522 HISTORY OF THE GRANGE MOVEMENT; OR, 



drive all young men of spirit and enterprise into other 

 branches of business. 



" I will be met right here with the thousand time 

 repeated rejoinder, ' Oh, we farmers have to work hard. 

 We can't get along as mechanics in town do with ten 

 hours' work. "We can't afford to hire help. We can't 

 afford to have holidays. We can't get time to make a 

 vegetable, flower, and fruit garden, and supply our 

 wants with vegetables, flowers, and fruits. We can't 

 get time to make a lawn and plant trees around the 

 house.' You can't ? You can't ? Then what are you 

 farming for ? As men, as citizens, as fathers, as hus- 

 bands, you have no right to engage in a business which 

 will comdemn yourself and your dependents to a life of 

 unrewarded toil. If the calling of agriculture will not 

 enable you and yours to escape physical degradation, 

 and mental and social starvation ; if it does not enable 

 you to enjoy the amenities, pleasures, comforts, and 

 necessities of life as well as other branches of business, 

 it is your duty to abandon it at once, and not drag 

 down in misery your dependent family. But I do not 

 believe we need be driven to this alternative. I do 

 believe that agriculture, followed as a business, with a 

 reasonable regard to business principles, can be made 

 a business success. I believe that by keeping steadily 

 in view the primary end of life our happiness, our 

 comfort, our bodily health, our mental improvement 

 and growth they can be as well attained or better 

 than in any other calling. Eight here is the great 

 difficulty ; right here with ourselves is the remedy : 

 We work too much and think too little. We make our 

 hands too hard, while our brains are too soft. The day 

 is long past when muscle ruled the world. Brain is 



