18 Progressive Agriculture 



iness and professional callings and succeed with 

 no more real knowledge of the business than is 

 displayed by him in his farm work, the farming 

 industry would long ago have been abandoned. 

 Too many however, have already tried such a 

 change and find even greater and equally per- 

 plexing problems to be solved. Really, when we 

 come to know the soil we find it more submissive 

 and much more responsive to good treatment than 

 the human race. 



The real fact is that, as farming has been done, 

 there is much cause for discouragement that is 

 hard to overcome, and it is due to the occasional 

 years of big crops, then a few years of fair crops, 

 interspersed with crop failures, and as we were in- 

 clined to rely on the weather, it is no wonder that 

 under these conditions, as they have prevailed, 

 we are continually out of balance, in debt and 

 faith shaken. 



Prosperous and happy farm homes are the hope 

 and ambition of every man and his family who 

 are endeavoring to so plan their labors on the farm 

 that there may be each and every year a little 

 surplus profit. Though this may be modest, if 

 it comes every year it lends enchantment, but 

 when they find the profits of two or three years 

 wiped out by crop failure the next year, they not 

 only find their cash short, but their courage and 

 energy depleted and we all know what follows. 

 Not only is the home minus the cash for the nee- 

 cessaries and comforts, much less for pleasures, 

 but sorrow and peevishness too often pervade 

 the home circle, under which condition many 



