LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 519 



Now, if agriculture is the substructure of all business pursuits, why should 

 things be thus ? For the simple reason that we do not place enough confi- 

 dence in our brother farmers or too much in ourselves to combine with a 

 will, so that it may be possible to return the choking process to these monop- 

 olies and combinations. You ask, shall we succeed ? We answer, yes, because 

 our cause is just. If unjust, our cause might be like the success pictured by 

 Carlyle, which runs in this wise : " My friend, if thou hadst all the artillery 

 of Woolwich trundling at thy back in support of an unjust thing and infinite 

 bonfires visibly waiting for thee, to blaze centuries long for thy victory on 

 behalf of it, I would advise thee to call a halt. Fling down thy baton and 

 say, ' in God's name, no.' Thy success, poor devil, what will thy success 

 amount to? If the thing is unjust thou hast not succeeded — no, not 

 though bonfires blazed from north to south, and bells rang and editors wrote 

 leading articles, and the just thing lay trampled out of sight to all mortal 

 eyes an abolished and annihilated thing, sticcess. In a few years thou wilt 

 be dead and dark — all cold, eyeless, deaf, no blaze of bonfires, ding dong of 

 bells, or leading articles, visible or audible to thee again at all forever." 

 What kind of success is that? Nay, my friends, if our cause were not 

 just we would fling down our baton now, and in God's name say no. But 

 being just, let us organize and demand our rights. 



Mr. Maynard presented some points on the need of organization, with 

 reference to a petition to the legislature asking for the passage of the bill on 

 beef inspection. Thinks the dressed beef monopoly must be met by 

 organized effort, and that inspection is a move in the right direction. 



HEALTH HINTS. 



BY F. J. GRONER, B. S., M. D. 



Big Rapids, Michigan, February 8. 1889. 



There is no occupation that so imperatively demands good health as farm- 

 ing, but there is no pursuit that affords better conditions for good health. 

 The out-door life, contact with nature, uniformity of hours for labor, food 

 and repose, absence of the worry and haste of the professional and 

 business man, all these are strongly conducive to health. The farmer does 

 not have to contend with the poisonous germs and pollutions of the city, its 

 impure air and water, bad sewerage and endless nuisances. He is not confined 

 to a close room, laboring in one position, where parts of his body get no 

 exercise. Farmers should be healthier and longer lived than any other class, 

 and would be if they only understood and put into practice more thoroughly 

 the laws of health. 



Herbert Spencer says: "The first requisite for success is to be a good 

 animal." 



HEALTHY HOMES. 



I take up this subject for the sake of the mothers and children. Man's 

 work is in the open air, but the mother and little ones cannot escape the 

 home. How many nervous, enfeebled children and sickly mothers find an 

 early grave from an unhealthy home ! 



Eight years ago I had three cases of typhoid fever in a small country home. 



