Aids to Success. 375 



brandies of business, if applied to farming, will bring the desired 

 results. 



We have reached an epoch in our history when every branch 

 of industry in our country is organized for mutual protection, 

 save that of agriculture. The result is patent to all. Seven 

 millions of farmers live beneath the stars and stripes. Com- 

 plete union, organization and co-operation on the part of those 

 farmers would make them the most independent and powerful 

 people of our great National Union. Then, again, we can be ma- 

 terially assisted by proper legislation. Three-fourths of the coun- 

 ties of our State have agriculture as their predominating interest, 

 yet for years, the lawyers, the doctors and the saloon-keepers have 

 been almost the exclusive lawmakers. Probably not more than one- 

 tenth of our legislators are farmers. Now, the fanner ought to 

 have enough politics in his make-up to look out for himself. 



Farmers, the absorbing theme is this: Have the last 50 years 

 proved advancement in agricultural lines as in other branches of 

 industry ? Have we kept up with the band wagon ? Are we, with 

 the noblest calling on earth, keeping step with the upward and on- 

 ward march of the age in which we live ? We have made progress, 

 it is true; but the vital demand to-day is for better farmers, nicer 

 farms, purer stables, cleaner milk, better butter, more attractive 

 homes and sweeter firesides. Let us rise to a higher appreciation of 

 our calling. Let us compel more of the head and less of the hands 

 to accomplish our mission. Let us then enter every open door that 

 lends to a better education, a better comprehension of the duties 

 of our arduous calling. Let us tell our boys and girls that the 

 highest physical development, the purest society, the most enlight- 

 ened citizenship still lingers in country life. In the town in which 

 we reside there are homesteads which have been handed down from 

 father to son for over a century, and our love and reverence for 

 them is something akin to that which Hawthorne had for old 

 Salem as he expresses it in the " Scarlet Letter." He says : " It 

 is now two centuries and a quarter since the original Briton bear- 

 ing my name first came to this town, and here his descendants have 

 been born, have lived and died, and have mixed their earthly sub- 

 stance with the soil until no small portion of it must necessarily 

 be akin to this mortal frame wherewith for a little time I walk 

 these streets; " or, in other words, he means to say that for 225 

 vears so many of his ancestors have been born and lived and died 

 in old Salem that the soil of the town was like his own body. Then 

 let us hold fast and hope for better days. Occasionally we catch 

 glimpses of the sunshine, the advance guard of prosperity. 



