THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.

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dead to the organically living state, and to note the steady resurrection from death to life. He can judge of the adaptation of different sections to the growth of varied soil products, and their resources in the essential elements of fertility. He is able to select the localities and conditions best adapted to the largest growth of farm products and to state where the greatest nutritive value to such growths would be imparted.

Education with the farmer has become a pressing necessity. The claims of agri­culture and of education are co-extensive. The greater the appliances of mind to any department of physical labor the greater the results. Well trained and informed mind can control physical energies quite as it pleases, and never is its power of control of more avail than in the business of husbandry. Brains are brought into use as well as muscle. In order to have any worthy success the agriculturist must carry into his work a fullness of knowledge; not merely a sufficiency, but more than a sufficiency. His success calls for intelligence and observation, and pays a premium on energy and ability. With the naturally sound judgment which his business cultivates, the farmer needs a good education, as well as the lawyer, the physician or the clergyman. The times demand this on considerations quite distinct from mere agricultural skill. The affairs of state and the intimate relations of agriculture to them call our legislators from the intelligent body of agriculturists.

That which is true of the farmer applies to each and all the departments of agri­culture.

Among the many good things which stamp the agriculturist’s work as of Divine appointment is its diversity. While it always includes contact with and care of the soil, its wide range allows us to speak of the agriculturist as a farmer or a shepherd, or a grain-grower, or a stock-raiser, or a market-gardener, or a dairyman, or a granger, or a hayseed, all of which vocations are unlimited in their aim and broad in their scope, and are capable of developing a variety of talents or gratifying a wide range of tastes.

It has been said that “Agriculture is a born science.” It is full of botany, zoology, geology and entomology. It is full of chemistry from the soil to the growing plant. It gives full employment to the powers of both mind and body. An agriculturist may have the best thought of the vocation which he represents. He may daily find a broader sphere than that prescribed by the dollars invested. Owing to the fact that he is closely associated with nature, he is in close relation with the spirit of all life, and in the immediate presence of the Great Author. The natural tendencies of his aspirations are daily led toward good and toward God. From the day the farmer sows his seed until he harvests his crop, every day of the season, he is dependent upon beneficent Providence for favor and prosperity upon his broad fields, and is intuitively led to look from “ Nature up to Nature’s God.”

The great freedom from excitement, peculiar to the farmer more than any other class of citizens, gives opportunity for cool and undisturbed investigation, and helps to form a character which the clergyman covets most for his hearers and which our judiciary system most needs for the jury box. In no department of work is good judgment more essential than in agriculture.

The farmer is obliged to deal with many things which are entirely beyond his power to control. He can not control the seasons, the weather or the markets. While he may base his calculations upon facts obtained from observation and expe­rience, his own judgment must decide whether the season is late or early, when to plant, when to harvest, and, in fact, the seasonable time for all his work. There is no person engaged in business of any kind who is not dependent upon the prosperity of the agriculturists for his own success. If crops.fail the merchants, ministers, doctors and lawyers all suffer from the failure. The welfare of our towns, cities, states and nations is due to the adequate success of agriculture. Failure upon the farm brings financial distress to every business enterprise, while abundant harvests insure great national prosperity.

We as a people realized the value of good crops recently, when Russia needed our corn and we needed their gold.