UNITY OF INTERESTS. 53 



his calling. If the farmer ploughs deep he must manure 

 accordingly. So, too, he must be frugal, turning everything 

 into grist. If we gather hay we must rake after, as success 

 often depends upon the gleanings. It is the last ounce that 

 tips the scales. 



I have said that the condition of people may he correctly 

 judged by their surroundings. This is particularly true of 

 the farmer. Go where you will and you can tell a thrifty 

 farmer the moment your eye rests on his grounds. Whatever 

 a man loves to do he will generally do well, and he will do it 

 with an earnestness that overcomes all obstacles. 



On the contrary, where there is indifference nothing is done 

 as it should be. When the farmer is earnest he is enthusi- 

 astic, and his work is a pleasure and delight, and order, neat- 

 ness and happiness are the result. The man who is a farmer 

 by accident or force of circumstances, and has no love for the 

 calling, can never succeed. His fingers are as stiff and cold 

 as his heart, and they will not work. 



I assure you, my friends, that there is nothing that adds a 

 more abiding charm and satisfaction to one's life and experi- 

 ence than the pursuit of agriculture. Go ask the gray-haired 

 man of business, at the close of a successful career, in what 

 part of his eventful life his mind dwells with most satisfaction 

 and pleasure, and will he not instinctively revert to that 

 period when perchance as a boy on his father's farm he drove 

 his team afield and followed his plough in the furrow, swing- 

 ing his scythe in the meadow and gathering in the ripened 

 sheaves and fruits of autumn ? He will tell j^ou that often in 

 the battle of life, amid its alternations of prosperity and adver- 

 sity, the tempting vision of the home of his childhood has 

 passed and repassed before him, as if to win him back to the 

 innocence and freedom of his early days ; how amid the con- 

 flict of life he yearned for the time when he could return to 

 the old homestead and there pass the evening of his existence 

 amidst the repose and beauty of nature ; to renew the golden 

 associations of his boyhood which never forsook him in his 

 active life ; to feel again the inspiration of sky and hill and 

 valley, musical with the songs of birds and fragrant with the 

 breath of the fields and woodlands. 



