THE FARMER'S WAR AGAINST MONOPOLIES. 529 



much pleasure, wealth, and happiness as in the shops, 

 counting-room, and mines, then we may conscientiously 

 recommend agriculture a,s one of the desirable employ- 

 ments. Can this be done ? 



" Brother Patrons of Husbandry, our Order has been 

 formed to assist in answering this great question in the 

 affirmative. How shall we proceed ? 



" I do not underrate the importance of making an 

 effort to buy our reapers a few dollars cheaper and sell 

 our wheat a few cents higher and get our freights a 

 little lower. What is gained in this way is certainly 

 added to the profits of the farm, but I very much fear 

 that many members of the Order place too high a value 

 upon this matter of purchase and sale. This is not what 

 ails us. It does not reach the root of the difficulty at 

 all. It only prunes! away a few slender twigs which 

 grow again in a single night. We can never accom- 

 plish what we want, and make agriculture respectable, 

 remunerative, and desirable; farmers intelligent, con- 

 tented, and honored; farmers' wives envied and re- 

 spected, and farmers' sons and daughters eagerly sought 

 by the wise, good, learned, and beautiful of the land 

 for husbands and wives; we cannot make beautiful 

 homes, fertile farms, and improving flocks by saving 

 five dollars on a plow and five cents a bushel on wheat. 

 No ! Never ! When we build like that we must dig 

 deeper, lay the foundations broader, and use brains as 

 the chief stone of the corner. An ox excels us in 

 strength, a horse in speed. The eagle has keener 

 eight, the hare a quicker ear, the deer a finer sense of 

 smell; but man excels them all in mind and rules 

 above them all. So among men it is not the strong, 

 the swift, the keen-sighted, the quick-eared or fine- 

 34 



