48 The Bulletin. 



PRESIDENT THOS. W. BLOUNT'S ADDRESS AT FARMERS' CONVENTION. 



Another twelve months with attendant blessinj^s, trials, misfortunes and tri- 

 umphs have rolled by, and midway between seedtime and harvest we are again 

 assembled in convention to renew old acquaintances, to extend friendships, to 

 recount our varying experiences, to discuss questions of vital import, and to 

 ind)il)e a new stock of inspiration fitting us f<ir tlie duties of the future. It is 

 matter of congratulation tliat no unusual disturbance luis come nigh us, and that 

 while misfortunes, reverses and losses have come to us individually, the markets 

 of the world are calling witli impatient voices for the products of the farm, the 

 flow of gold is toward the farmer as never before, and the indications are that 

 the fruits of the ground will reward the labors of the industrious, intelligent 

 tiller of the soil witl) a fair yield. 



The comforts of life are going more and more to the homes in the rural dis- 

 tricts. Tiie mails are daily delivered at the farm home. The riiral telephone 

 makes possible a social and business intercourse that will render the isolation of 

 the past but a memory. At the country schools many of the best teachers are 

 giving loyal and eiricient service, and teaching is fast being recognized as a 

 matter of leadership, no longer are the pupils treated as dumb driven slaves to 

 have a certain number of I'ules and formal examples pounded into their heads 

 daily. Katiimal methods are being applied, better schools, better buildings, and 

 better facilities for reaching the schools are in evidence everywhere. Transpor- 

 tation facilities have been increased, the cost of travel reduced, the means of 

 disseminating iiiformation are far better for the remote coimtry districts now 

 than they were for the ordinary town twenty years ago. Wages are good, the 

 moral, social, religious and financial condition of the country people are better, 

 perha|)s, than ever before in this State. There is less drunkenness, less brawling, 

 less (lissi]iation of the farmer's earnings in questionable ways, and above all, a 

 greater ellort is being made everywhere to ameliorate harsh conditions, to give 

 the farmer needed information, to lend dignity to his calling, to conserve his 

 health, to encourage him to make his home more comfortable and more attractive, 

 his sunoundings more sanitary and liis soil more productive. The farmer him- 

 self is becoming more and more interested. Already he is shaking off the cold, 

 fossilizing inlluence of that fatalism which is largely a heritage from his Saxon 

 ancestors. Alreadv the farmer is realizing as never before that his calling is a 

 beautiful science, full of interesting prublems that tax the powers of the brightest 

 intellects to solve, and oliering a field for well directed enteiprise and honest 

 industry whose rewards are second to none of the other callings of the masses. 



Tlie farm life is the tr\ie home life, it is the history of nations that progress in 

 civilization shows itself strongest in the life of the open couiitiy. lliose of you 

 who have read such books as "A Southerner in Kurope," will hardly need argu- 

 ment to give force to this statement. It is wonderful how many of the leaders 

 of thoiiglit and action among men have been reared on the farm, and in our own 

 State many of them successful farmers. We must learn more to follow leaders 

 along right lines, to accept with ibore readiness the teachings of the best thought 

 bearing upon our business, to discriminate between ideas applicable to our own 

 situation and those applviji" to others, realizing that knowledge is a growth, the 

 result of constant persistent digestion of crude matter. There is no royal road 

 to success; we must sweat for it if we would win the richest prizes of the farmer's 

 calling. Nature abhors a vacuum, but a slee^jy drone on a farm is mighty near a 

 vacuum there. 



Great as has been the improvement of farm life and of farming methods in the 

 past twenty years, they are as nothing to the advance nuide along other lines of 

 industry. In transportation and manufacturing, in the invention and develop- 

 ment of wonderful mechanical devices. All over this land railroads are as com- 

 mon as cattle trains, great floating palaces go scurrying across the seas at the 

 speed of a train, while by means of the wireless they are never out of speaking 

 distance of the shore during any part of the three-thousand-mile voyage. Not 

 only is lightning taught to bear man's messages of love, business or distress, 

 to give instant warning of approaching danger, and to quote the markets of the 



