MY EXCUSE 7 



recurring seed-time and harvest, which even the 

 most thoughtless cannot interrupt. 



The waking dream of my life had been to 

 own and to work land ; to own it free of debt, 

 and to work it with the same intelligence that 

 has made me successful in my profession. Brains 

 always seemed to me as necessary to success in 

 farming as in law, or in medicine, or in business. 

 I always felt that mind should control events in 

 agriculture as in commercial life ; that listlessness, 

 carelessness, lack of thrift and energy, and waste, 

 were the factors most potent in keeping the farmer 

 poor and unreasonably harassed by the obligations 

 of life. The men who cultivate the soil create 

 incalculable wealth ; by rights they should be the 

 nation's healthiest, happiest, most comfortable, and 

 most independent citizens. Their lives should be 

 long, free from care and distress, and no more 

 strenuous than is wholesome. That this condition 

 is not general is due to the fact that the average 

 farmer puts muscle before mind and brawn before 

 brains, and follows, with unthinking persistence, 

 the crude and careless traditions of his forefathers. 



Conditions on the farm are gradually changing 

 for the better. The agricultural colleges, the ex- 

 periment stations, the lecture courses which .are 

 given all over the country, and the general diffu- 

 sion of agricultural and horticultural knowledge, 

 are introducing among farming communities a 

 more intelligent and more liberal treatment of 

 land. But these changes are so slow, and there 



