Do Farmers Think?ByS. W. Warfield.
ByS. W. Warfield.
This pertinent question was suggested by a conversation between a young farmer—a college graduate—and a young man who had just received his diploma from one of the leading agricultural colleges of the country. When questioned by the former as to what vocation he expected to follow, the latter said: “I guess I’ll be a farmer, because farmers don’t have to think.” Was the young man correct? After a day’s journey through the country a very observant and thoughtful man will be forced to acknowledge that a great many farmers do not seem to think. The amount of high-priced machinery allowed to rust and ruin in the fields, the haphazard way in which grain and hay is stacked, the utter indifference displayed in plowing land and laying off rows, the disregard that is paid to the washing away of the soil, soil that was thousands of years in forming, the fertility of which depends upon the actions of the elements for generations; a soil that, when once gone, is gone forever. We are forced to admit that all farmers do not think. When we see farmers burning straw stacks or filling gullies with manure, which will soon rot, float off and carry all accumulated soil with it, we know in that particular they do not think. For when a gully is stopped with manure, it is only a question of time before it will have to be stopped again, and the next time the task will be greater, for there will not be much adjoining soil with which to stop it.
When we see a farmer delving with his whole household from daybreak till dark, denying his children the privilege of a common school education, trusting to luck and brawn to carry them through life, we have another illustration of a farmer who does not think. For if he would but think, he would realize that his sons, after he was dead and gone, would prove easy victims to the oily tongued sharper and his hard-earned dollars would go soon to swell the coffers of another man’s son.
A great many farmers do not think, and to them rightly belongs the disrespectful epithets of “Reuben” and “Hay-seed.”
Admitting the foregoing, we are glad to know that there are a great many farmers who keep abreast the times, are thoughtful and studious men.
With the vast area of fertile soil capable of producing vastly more of any crop than is needed, which fact is almost every year proven, with a herd of middlemen manipulating the crop reports and combining to put and keep prices down; with this country a network of railroads, one and all of them clamoring for freight to haul; with shrewd managers to concoct the “rebate scheme” to counteract the “Interstate Commerce Law” and “Railroad Commission,” put the farmer of any section in direct competition with the whole country. When the above facts are considered, it certainly behooves every farmer to “think” and study so that the thinking will be on sure footing.
No matter what the past has been, the day of haphazard farming for success and competency is gone. Farming to-day is a scientific problem, and a problem that requires all the thought that can be bestowed upon it. Not a thought for to-day or to-morrow, but long-headed thought that studies the supply and demand of the year ahead before planting largely of any one crop or launching into any new enterprise. He must study the supply and price before he can tell whether to hold wheat or longer feed his cattle; must know the needs and study the rotation to get the best results from each crop; must think to be able to properly harvest and care for each crop as it matures; must think how best to become his own financier, and not be controlled by any bank or supplymerchant. He must think to live on what he makes and make all that he needs.
The life of a shrewd, thoughtful farmer is the most independent in the world—a life that the followers of all trades and professions yearn for, a life acquired only by thought. So, in answering the question, Do farmers think? we’ll say, If they succeed, they do.