1883.] HINTS TOWARD SMALL FARMING. 269 



ourselves, and set so much more ignorant capital at liberty to 

 invest itself, we ask with Cain, when anything unpleasant occurs, 

 " Am I my brother's keeper ? " 



I do not put these questions expecting to answer them here, or 

 that you will answer them in particular. I ask them because I 

 think they are hints towards small farming. 



In asking these questions, I do not imply that the farming class 

 is especially responsible for all the troubles indicated therein. The 

 evils hinted at are social evils which every one suffers, and for 

 which the leading class in the time that brings them about is 

 especially guilty. 



So far as farmers propose to lead in the social progress that is 

 to come, so far they must tighten their waistbands for a manful 

 struggle with the difSculties of the day, however they have come. 

 These questions are fit questions for an agricultural convention, 

 and they are as fit for a political caucus, a polite tea-party, the 

 common talk of the street, corner grocery, shop, or factory, and 

 the more serious discussions of the church horse-shed, the family 

 circle, and the earnest communion of the human soul between 

 itself and its nearest and most available good. 



But all our discussions will amount to nothing, or worse than 

 nothing, unless we do something. There was a power of talk, 

 though, just before the building of Babel was stopped. 



You will perceive how I am all the time hinting that, however 

 much we may admire big things, we must continually plant and 

 wait for them to grow out of small ones. Our children must 

 begin with their alphabet and baby shoes, as we did. They must 

 have their small ships, or boats, and little mills under the hill, and 

 small farms also, as we had. Your mammoth arks of safety — 

 your " Great Easterns," require too many small farms submerged 

 to float them. 



Hundreds of Americans go every year to gape at the pyramids. 

 Too few of them, I am afraid, consider the immense force of leeks 

 and onions combined in their building, as too few of them remem- 

 ber how many small farms in America must be pinched of fertility 

 and pov/er that one single person may indulge in wonder over the 

 deserted relics of decayed peoples who forgot their roots in the 

 small details of agriculture. Still, we must not begrudge this out- 

 lay in the interest of small farming. We live on a tight little 

 planet, swinging through infinite space. Our discontented lead- 



