AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT. 1()7 



became conservators of the law, guaranteed tranquility, main- 

 tained the public safety, and paid the German indemnity of 

 two billions of dollars in gold, in less than two years and a 

 half from the date of the peace negotiations. Thus the 

 farmers of France settled the grandest financial problem ever 

 presented to the consideration of its people ; and it is safe to 

 say that no other nation on the face of the globe could have 

 performed so marvelous an undertaking in so short a time. 

 And why? Because in the thrift, stability, energy and 

 flexibility of its agricultural population, France beats the 

 world. And what is true of France is true of our own coun- 

 try, — notwithstanding but ten per cent, of our territory is 

 devoted to purposes of agriculture, while in France more 

 than half its land is under cultivation — and true, also, of 

 every state and nation, the masses of whose population own 

 the soil and engage in its profitable culture. Those that own 

 the soil own the country, and land ownership is the basis of 

 the only true material wealth. Buildings burn, banks burst, 

 ships sink, wealth takes to itself wings — but the land remains. 

 Who has ever heard during the past four years of panics, and 

 suspensions, and defalcations, and irregularities — that the 

 earth has opened and swallowed up a man's farm ? Or that 

 something has come down and covered it all up so that he 

 could not find it? We make no reference to mortgaoes and 

 attachments — the farmer must look out for these. But the 

 fact remains — that whosoever owns the land and tills it in 

 such a manner that it does not grow poorer, must be himself 

 growing richer. The farming industry is the basis of all 

 wealth, the governing power of all commercial industries, the 

 foundation of all security. " The king himself is served by 

 the field." 



"Yes," you say, "we admit all this, and believe the raising 

 of bread and the production of meat, with the attendant 

 industries and manipulations they require, would form a 

 complete means of relief from the burdens of the 'hard times ' 

 — but how are poor men, now living in want and distress in 

 cities it may be, friendless and discouraged, to be placed in 



