212 
GARDENS AND THEIR MEANING 
come true, can harness themselves up and tug and pull. Our 
country needs, moreover, young people who so keenly want 
to get at the truth that they will tease nature with their ques- 
tions and never stop till they get the right answers, with all 
the proofs. Especially does it need those rare persons who 
know how to intensify their own working power by joining 
with others in a common cause. This is the essence of the 
new agriculture. 
'^'And now what does the new agriculture give in return.? 
A wholesome life : sound lungs and a good appetite, together 
with the means of satisfying it and of providing for others 
liberally. It presents a business opening, not always of the first 
rank from the money standpoint, to be sure, but first in returns 
that are better than dollars. It offers a life brimming with 
opportunity.^.^ The days are not long enough for the marvelous 
tales and theAvonderful songs that Nature, the old nurse, sings 
when, set free from anxiety and from too much drudgery, the 
practical farmer and the poet meet on common ground. 
Again, agriculture gives a life scholarship in the best labo- 
ratory that the world has ever known, — a workshop where 
every investigator may confidently look forward to the exhila- 
ration of discovery, while the discovery itself will add directly to 
his own and his neighbor’s welfare. It would be hard to find 
another calling which offers to workmen of all grades such gen- 
uine possibilities. Is it not true that most breadwinners expect 
little else than — like dull, superannuated car horses — to trot 
monotonously along the track laid down by some corporation .? 
Finally, the true agriculturist is a pioneer. He discovers ; 
he subdues. A campaign against the stubborn, subtle forces 
of the earth demands sacrifice, fortitude, heroism. These 
qualities make the martial spirit, — that love of battle which, 
it is said, cannot and must not be tamed within us.^ But 
1 William James, Moral Equivalent of War. 
