Many years ago I visited a friend living upon a 160 acre farm. It was one of the most beautiful section farms that I have ever seen either in this or any other State. While there I was speaking of a splendid crop of melons that were then just ripening. He said, in rather a fretful manner, “I do not see why my melons do not grow. I know the land is rich, and there are no weeds in the hills. I hoed them all up only a few days ago.” I walked out to his garden with him, and there were his poor, puny vines struggling for life. As he said, there were no weeds in the hills, a little circle of perhaps two or three feet in diameter had been hoed out, and the balance of the land was covered with a dense growth of weeds from two to six feet in height.
He had a most industrious and refined lady for a wife, and young children growing up around him, and, as before stated, a most excellent as well as valuable farm. Yet not one early pea or one ear of sweet corn; not even early potatoes or a tomato, or, in fact, anything that by any stretch of the imagination could be called a garden bed—yet the man has been to college.
Another gentleman said in my presence, “In the spring, at the proper time, I purchase cabbage seed and sow them; when it is time to set them out I buy the plants and plant them; when it is time for cabbages they are _there_, and so I always have cabbages.”
He is among the very best farmers in the State. He teaches others how to farm, and does it well. The man who attacks him in a convention needs a strong cause and a ready tongue, or he will be apt to consider his own cause a very poor one before he gets through with it. This man has been president of a State dairymen’s association.
One case more: Another gentleman, who is far above the average farmer, and who has also been president of a State dairymen’s association, as well as a public teacher, as he was going out to attend a farmers’ meeting or convention, where he was expected to be a teacher, happened to look out over the place where his garden should have been, and saw an immense growth of weeds going to seed. He said to his sons and hired men, “Boys, bring out a team and hitch to the mower, and mow off the garden; I can not conscientiously go and teach others how to farm with that crop of weeds going to seed in my own garden.” The work was done. “There,” said he, “I can now go and teach without a troubled conscience. There are no weeds going to seed in my garden.”