VOL. XXVI.
7
INDIANAPOLIS, IND., DEC. 26,1891.
NO. 52
The Necessity of Increased Intelligence
Among Fanners.
[Paper read by Rev. T, A. Goodwin, before Marion
County Agricultural and Horticultural Society,
Dec. 12,1891.]
The topic assigned me is somewhat e-
qtuvocal. I tmay intimate a sad deficiency
in intelligence among farmers; a suggestion that I most emphatically resent. I
prefer rather to treat it as meaning what
the usage of the College avenue electric
line means, no matter how full, there is
always room for increase. This must be
the meaning, or the man who suggested
it is not posted as to the general intelll
gence of the present farmers of Indiana.
At the risk of being classed among old
people by the juveniles of this meeting, I
must however concede that farming and
farmers are not now what they were when
I first became acquainted with tbem in
the days of the wooden mold-board, and
the inevitable paddle that hung on the
plow handle.   We had
SELF-MADE FARMERS
In those days, but we had self-made hogs,
and self-made horses as well, and in many
respects they were all v .ry much alike.
In whatever they excelled, it was by main
strength and awkwardness. And it may
be well to remark, in passing, that tho
transition from the period of self made
men and things to the present period was
not made at a bound. It was an evolu
tlon, not a revolution; and every step from
the old order to the new order has been
'-4_a__$^COntest6_U.'S«,.that what has teen
gained is clearly the "survival of the fit
test. The wooden mold-board gave way to
the iron, only little by little. Was it not
the universal mold-board, and had it not
been So for ages? And was it not a vast
improvement upon the crooked stick that
Adam, the first agriculturist, used for
breaking ground, with his wife in the
lead? Why then discard it and accept in
its stead that heavy implement which no
ordinary mortal could swing around a
stump? It was nearly 20 years before the
iron mold-board got undisputed possession
of the field. EquaUy stubborn was the
resistance the ox-made for supremacy as a
farm motor. To the horse was early conceded a qualified superiority for traveling
purposes, and he was allowed a fair consideration for transportation purposes on
the road, but for farm work
THE OX CLAIMED THE PRE-EMINENCE
and maintained it stubbornly for more
than a quarter ol a century. Was not the
first cost much less? And then at the
end of a long and useful life his carcass
after a few weeks of rest and feeding
would bring more than first cost... en there
was a difference in the cost of harness,
even when shucks were used for collars
and ropes for traces. Speed was no object, for it was before the day of] rapid
transit, except when going for the doctor;
and the difference in speed was if any
thing in favor of the ox, especially
when plowing among stumps, for in addition to the inconvenience of lifting the
double-tree over tho stumps, the singletree was almost sure to take liberties with
the horse's legs, that were likely to result
in his becoming frisky and in increasing
speed Justin time to strike a root and lift
the plow on its beam's end, and then to
rebound so that the handles would strike
the plowman in his bread basket, causing
him to wish there was nothing in the decalogue against emphatic speech. In the
debating cluba of that period the ox always came out ahead when the question
was the relative serviceableness of the ox
or the horse, in farm work.
I have said that we had
SELF-MADE HOC)SI
but they have gone to keep company with
the wooden mold-board, but unlike the
wooden mold _oard, there is not now
to be found a single specimen stowed
away in loft or garret, or in the museum
of our State Board—not even a photo.
They were born in the woods, they grew
up in the woods and many of them died
in the woods stubbornly refusing to be
domesticated. They were lean, long and
laDk, and often as tall as a calf. Their
traveling qualities were so good that even
after taking on enough fat for the market,
a journey of a hundred miles to the slaughter house was no uncommon feat. Very
little help they had from man in their bringing up. They were self-made in the most
unqualified sense of that te _n. About all
the help they had was to be penned up in
the spring and have their ears slit, or
cropped or forked or notched, and then
they were turned out and told to root or
die. They generally rooted, for there was
no hog cholera In those days, and tho kidney worm seldom proved fatal. Gradually
MAN-MADE HOGS
supplanted them but it was a fierce and
protracted struggle. So tender were these
innovators, and they required so much
nursing as to give rise to the question in
the debating clubs "which is the gentleman, the farmer or the hog." It took
more that a third of a century to suppress
the self-made hog.
