Con vention—second har vests. 
197 
and heroic force—thous^h they be maltreated and trampled down, 
yet will they multiply the more.” 
These, with man’s own invented weapons, the axe, the pick, the 
plow, spade, harrow, hoe, rake and roller, were the instruments of 
warfare. Thwarted in her wilder designs, nature became the gentle, 
fruitful mother of life-giving corn. She blushed in rosy blossoms, 
smiled and nodded in the waving grains and grasses, laughed out¬ 
right in great, golden pumpkins, and shed her heart’s blood in her 
vines. 
The first harvest is for our physical growth, and without the first, 
we could neither produce nor enjoy the second, which is for our 
mental and spiritual welfare. The first is gathered into barns, gra¬ 
naries, cribs and cellars. The second is garnered in the mind, in 
books, on canvass, and is carried into the library and parlor — we 
mean the room where we live apart from drudgery — “Where the 
laughing light invades”—and not the parlor of the dreary woman 
whose house is a prison and herself a slave. 
The wise and noble farmer seeks as faithfully to cultivate and 
reap the second harvest as the first, and to bring Eden back to 
earth, turning the curse of labor into a blessing. His home is the 
dwelling of refined enjoyment, and his children absorb beauty and 
grace from their home influences as flowers absorb dew and sun¬ 
shine, and turn them into fragrance and honey. He knows that it is 
not the sole office of the farm to supply food and clothing for the 
nation, but that it is also the training school of young men and wo¬ 
men. 
In the last census report, the total number of persons engaged in 
all occupations is given as a little over twelve million, five hundred 
thousand, and of this number nearly six million are engaged in ag¬ 
riculture. 
In the hands of farmers’children, there will be placed, to a great 
extent, in the future, the destiny of the country. The farmers of a 
former generation are largely responsible for the present condition 
of the country, and, in a like degree, are entitled to praise for our 
great advancement as a nation. 
The horses, cattle and other live stock of to-day are greatly su¬ 
perior to those of a hundred years ago; and it would speak ill for 
their masters if thev, too, were not far in advance of their ancestors. 
The avaricious and unwise farmer, who gathers no second har- 
