Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 March 1889 — THE EDUCATED FARMER. [ARTICLE]

THE EDUCATED FARMER.

Education as Necessary as io Ad) [ Other VocationPrairie Farmer.: , The time has come when, to be successful in life, a person mast .be educated. Naiural tact is a great thing. Money is a great thing. Gemus is a great thing. • These are all gooXthings and great helps to success, buß far greater yet is education. |As competition narrows down and the margin oi action grows smaller, the better must a' man be equipped for the battle of life, if he expects to be successful. This is as true of the farmer as.of any one else. The time has passed for farmers to depend on muscle and hard labor alone. They must use their brains as well as thair hands. They must do more thinking and planning if they desire to receive the best results. The termer who reads and studies is the one who works to a purpose, while the one who does not read iffthe one who makes his efforts at hap-hazard. The former is posted on the markets, and, from long study, is able to draw conclusions and form pretty correct ideas of what it will be to his interest to raise for those markets. He discovers that the wheat market is likely to have a downward tendency, from the fact that he is informed of a large area of wheat sown in the main wheat producing States. Consequently; he very sensibly concludes, that for a profit he had better turn his attention to other crops. The uneducated farmer, on the other hand, knows nothing of markets, or of the outlook for crop production, and is as liable to produce a non-paying crop as any- v Then again, the educated farmer is always posted in everything pertaining to his business, and is readyto be the first to take advantage of a new and valuable discovery, and every year there are many valuable discoveries made in the agricultural world. These are cheiper and more convenient methods of performing farm labor; ways by which better returns are secured from the same amount of soil and work; newer and more satisfactory methods of caring for stock and oi feeding and pasturing the same; and many other discoveries, trifling and insignificant in themselves, but which, in the aggregate, amount to a great deal.

The uneducated farmer—the one who does notread-is the one who treats emallVaatters as unworthy of any thought or attention, and who too often’walks over dollars in a mad chase alter phantom gold pieces. And yet, it is the small things most often that constitute profit. The educated farmer knows how to save. He understands the value of economy. He knows how to obtain the greatest results at the least expense. He knows how to secure the greatest yield from a given amount of ground. He knows what crops to cultivate and when anXwhere to market his products. He is posted in the new and best varieties of seeds,land also the best varieties of stock. He has the advantage of the experience of ether men, because he reads. He does not depend altogether on his own observation and experience. Farming is a science, and there are many new things to learn in it yet, and the best and cheapest way tp learn those things js by study. Take agricultural papers, read in their columns the experiences and observation of others, and avail yourself of the many useful hints and suggestions, and thus keep up with the procession. “Farming is no longer profitable,” some men cry, when the fact is they do not find it so for the reason that. they are away behind the procession, and are attempting to run on the old plan of all muscle-work and no brain-work.