No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 481 



bauds, but to those who nejjlect to elevate themselves by educatiuf^ 

 thoii' minds along practical lines. After all the mind is the whole 

 of man. The Scriptures tell us, "As a man thinketh in his heart, so 

 is he." 



But to get right doAvn to the solution of the question inA'olved in 

 the topic, let us supjiose that every farmer has gone so far as to 

 have mastered Reading, Writing and Arithmetic, before he is turned 

 loose on Mother Earth to tear from her face a good living and some- 

 thing for his posterity to fight about after he is dead. Is this 

 enough? Yes, if he is the right kind of a man and has a good, big 

 allowance of horse sense. The first, readiiig^ is enough in itself to 

 make him successful, if he has the right judgment, which is another 

 name for common sense. A Pennsylvania farmer, a few years ago, 

 read an item of less than ten lines in an agricultural paper that was 

 worth more than |5,200 to him inside of six months. The circum- 

 stances are these: A dry season had ruined the hay crop in his sec- 

 tion of the county. A subscriber to that paper in Missouri in report- 

 ing the agricultural conditions, stated that they had an abundant 

 hay crop, and that prices w^ere low. The man in Pennsylvania had 

 learned to think as well as read. The result was a trade relation 

 was established between a Pennsylvania "hayseed" and a Missouri 

 "Reuben" which netted a neat little sum for the one, helped the 

 other to get rid of his produce at a better price than he could at 

 home and scores of others were made happy because they got what 

 they wanted cheaper than they could in any other way. 



A Lancaster county farmer a year or two ago was feeding a 

 bunch of good cattle. Buyers were trying to get them at the mar- 

 ket price, which was then low. He could read. He had enterprise 

 enough to take a good market paper. He noticed that cattle were 

 scarce in the cattle-producing states. He had faith in the future 

 and in the opinions of men who ought to understand the situation. 

 Result, a short time afterward he sold his cattle at an advance that 

 netted him between three and four hundred dollars. A common 

 everyday farmer in Ohio, a few years ago was feeding a bunch of 

 hogs. Up to that time hog prices had been low, country prices vary- 

 ing from |4.00 to |5.40 per cwt. Prices began to go up. His neigh- 

 bors jumped at the first offer of |5.00 per cwt. But our friend had 

 been reading. He knew that hogs were scarce in the West. Instead 

 of selling what he had he bought more. Result, a clean profit of 

 $2,125 within a year, and no harm done. The evidence in regard to 

 these specific circumstances can be produced, if necessary. There 

 are thousands of other cases like them all over the country. 



Men who can read like these men need not worry much aboiat the 

 ulassics and higher mathematics. They have a practical educatioa 

 if all other branches have been barred. But we must not forget 



