THE WORK OF TO-DAY. 383 



and would not take the trouble to read it if published in the public 

 prints and scattered broadcast like snow-flakes over the face of the 

 earth. Hence we are of necessity confined for a subject of discus- 

 sion to the nonprosperous class who are so from lack of skill, a class 

 which, in all professions and callings, far out-number the skillful, while 

 in the general calling represented here the preponderance in number 

 of the unskillful over the skillful is simply overwhelming. 



The great Webster remarked to a young man who came to him for 

 advice as to the calling in life to choose, and who objected to going 

 into the law because the profession was so crowded : " There is plenty 

 of room at the top." The remark has almost universal application, but 

 nowhere has it more force than with the tillers of the soil. Notwith- 

 standing the fact so often referred to by orators and essayists that 

 agriculture has been the occupation of mankind since his creation, ever 

 has been and is to-day the occupation of the largest part of the world's 

 population, I believe it is a fact beyond dispute that in no other occu- 

 pation of mankind worthy to be regarded as a calling is there so 

 lamentable a lack of the technical knowledge and skill pertaining to 

 their business as among farmers. Why this is so would be too long a 

 story to tell. That it is not due to lack of brain force and natural 

 ability in the agricultural class is patent from the fact that this class is 

 the never failing source from which other professions and callings are 

 being constantly recuperated by accessions of fresh blood and brains. 

 The time has been in this, our land, when the farmer was regarded as the 

 peer of the representative of any other class. In the days when Wash- 

 ington managed personally his estates and Jefferson undertook the task 

 of improving the plow, no profession commanded more respect than did 

 husbandry. But since that time there have been great changes and 

 the world has made wonderful progress. Civilization has gone forward 

 with mighty strides. Science has been transforming the face of the 

 earth and adding more to human knowledge in one year than the race 

 used to gain in a generation. Into all the nooks and corners of life 

 has this inquisitive goddess been peering, and in none has she un- 

 earthed more facts than in the field and garden. With the aid of the 

 spirit of the rocks, geology, she has studied into and determined the 

 origin of our soils ; how ages upon ages ago mighty forces were at 

 work grinding mountains of rock into dust, until it was fit for plant 

 food. Then with chemistry's aid she has determined the component 

 parts of this soil and learned what part of it is suitable for plant food 

 and how this can be conserved and renewed. She has dallied with 

 the spirit of the flowers and learned from her many secrets concerning 

 how these " stars in earth's firmament " came into and have their being, 



