Work Hard, Yes, But Also Enjoy Your Farm, 1909

“Work Hard, Yes, But Also Enjoy Your Farm,” by A.L. French, Rockingham County, N.C., in the March 1909 issue of The Southern Planter

It has seemed to me at times as I have been going about among our farmers that only a small percent of them are getting any happiness out of their business. They will talk with us as long as we continue to point out where they may be able to make more dollars. Dollars are necessary, of course, and should be looked after carefully. No one knows this better than the writer who has been obliged to make what he has. But there are other things that it seems to me are even more to be desired, and that will afford the true farmer more real pleasure than the quest for more dollars.

How many of us realize that ours is a peculiar business? A real business, first, then a science, and the one of the most delightful means of recreation. Thus, we have an occupation, that if handled as I believe God has intended it should be handled, may answer to every need of the educated, up-to-date, broad-minded man. First, from a business; second, from a scientific; third from an aesthetic standpoint, and it seems such a pity to the writer that so many of our famers pay attention only to the business side of their occupation, and even fail at times to make the most of even this one part, leaving out of their lives all the broader, better things that may be theirs for the asking only.

Our methods are undoubtedly improving, and we hope the time is not far distant when the average farmer will take hold of his work with a zeal born of a love for his business, and not for the few dollars only that he may be able to accumulate.

Do you realize, my friends, that ours is the only business that is founded upon the soil itself and, that soil building, being allied with nature itself, is one of the greatest of sciences, and that the scientific farmer who is a soil builder has become a co-worker with nature.

Then there is the great work of plant breeding lying right at the door of the farmer. Who will allow his life to so broaden as to cover this branch of his business, a business to which men of great brains have been content to devote their entire lives, and then go to the Great Beyond with the knowledge that the work was only just begun, and what may be said of plant breeding applies with far greater force to the breeding of animals. Do you know that not one in 20 animals the farmers of America are handling have been improved at all, are scrubs pure and simple? Well, it is a fact, and if animal breeding—to the end that these millions of scrub animals may give place to animals of improved blood and far greater productive capacity—is not a study worthy of any farmer’s brain, pray tell me what would be?

The people of the world are progressing; more is asked of a man to-day than was required 25 years ago, greater capacity is required of the same sized brain. The farmer must not, and I know will not lag behind. But he will be required to study his business as he has never done before. He will turn his brain loose, and solve these scientific problems that confront him, and will be a better man, more worthy of his great business because of it.

One of the greatest needs of the world to-day is for more practical scientific agriculturists. Our soils have been depleted by hears of careless handling, and must be reclaimed if we are to continue to feed the world. Our plants are of inferior productive capacity, and must be bred up until they will pay for first class labor on first class land. Our animals are making not more than two-thirds the returns they might were they of improved type. These are only a few of the matters that are before the farmer of to-day for solution, and the study of which will afford not only profit in dollars, but vast pleasure a swell.

But enough of this. I want you, Brother Farmers, to get the boys and girls, and go afield with me as it is your and their right to see another side of country life. Have you ever seen during all the years that you have been living on the farm that grand old mountain standing there in all its majesty and grandeur? You have seen it, of course, but have you realized what it means to you; what an inspiration you might receive, if you would, from this sentinel standing back there in all its rugged beauty, a picture no artist has ever been able to copy, grand, sublime, the everlasting hills, all ours, if we would only be able to see with understanding.

Then down there in the valley, alongside that saucy little stream, don’t you see the pines, with the various shades of green, and almost hidden there are the dogwoods, wild plum and peach, in their bridal robes of bloom? If we walk down there we will hear the bees and humming birds as busy as they can be, and yonder only a little way is the pasture where millions of little plants—responding to the touch of spring air, striving in their silent way to repair the damage old Jack Frost did some weeks ago. The sheep are down there to the right is that sheltered spot, and the lambs—as full of play as ever—are vieing with one another for the post of honor, the highest point on that great boulder, where battles of this sort have been waged every returning spring for more than 50 years. But I hear a gentle lowing, and methinks the cow must be just over that little hill, as that call sounds very like the tones of Lady Nosegay, that calling to her bold, reckless son. It is as I had suspected, he has gone off with those big bull calves, and is fighting like a Trojan down there by the spring. Well, bulls will be bulls, but my word, isn’t he putting up a good fight! Look how those great muscles of his bulge, how the sod flies, see that big fellow—who ought to be ashamed of himself—sends the little fellow back on the fly. You had better look out, Mr. Big Bull, that old cow has been watching this fuss for some time, and if you don’t “tote fair” with that little fellow you will find yourself lying on your back with a bad bump on your stomach, the first thing you know. Mothers can’t stand everything.

Let farmers—hard workers though we be—try to listen to the music and see more of the silent beauty all around us. Wealthy city people pay thousands to hear and see the things that cost the farmer noting, but an appreciative understanding.