In many respects the self-made horse
did not differ materially from the self-
made hog. Very early in the history of
stock raising in Indiana, a law was obtained forbidding the running at large of
stallions. It was ostensibly in the inter-
eat of better stock but in reality it was to
make a corner on stallions. Very much
like the present law requiring every doctor to have a diploma is to.create a corner
in doctoring; for it did not change the
method of horse-raising one particle.
These self-made horses were put at it early
in life,and continued at it until the job was
finished, unless sooner relieved by death.
During colt hood they drew from their
dams the very little nourishment these
dams could furnish by plowing by day
and grazing on short pasture by night,
with sometimes a little corn or oats.
Weaning time came with harvest time
and the work of self-culture then began in
earnest by
BROWSING IN THE FENCE CORNER
and around the stumps in the stubble
field. From this they passed into the
stalk field and the straw stack, from
which they came out in the spring a mere
skeleton, unless by succumbing to this
regime they had demonstrated their unfitness to live. After three such winterings, they werecornered and there bridled
for the first time. They were stunted, of
course, but they were hardened and self-
made. How persistently the traditions of
the times resisted the notion of wintering colts in a stable on nutritious food,
the present generation of farmers can
hardly imagine.
The self-made farmers of those days did
not differ greatly from self-made other-
things. In childhood they went barefooted and bareheaded and often barebacked, or at least bare-legged. In many
instances their habitations were but little
if any more comfortable than the stables
for their horses. Indeed, as a rule, the
frame barn preceded the frame house,
both in point of time and of comforts. Of
course many died in childhood under this
self-making process, but they were the
weakly children;
THE HARDY ONES SURVIVED,
to die of old age before they were 50. It is
worthy of remark in this connection, that
many farmers began to improve their hogs
by better provisions for their development
before they took any greater pains ln the
development and rearing of their children.
These men were farmer* because the
thought was that if a man could do nothing else he could farm, for farming went
by instinct—it just farmed itself. They
sowed wheat broad cast, and when they
could not borrow a harrow of some neigh
bor, that was not a thorough self-made
fanner, they covered it by dragging a
minature brush heap over it. When harvest came, they thrust in their sickles and
reaped, as men reaped 4,000 years before;
when threshing time came they threshed,
using a flail, unless they happened to have
horses and colts enough to tramp out the
grain. Then, unless they could borrow a
windmill of some one, not a thoroughbred
self made farmer, they separated chaff from
wheat with a sheet; then stored the wheat
in a section of a hollow* sycamore tree,
bottomed with clapboards rolled into the
covered space between the two cabins,
which served also as a receptacle for hoes
and plows and bridles, and the sheep skin
that served for a saddle. As to intellectual development they had none. They
read
NOTHING   BUT   POOR   RICHARD'S ALMANAC
and that only when they wanted to know
when tho sign was right to plant potatoes
or kill hogs, or set bens, or make soap.
They went to mill and sometimes to meetings, but always to general musters and
elections. That such farmers were the
dupes of demagogues goes without the saying. A section of those times, with their
self made farmers and their self made
hogs and self made horses and their self
made almost everything else, would draw
a larger crowd now than Barnum's "Greatest Show on Earth."
As the change from that condition of
■__T*g_ ■_> ♦.._ present waa not the work of
magic, nor the result of some social or
economic upheaval, it may be interesting
to note the agencies that have contributed
to it. In a general way the school house
and the meeting house have played an
important part, but there have been specific agencies whose work has been bo silent
and unostentatious as to escape the notice
of the busy world. Most efficient of these
has been
THE AGRICULTURAL PRESS.
