'tis BOARb OF AGRICTJLTtrJliJ. 



WHY HAVE A FARMERS' INSTITUTE? 



SEBASTIAN DE MOTTE, OTWELt, IND. 



[Read before the Pike County Institute.] 



After the fall of man in the Garden of Eden, the Lord said unto Adam, 

 "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread;" and when He banished him 

 from the garden He sent him forth to till the ground, and from thence- 

 forth it has been the aim of the law that man should win his bread by the 

 sweat of his brow. Therefore, it behooves you and I to study the best 

 methods of tilling the fields and caring for the flocks and herds. 



The farmer furnishes the necessities of life. On his toil the pros- 

 perity of the world rests, and upon his products the entire human family 

 are dependent for existence, inarming is the basis of our natural wealth 

 and greatness. By its products the success or failure of all other indus- 

 tries are measured. Nothing so threatens the peace of the world as 

 famine. Bloody wars have brolien in wild alarm, battlefires have burned 

 on innumerable hills in all history and tlie world witnessed the bloodshed, 

 confident that greater strife could never be. But let universal famine 

 impend and all the mighty battles of the past were but mere bubbles in 

 comparison to the warfare that will ensue for existence, for all that 

 a man hath Avill he give for his life. Therefore, is it not absolutely 

 necessary that better methods of agricultiare in its every phase should be 

 carefully studied by every one in that vocation? In knowledge there is 

 power. It is ofttimes better to know how to do a thing than to be able to 

 do it. The farmer must keep abreast of the times or go to the rear and 

 stay there. The success of any industry largely depends on the intelli- 

 gence, integrity and co-operation of its forces. The methods that our 

 forefathers used in tilling the soil and the crude machinery which they 

 used will no longer bring success. We must use better methods. We must 

 have better machineiy and we must keep better stock or fail financially. 

 Muscle farming can no longer compete Avith brain farming. The gi'eat 

 problem of clearing the fields that confronted our forefathers has been 

 superseded by a much greater one and that of bringing the same impover- 

 ished fields up to a state of fertility that they will grow a profitable 

 crop instead of an unprofitable one. The coming together of the people 

 of any industry for the purpose of studying better methods of doing busi- 

 ness in their profession of life has been so beneficial and so inspiring 

 that today there is no vocation of life that is Avithout its councils. Law- 

 yers have them, doctors have them, bankers have them, and are benefited 

 by them. Why not the farmer? I pity the man or woman that is so nai*- 



