72 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



adjustments of the Gospel, even. The life the farmer now 

 lives is four times as expensive as was the one his grand- 

 father lived. His children demand a better education, and 

 the home must take on a larger range of comfort. Community 

 life, in its better roads, bridges and public buildings, brings 

 larger expense to him. He must have a larger revenue. 

 How will he get it ? By becoming more intelligent and skilful . 

 As the soil decreases in fertility he must increase in skill. He 

 must sell skill. As competition decreases the price of his prod- 

 uct, he must decrease the cost of that product. He cannot 

 hope to control the market price. That is wholly out of his 

 power. What shall he do ? Exercise a larger intelligence in 

 the matter of reducing the cost of production. How shall he 

 do this? So far as the soil is concerned, by improved 

 methods of tillage, and a determined effort to increase fer- 

 tility. The gauge of the American farmer has been acres 

 of corn, of grain, of hay and of pasturage. (This niorn- 

 ino- I heard, thank Heaven ! a different doctrine enunciated ; 

 it was the number of bushels jjer acre that was raised.) Cast 

 aside that standard of management, and let us in the future 

 be governed by the amount produced. So far as his farm 

 animals are concerned, breed, feed and handle to some spe- 

 cific purpose. These purposeless, general-purpose cows, 

 sheep and horses, — are they not a delusion and a snare? 

 Thank fortune there can be no general-purpose hog. He is 

 all hog. The farmer must of necessity be a man of rigid 

 honesty and logic. If he is not, of necessity he is a failure. 

 Xo trickster can succeed with Nature. God's true vice- 

 gerent here on earth must be the farmer. All other voca- 

 tions are based on rules and laws of man's devisement. Not 

 so the farmer. He must interpret the laws that God has 

 made. Great is their mystery. Great must be the compre- 

 hension and wisdom that successfully interprets them. Hence 

 he must be a lover of knowledge. He must be teachable. 

 Christ said in effect, "Except ye become as a little child, }'e 

 can in nowise enter the kingdom of heaven." Neither can 

 you in any other way enter the kingdom of law, or of medi- 

 cine, or of mechanics, and especially the kingdom of agricult- 

 ure. In this kingdom it is only the truth, the whole truth 

 and nothing but the truth, "that shall make you free," and 

 master of the situation. 



