THE HOPE OF THE PARMER. 23 



edge that brings the income. Farmers are apt to denounce 

 the great salaries paid in some walks of life, but they are 

 nearly always the price paid for knowledge, or supposed 

 knowledge, at market rates. The farmer who prefers the 

 life of a banker lias merely to know better than any one else 

 what property is safest to lend money on, and to make his 

 ability known; some bank will soon want him. Farmers are 

 large borrowers, and as they are apt to seek loans w^hich they 

 have not the knowledge to use wisely, the bank president 

 must be a better judge of the possible profits of farming than 

 the farmer himself, lest the bank's funds be invested where 

 they can not be got back when wanted. This means a high 

 salary for the bank officer, which goes to reduce the profit of 

 the farmer; for ignorance must pay its own bills. If farmers 

 could know enough about their own business to make loans 

 to them certain to be so wisely used as to pay interest 

 promptly and the principal at maturity, a less expensive 

 man could lend them money, and the farmer's profits be so 

 much increased. 



I have said that the most capable know most, and conse- 

 quently get most. Fortunately it is not necessary for us all to 

 know as much as the most capable. Nature requires that w^e 

 know enough to get a living, and kills us if we do not; but 

 she does not concern herself with great accumulations. If w^e 

 are strong enough and know enough to make such accumu- 

 lations, she does not mind it, and, if necessary, will kill off 

 such weaker ones as may stand in our way; but if we attempt 

 to accumulate beyond our strength, she will kill us for that, 

 too. All she requires is that we be warmed and well nour- 

 ished, and our minds kept free from worry, but for the lack 

 of those, whether with or wnthout our own fault, no excuse 

 will be taken. 



Since evolution teaches that the penalty of ignorance is 

 death, it is well to understand just what the evolutionist means 

 by death; we may be dying, and not know it. Evidently the 

 evolutionist does not mean that the ignorant shall fall down 

 in their tracks and give up the ghost, or even that within 

 a short time they shall all disappear and leave no sign. He 