The central thought ot the self-made
farmer was that book farming was a fraud
and he persistently refused to read anything that purported to give instructions
on methods. But as early as GO years ago
sporadic copies of the Genesee Farmer
found their way into farm houses with
good effect, but it took from 10 to 15 bushels of corn to buy it, and pay the postage
for a year of 12 numbers. This, with the
popular aversion to scientific farming, as
its instructions were called in derision,
caused but a limited circulation. A little
more than 50 years ago an enterprising
firm started the Indiana Farmer, in Indianapolis. It was sickly from the beginning for want of that essential to vitality,a
cash patronage.When at the point of death
the versatile Henry Ward Beecher was
employed to edit it. His wit and humor,
more than his knowledge of farming gave
it a new lease of life for a few years, but
when he left, it died, or at least went into
a state of suspended animation; but the
germ of an agricultural paper remained,
out of which, in time, sprang the
THE PRESENT INDIANA FARMER,
one of the best agricultural papers in
America, if not the very best, and to
whose influence more than to any other
one agency, the transition from the period
of self-made farmers and self-made horses
and hogs, and self-made every thing else,
to the present high state of culture Is due.
Cotemporaneous with the agricultural
press, and so hand in hand with it, that it
that it would be as difficult to give either
a front rank, as to say to which if a well
balanced dual head of the home is most
credit due, is the agricultural society with
its exhibitions of farm productions. Only
those who were in at the beginning and
who have noted results, can estimate the
fruits of this force. Their beginnings
were small.   Almost simultaneously the
FIRST PAIRS IN THE STATE
were held In Wayne and In Franklin
counties, In the _0_. I well remember the
latter. Two Shorthorn bulls were there,
and half dozen cows and heifers, no hogs,
no sheep, no horses, but a specimen of the
new variety of potatoes the Neshannock,
and some potatoes raised from potato seed
brought from Ireland, and a few large
beets and pumpkins constituted the exhibit. No gate fees, for there were no
gates. The exhibiton was on the unin-
closed public square of the town. No
premiums were offered but very artistic
diplomas were given for the best exhibit.
A year later the experiment was tried in
Indianapolis, with premiums, the sum of
$180 being distributed, fifty dollars cf
which had been voted by couuty commissioners. These efforts were too exhaustive to be repeated soon, and several
years elapsed before there was another
exhibition of agricultural products in the
State. But they came at last and then
came the State Fair. Men laugh at tbat
insignificant beginning which, for a short
time, went itinerating around the State,
but in it were undeveloped potencies
which have told on the agricultural interests of the State. Men went to those out
of curiosity who had been self-sufficient
in their methods, but the next week they
they drove fifty miles for what they bad
called, in derision, a patent hog, or a
patent bull or buck, and the stock of the
country began to change from the self-
made to the man-Improved, until to-day
the farms of ,_,    .
INDIANA CAN PRODUCE ANIMALS EQUAL   TO
THE BEST.
County and district societies followed, and
local emulation led to local improvements
in farm implements, farming methods
and farm products, from the big pumpkin
to the big bullock, and from the fat pig to
the fast horse. But more and greater than
all these: The self-made farmer, out of
sheer curiosity and for a family holiday,
took his wife and children. These rubbed
against other wives and children, and the
horizon of their lives was enlarged, and
now aspirations seized them, which took
in more than improved hogs or fast horses.
They felt a divinity within that spoke of
higher attainments than the mere cultivation of better breeds of animals, or the
use of improved implements, and they
clamored for mental food. Then came,
into their homes more agricultural literature, and literature that was not purely,
agricultural, so that he who points to the
better horses and better cattle, and better
hogs, and better sheep and better poultry
as the achievements of our agricultural
papers, and agricultural fairs takes altogether too low a view of what has been accomplished.
THE GREATEST TROPHIES OP THESE   YEARS
are found in the better homes and in the
better mental development of the farmers
of Indiana, and their families. But what
next? That car may seem comfortably
full, but there is room for an increase.
_S ay more, there is a pressing necessity for
an Increase of intelligence among fanners,
as farmers, and not that that better informed boy shall hie away to the city
because he knows tco much to be a farmer. Farming may never be ranked as one
of the learned professions. It is entitled
to a higher rank, and one in which the
best mental culture can find employment
and enjoyment. Heretofore the tendency
has been for the farmer boy to light out
from the farm to become a Horace Greeley
in the city, as soon as he attains that
turning point in life, when he knows
more than his father. The result is an
army of starvelings, who go about the
city in seedy clothes, begging for a crumb
from the public crib, or wishing some
body would give them something to do,
by which they could maintan the semblance of a codfish aristocracy—a city life
with   Jts belonging?.   It should   bring
Co.aie._o* on vag. 18.