LECTUEES AND ESSAYS READ AT INSTITUTES. 387 



iicial might be dispeused with better than farming, because they are not 

 fundamental. The merchant and the lawyer, the doctor and the minister, the 

 teacher, and even the politician have their use, and must alwaj'S find a place 

 in all well regulated communities. 



We want the messenger of the gospel to remind us of our higher relations 

 and direct us in the heavenward way. We want the teacher to mould the 

 plastic mind of youth. We want the lawyer to help us out when we get into 

 a bad scrape. And the good doctor, too, who is ever so much more useful 

 since he stopped bleeding in the old-fashioned way, and only bleeds our pocket- 

 book a little now and then ; and a good right he has to do it, for he tells you 

 more about how to preserve your health and keep disease away, than a whole 

 generation of them used to do. And how could we do without the politician ; 

 we should never know, if he did not tell us, the terrible danger we were in and 

 how certainly our country would be ruined if he should not be elected. Still, 

 when you come to place these occupations alongside of that of the men whose 

 labor feeds and clothes us, you will conclude that important as they all are to 

 society, we might possibly get along without some of them better than we 

 could get along without the farmer. Thus we should all agree that farming 

 is a very necessary vocation, and that it is vitally fundamental, all the other 

 industries being dependent upon it. It is also in itself the direct means of 

 support to a larger portion of the human family than all other occupations 

 combined. It is not, however, with reference to the general good, that we 

 propose to discuss the occupation of farming, but with reference to the indi- 

 vidual. What it is to the man who engages in it as a life work. What it 

 requires of liini in the way of muscle and brain, of thought and energy, of 

 care and effort, and what it is likely to give liim in return for this ; in its 

 influence upon his manhood, in the usefulness of his life, and the material 

 comforts and rewards that it renders, as compared with the returns that other 

 occupations yield. These are matters upon which we may have almost as 

 many different opinions as there are individuals present. 



Let us then consider briefly. First, some of the things that are required on 

 the part of one who would be likely to engage successfully in farming; and 

 secondly, what return he will be likely to receive for his well-directed industry. 



First, then, I observe that in order to obtain the best results in farming, a 

 knowledge of the principles of agriculture is necessary, together with a skillful 

 application of them. This is none the less true because some so-called ignor- 

 ant men have been very successful as farmers. We have known such men; 

 they could hardly write their signature ; but, although they were almost as 

 ignorant of what books contained as the team they drove, they were men 

 remarkably endowed in some other ways. Sharp, shrewd observers in regard 

 to cause and effect, and of such indomitable energy and unwearied industry 

 as to make up in large measure for the disadvantages under which they 

 labored, because of their ignorance of the principles which underlie their 

 occupation. 



The time, however, has gone by when it is necessary to enter into an argu- 

 ment with those who consider farming a business requiring mere strength of 

 muscle, and as having nothing to do with the principles of natural science. 

 When you look upon the plate of fruit upon your table, whether it be apples, 

 pears, plums, peaches, strawberries, or many other kinds that might be named, 

 to what but the application of the principles of science are you indebted for 

 that luscious fruit? What has made thedifference between those sleek, quiet, 

 contented looking hogs that you now keep, and those cadaverous ones of for- 



