Does Farming Pay? 237 



to determine the best crop to raise and the ingredients necessary 

 in the soil for the best results. Consider the various and great 

 variety of things a man ought to know about stock. What 

 shouldn't he know aboutehorticulture and plant life? He should 

 knov: something of seeds and fruits; of markets and the things 

 which influence them; of methods, means and machinery. He 

 should be something of a chemist, a botanist, a horticulturist, a 

 mechanic, a political economist and a veterinarian. He has been 

 all too long just a digger in earth and a horse jockey. But thanks 

 to the printing press, the district school, and the awakening gen- 

 erally to the fact, old as Solomon, that "■ The man of knowledge 

 increaseth strength." The successful farmer is a man of no mean 

 abilit}'. He has ambition, enthusiasm and intelligence. To such 

 men farming pays. It pays, although it may not at first thought 

 seem to. Pay is not always to be reckoned in terms of dollars 

 and cents. I am sure farming so pays. I am of the opinion that 

 the man who cannot make farming pay wouldn't make anything 

 pay of which he was the manager. Too many have an idea that 

 farming requires neither industry nor intelligence. It is a 

 dangerous fallacy that a man can run a farm when he can do 

 nothing else. There was a time when almost anyone could do 

 well on a farm, but that was when the soil was rich in its virgin 

 fertility, markets good, and competition small. It is not so now. 

 But money is only one consideration. There are other things 

 of greater worth than bank accounts for relatives and children 

 to quarrel over and squander. Perhaps more money can be made 

 in other pursuits, but there are some advantages which more 

 than make good the loss. These we must consider in determin- 

 ing the profitableness of farming; for that must be reckoned both 

 in terms of money and manhood, of wealth and health, of cur- 

 rency and character. The loss in one is often compensated by the 

 other. In one section of the State there may be most money in 

 raising grain; in another, fruit; in another, hops; in another in 

 producing milk; but in every section the tiller of the soil has the 

 advantage over his city friend in location, occupation and associa- 

 tion. 



His location is being rid of its disadvantages by the telephone 

 and telegraph; by cheaper, but good books and periodicals; by 

 i«bor-sav'nf niachinery; by steam roads and trolley roads and by 



