380 THE FAT OF THE LAND 
but they are not; they are only handled and 
manipulated. Stop the work of the farmer from 
April to October of any year, and Wall Street 
would be a howling wilderness. The Street 
makes it easier to exchange a dozen eggs for 
three spools of silk, or a pound of butter for a 
hat pin, but that’s all; it never created half the 
intrinsic value of twelve eggs or sixteen ounces 
of butter. It’s only the farmer who is a wealth 
producer, and it’s high time that he should be 
recognized as such. He’s the husbandman of all 
life; without him the world would be depopu- 
lated in three years. You don’t half appreciate 
the profession which your Dad has taken up in 
his old age.” 
“That sounds all right, but I don’t think the 
farmer would recognize himself from that de- 
scription. He doesn’t live up to his possibili- 
ties, does he ?” 
“Mighty few people do. A farmer may be 
what he chooses to be. He’s under no greater 
limitations than a business or a_ professional 
man. If he be content to use his muscle 
blindly, he will probably fall under his own 
harrow. So, too, would the merchant or the 
lawyer who failed to use his intelligence in his 
business. The farmer who cultivates his mind 
as well as his land, uses his pencil as often as his 
plough, and mixes brains with brawn, will not 
fall under his own harrow or any other man’s. 
He will never be the drudge of soil or of season, 
