10 THE CULTURE OF FARM CROPS. 



farmer's boy, or girl to understand and comprehend, to its- 

 full extent. 



Nothing need be said of the importance of the farmers- 

 vocation further than as it relates to his own interest. 

 While he feeds and clothes the world, he is most interested 

 in feeding and clothing himself, and in advancing his own 

 condition as far as possible. Society exists now upon a 

 much higher base than it did a score of years ago. Edu- 

 cation and intelligence have made necessary a much higher 

 civilization, and a more luxurious and less laborious living. 

 All this calls for increased income. Scientific skill in any 

 art necessarily increases the value of the labor expended 

 and enhances the profits of it. This is true of agriculture 

 as of all other arts. Hence the farmer is compelled by 

 the general advance of other industries to advance his own. 

 He can only do this by increasing the products of his labor 

 by means of more skillful work, and the help of every ap- 

 pliance. Better culture, better manuring, better mechani- 

 cal aids in the form of improved implements and machinery, 

 and an economical division of labor, are all indispensable 

 to him. The culture of farm crops, then becomes a most 

 important subject for study and critical examination and 

 whatever in the study can be turned to practical use should 

 be adopted into practice. The age is advancing in every 

 way; but agriculture lingers behind, perhaps because of its 

 vastness and the unavoidable inertia and slow movement 

 of vast interests. But it must advance with the world. 

 Mechanical ingenuity has given it a wonderful impetus and 

 from the far better hoes of the present time, to the gigantic 

 twelve-wheeled locomotives and the great ocean steam ships 

 which are at his service, the farmer is helped in a thousand 

 ways. Then he must improve his own work consistently 

 and stand in the front as becomes the feeder of the world 

 and the importance of his vocation. 



In every other country than ours, the vast importance of 

 agriculture is recognized by the general governments, and 

 the investigation of the principles upon which the rational 

 practice of the art is founded, is made a prominent care of 



