102 THE BUSINESS OF FABMING 



farming on our experience of even ten years ago. 

 He is the wise man who not only gains wisdom 

 from his own experience, but also from the ex- 

 perience of others. Experience at its best is a 

 mighty slow and expensive teacher, and we are 

 staking too much when we depend for our learn- 

 ing and conduct upon it. It has been aptly said 

 that "by experience we find out a short way by 

 long wandering." But it was also well said that 

 "learning teacheth more in one year than ex- 

 perience in twenty." 



He is the wise farmer who considers the re- 

 sults of his own experience with the results of 

 the experiences of others and is able to gather 

 from the whole, methods of safe conduct for his 

 farm operations. It is as true to-day that there 

 is safety in a multitude of counselors, as it was 

 when the words were uttered by Solomon, the 

 wisest of men. Supposing a man wishing to be 

 a lawyer or a physician would say "Away with 

 the experience and teaching of those lawyers and 

 doctors who have recorded their knowledge of 

 their professions in the volumes they have 

 written, I will none of them. I will learn how to 

 successfully practice these great professions by 

 my personal experience alone." How far along 

 the roads of these professions would he travel? 

 He would fall by the wayside ere he started. 

 The man to be successful in these professions 

 must first become a student and spend years of 

 hard, weary, discouraging labor in the study of 

 the experiences of the great lights of the profes- 

 sion as recorded in the imperishable volumes they 

 have written for the great benefit of mankind. 



