Epic of tbr Cornfield 1 19 



in the raw material. Forty per cent, of the workers 

 of this country follow the various pursuits of agri- 

 culture. In the South, they farm on sugar and cotton 

 and oranges and garden produce. In the North it is 

 hay and potatoes and corn and beans. In the great 

 Northwest it is wheat and corn and oats and barley. 

 But outside those actually engaged in agriculture it is 

 safe to say that forty per cent, more work on the pro- 

 ducts of agriculture. The farmer furnishes at once 

 the world's bread and butter, and the labour by 

 which that bread and butter is earned. 



When we see the looming walls of the sugar re- 

 finery in the heart of a great city and realise the tre- 

 mendous power it stands for, and the influence its 

 industry exerts upon every corner of the land, we are 

 apt to think of it as something that rests upon its 

 own foundations and runs by its own momentum. 

 But there is a mightier power in the land than the 

 makers of sugar. The farmers who grow the sugar- 

 cane are in reality the court of last appeal. Behind 

 the men of the trust are the men of the spade ; and it 

 is they who really hold the world's destinies. It is 

 the soil that under-runs all industries, and makes pos- 

 sible the great enterprises of the world of manufacture 

 and of commerce. 



But in order to till the land, man must halt. He 

 cannot be a rover. He must give up his nomadic 

 habits. The herdsman and the hunter may travel to 

 find game and pasturage. But he who makes corn- 

 fields must be a permanent resident So when man 



