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fort to buy our reapers a few dollars cheaper and sell our 

 wheat a few cents higher, and get our freights a little low- 

 er. What is gained in this way is certainly added to the 

 profits of the farm, but I very much fear that many mem- 

 bers 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 accomplish what we want, and make 

 agriculture respectable, remunerative, and desirable; far 

 mers intelligent, contented and honored; farmers' wives 

 envied and respected, and farmers' sons and daughters ea- 

 gerly sought by the wise, good, learned and beautiful of 

 the land for husbands and wives; we cannot make beauti- 

 ful 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 deep- 

 er, 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 sight, 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-ear- 

 ed or fine scented who rules the world, but the clear-head- 

 ed. Human beings are like pebbles on the sea shore, by 

 rubbing against each other they become rounded, smooth, 

 polished, symmetrical; alone, they are rough, uncouth, re- 

 pulsive. 



"Farmers arc too much alone. We need to meet to- 

 gether to rub off the rough corners and polish down into 

 symmetry. We want to exchange views, and above all, 

 we want to learn to think. A man who has performed 

 fourteen hours of severe physical labor is in no condition 

 to think, and we may as well decide at once that any class 

 of men which starts out in life by working at severe labor 

 fourteen hours of the twenty-four, and faithfully adheres 

 to the practice, will fill forever the position of hewers of 



