22 THE BUSINESS OF FAEMING 



husbandman, and again the business of farming 

 became the first business of the only men then 

 upon the earth, and has since so continued 

 through all the ages of man's existence, and to- 

 day, at the period of man's greatest development 

 and power, he still must "eat of the ground" or 

 perish. There is no other source for an adequate 

 supply of food, so the business of farming, 

 or tilling of the soil, was not only the first busi- 

 ness to be established, but is even unto this 

 day the first and most important business of any 

 nation, and upon which every other business must 

 build for a foundation. It is therefore incon- 

 ceivable that a business almost as old as time it- 

 self, so fundamental to man's existence, a busi- 

 ness whose breasts have given the nourishment 

 and power and the life to make every other busi- 

 ness or achievement possible, should have through 

 all the ages of the world's history received at 

 the hands of man the mistreatment and neglect 

 that the business of farming has received from 

 the hand of him whom it has fed. But it seems 

 that the history of the world has been but the 

 history of conquest and despoliation. Nations 

 and peoples have conquered nations and peoples 

 and despoiled them, and so has man in all his 

 history conquered the soil from the wilderness, 

 only to despoil it by a sordid system of agricul- 

 ture. If the business of farming could talk, well 

 might it exclaim: "Bescue my poor remains 

 from vile neglect!" 



This is not a picture or wail of the pessimist, 

 for do we not hear even to-day the cry of a John 

 the Baptist crying in the wilderness of soil desola- 



