msmi
re:a.d our big srecial offer on rageii.
Vnion
Farmer
Vol. VI.—No. 33.
RALEIGH. N. C, AUGUST 22, 1912.
Are You Chained to the Soil.^
**Men prosper mentally, physically, morally and
spiritually only when they are in close proximity
to the soil.”
That is one way Elbert Hubbard puts it, but he does
not get it all in. A man may be too close to the soil—
so close that he cannot prosper in any way. A man may
be chained to a clod as hopelessly as though he were
chained to a rock in prison. The clod is the type of poor,
hopeless farming. Water and sunshine do not enter the
clod, seeds cannot germinate in it, food and life cannot
grow from it. It is a prison in which sublime forces of
nature are locked up. There can be no prosperity while
men are chained to a clod—no matter how close they
come to the soil. They prosper as they learn how to use
lime, tillage and other weapons to crush that clod 'and set
the forces of nature free. For man becomes himself free
as he gives freedom to other things. As the man learns
how to crush his clod and turn it more and more into
productive soil he prospers. While still close to the soil
he rises above it in mental and moral power. For the
man who remains flat on the soil, even though he forces
that soil to the limit of its productiveness, is not the best
or most useful farmer. That title should go to the man
who keeps “close to the soil” and yet grows up and claims
and earns his fair share in the market and a fair place in
political thought.—Rural New Yorker.
One Dollar a Year.
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