MY FARM OF EDGEWOOD 



cause he does not carry learning, but because 

 he carries brain — and uses it. 



Any man with good brains may succeed in 

 farming — if he uses them. By this, I mean 

 that any man with a clear head — though not 

 specially crammed with information — and who 

 brings a cool, sagacious, unblinking outlook to 

 the offices of husbandry, will succeed, without 

 a knowledge of the principles on which its 

 more important operations are based. And 

 the practice of such a man, if faithfully re- 

 corded in all its details, would be of more ser- 

 vice in the illustration of scientific laws, than 

 the halting experience of a half dozen neo- 

 phytes, who work by the vague outline of some 

 pet theory. I had rather have such a man for 

 tenant than one fresh from the schools, bring- 

 ing an exaggerated notion of salts, and a large 

 contempt for sagacity. If on some day of 

 latter summer the milch cows rapidly fall 

 away in their "yield," I should expect the lat- 

 ter to puzzle himself about the sudden exhaus- 

 tion of some particular constituent of the milk 

 food, and to multiply experiments with bran 

 or bone-meal for its supply; but I should ex- 

 pect the sagacious veteran, under the same 

 circumstances, with a bold philosophy, to at- 

 tribute the shortcoming to the scorching suns 



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