FARMER'S INSTITUTES. 83 



nothing is worth a rush unless it can be proved. A farmer walks out upon his 

 farm ; he sees mounds, hills, rills, and rocks, hollows, and perhaps swamps. 



If the owner understands geology, the science that treats of the earth, its 

 structure and its history, these sights are iiis familiar friends, he knows them 

 at once, and can to a great extent give the history of the formation of his 

 farm, and can approximate its age. He finds, perhaps, in his corn-field or 

 wheat-field a thousand varieties of grasses and weeds growing where he does 

 not want them to grow. Some of this vegetation has flowers upon it whose 

 sweet odors perfume the air many miles around. This vegetation, where does 

 it come from? The seeds which have produced it seem to have been scattered 

 by the broad hand of nature. It is, however, a product of the earth, — as much 

 so as wheat or corn. If, therefore, the farmer understands the science which 

 treats of the products of the earth, he will not only know about the crop his 

 labor produces, but will also know something of every wild flower and blade 

 of grass fostered and watered by Him who notes the sparrow's fall. There is 

 no way to tell whether a bird of the air or a beast of the field is of use to man 

 except by a reference to the science of natural history. Neither is there any 

 way provided by which the farmer can ascertain the component parts of the 

 soil of his farm, and thereby tell almost to a certainty what crops it will pro- 

 duce the most profitably, unless it can be accomplished by a knowledge of 

 chemistry. I know tiiat some of my hearers are ready to say that they can 

 tell what every acre of their farms will produce best, and they never studied 

 chemistry at all. My friend, you have by repeated experiments and at great 

 loss of both time and money ascertained what you could have learned mucli easier 

 and cheaper if you had even a very limited knowledge of the science of chem- 

 istry. You overlook the fact, too, that some knowledge of any science can be 

 acquired without the aid of books or even of teachers. I have said the farmer 

 should be a student all his life ; so should every other person, no matter what 

 his occupation or profession may be. How many of us have seen farmers toil- 

 ing through all the long, hot days of summer, and through the cold snows of 

 winter, — toiling on and on, and at last fail. We say of such a man, he is a 

 poor manager. I have said it myself a hundred times : He is a very indus- 

 trious man, but he is a poor manager. What is bad management? It is 

 going through the world bv guess. Such a man never thinks at all. He is 

 just as apt to sow wheat at the wrong time and upon the wrong kind of laud 

 as at the right time and upon land which would reasonably be expected to 

 produce a good crop. He does every thing by guess. He is a good man — his 

 wife is a good woman (and in all likelihood a good manager), but he guesses 

 along from year to year, and at last guesses out, — fails. Do not believe for a 

 moment that he fails because he is a farmer. He would have failed as quickly 

 in any other business. Such men always fail. They never succeed. 



How can this sort of failures be avoided? 1 can do no better than to give 

 you the rule of a very eminent man in this country. "Think out your work 

 and then work out your thoughts." It will not require any argument to show 

 that a person who violates the last part of the rule is in as bad situation as a 

 person who violates the first part of it, — because, unless the thoughts are 

 worked out, thinking out the work would be an idle and useless ceremony. 



If this rule was observed by farmers they could to a great extent know in 

 advance what the result of their ventures would be, and this is success. When 

 the suggestions that I have made are observed by tiie farmers of the country 

 then, and not until then it may be truly said that farming is accomplished by 

 what is Called skilled labor, — that is labor educated in the industry in which 



