SOIL CULTURE AND SOUL CULTURE. 51 



it would seem that th6 farmer ought to be the best kind of man. 

 The business of trade has become the favorite business in these 

 days ; the farms are deserted by the farmers' boys, and some- 

 times by their fathers, who are rushing to the cities to engage 

 in commercial pursuits ; but trade is far less beneficent and far 

 less honorable than farming. We might contrive to dispense 

 with the trader, but we could hardly live without the farmer. 

 He who makes two blades of grass grow where one grew before, 

 is a public benefactor, we are told ; but he that sells two yards 

 of tape where one was sold before, may be a public nuisance. 

 It requires no gift of prophecy to foresee that the current which 

 is now sweeping our young men into the whirlpools of traffic, 

 will be turned back ere long towards the farms. The risks and 

 failures of commercial life are increasing every year, and there 

 is no remedy for them but the withdrawal from these crowded 

 pursuits of a part of the surplus of competitors ; and by and by 

 we shall see the deserted farms reoccupied by men who have 

 been wearied and disgusted with traffic, and who have learned 

 to believe that the business of a farmer is not only in the long 

 run more profitable, but more dignified and more conducive to 

 true manliness than the uncertain and questionable strifes of 

 commercial life. 



In the healthfulness of his work, in the quietness of his life, 

 in the ample opportunities of self-cultivation afforded him, in 

 the fact that he is called to deal with the realities of nature 

 rather than the shams that infest the town, and in the conscious- 

 ness that he is helping to make the world a better home for the 

 race, the farmer finds conditions favorable to the development 

 of his manhood. But there are also in his calling, as in every 

 other legitimate calling, hindrances as well as helps to manli- 

 ness, and I am to^ speak briefly of some of these. 



Some of those conditions that were mentioned as favorable to 

 the growth of character, may, if they are not guarded, become 

 unfavorable conditions. The quiet of the farmer's life may se- 

 cure repose and steadiness of character ; but if the quiet is too 

 profound and without interruption, it may result in stagnation 

 of the brain. A certain amount of excitement and stimulation 

 is needed to keep us awake, and the farm life may be so ordered 

 that there shall not be enough of it. 



Moreover, the farmer's work, if he keeps at it too persistently, 



