1891.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 4. 203 



government, national, State and township, while, in all his 

 efforts to disenthrall himself and assert his rights, he 

 becomes only the tool of the wily politician, who lies in 

 wait to turn all his efforts to secure his just rights, so that, 

 work as hard as he may, he makes little advance, but comes 

 out at the same hole which he entered, with the same leaders 

 or a hungrier set to fatten on his hard-earned products. 

 This feeling is encouraged by a certain class of would-be 

 leaders of agricultural sentiment, so that, from the situation 

 of affairs, I am reminded of the old story by iEsop (by the 

 way, what modern books can take the pace of iEsop's fables, 

 for the entertainment and instruction of young or old), of 

 " Hercules and the carter." We read : " As a clownish fel- 

 low was driving his cart along a deep, miry lane, the wheels 

 stuck so fast in the clay that the horses could not draw 

 them out. Upon this, he fell a-bawling and praying to Her- 

 cules to come and help him. Hercules, looking down from 

 a cloud, bid him not lie there like an idle rascal as he was, 

 but get up and whip his horses stoutly, and clap his shoulder 

 to the wheel, adding that this was the only way for him 

 to obtain his assistance." 



When I was first looking for a title, I met " Legislation 

 for the Farmer," and I said, we want none, — we want no 

 class legislation ; we protest against legislation for other 

 classes of men, and shall we ask it for ourselves? and hence 

 shall we say there is no need of legislation for agriculture ? 

 Legislation for agriculture means such laws as will favor the 

 highest development of all our agricultural resources, will 

 guard agriculture and the farmer against laws that favor 

 any other industry at the expense of agriculture, that impose 

 upon him more than his due share of the expenses of gov- 

 ernment in proportion to the benefits he may enjoy, these 

 expenses being executive, legislative, judicial, military, 

 postal, educational, — for roads and care of the poor and 

 dependent classes. 



Those who follow agriculture are made up of two great 

 classes : One that engage in it as a life work ; the other 

 made up of the broken parts of lives, men who are looking 

 for something else to do, or men broken in mind, body or 

 finances, who resort to farming in their extremity as a means 



