-
clusion of the historian, as the declaration of
the prophet:
wien every farmer of the south shall
eat bread from his own fields and meat
from his own pastures, and disturbed by
no creditor and enslaved by no debt, shall
sit among his teeming gardens and orchards
and vineyards and diaries and barnyards,
pitching his crops in his own wisdom and
growing them in independence, making cot
ton his clean surplus, and selling it in his
own time in his chosen market and not at |
a masters bidding-getting his pay in cash
and not in receipted mortgage that dis
charges his debt but does not restore his
freedom-then shall be breaking the full
ness OF our day"
This is the whole law Whenever and wher
ever, in all the ages which have known agri-
culture, a farmer has shaped his efforts by
this rule there has been successful farmer;
none who have disregarded its teachings have
for long been known in the land as examples
of success.
An hundred years ago the sage of Month
cello, lawyer, statesman and economist, little
known as a farmer but nevertheless sue
cessful farmer, Thomas Jefferson, let his Wis
ion lead him into the application o.. this same
law, and in his writings may be found some
of the best of its interpretations. In that day
of one-crop farming he was. practicing diver
sifCation; while tobacco was robblng the soil
of the Old Dominion he was building up that
of his farm with the lowly cowpea, and withal
he was safe, sane, and successful farmer.
Two thousand years agone the Christman
in nearly every utterance was teaching this
same law, applying it in the language of the
farmer, and four thousand years before that
the story of the creation of all things became
the story of plant and animal life and conse-
quently the law of nature in its application
to the production of human food. This law
is as old as time, as true as holy writ, as in
exorable as the law of life itself. There is no
other road to permanent success, there is no
other way to surmount the difficulties which
constantly beset that road