Lincoln as a social prophet; The Key to the Future of Agricultur

Then. The following program is the third in a series of readings on Abraham Lincoln entitled Lincoln a social prophet. The readings in commemoration of Illinois sesquicentennial are done by Marvin saying our speech instructor at Northern Illinois University today is reading the key to the future of agriculture. Mr. saying our September 30th 1859 Abraham Lincoln gave the world another opportunity to hear his prophetic words this time in the area of agriculture. What is particularly impressive is his insistence on the need for the farmer to continue in education for example reading and to continue in joining of hands with science science and education then are the key to the future of agriculture according to Lincoln.

Before I read Lincoln's speech for the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society at Madison Wisconsin let me present a brief background for the event. About a year ago Lincoln had lost to Stephen A Douglas in the race for the United States Senate. Despite his defeat he had become nationally prominent via his debates with Douglas. Now millions knew him and hundreds of requests came to him begging for speeches. He spoke as frequently as is busy law practice would allow. On the last day in September of 1859 he was urged to present the principal message at the Wisconsin State Fair. On the general theme of agricultural advancement and the dignity of labor he could speak with sincerity and insight because he had spent hard early years as a man of the soil. And lest we think his speech was just empty political rhetoric we know it several years later in his annual message to Congress on December 3rd 1861 that he urged Congress to establish a Department of Agriculture in his annual message to

Congress on December 1st 1862. He gladly announced his intention to carry out the provisions of an act of Congress because the Department of Agriculture of the United States could be organized. Imagine now that you are at the Wisconsin State Fair in the fall of 1859 Lincoln speaks. Members of the agricultural society and citizens of Wisconsin. Agricultural fairs are becoming an institution of the country. They're useful in more ways than one. They bring us together and thereby make us better acquainted and better friends than we otherwise should be. From the first appearance of man upon the earth down to very recent times the words stranger and enemy were quite or almost synonymous. Long after civilized nations had defined robbery and murder as high crimes and had to fix severe punishments to them when practiced among upon their own people respectively it was deemed no offense but even meritorious to rob and

murder and enslave strangers where there is Nations or as individuals. Even yet this has not totally disappeared. The man of the highest moral cultivation in spite of all that abstract principle can do. Like Sam whom he doesn't know much better than him whom he does not know to correct the evils of great and small which sprang from want of sympathy and from positive enmity among strangers as nations or as individuals is one of the highest functions of civilization. To this end our agricultural fairs contribute in no small degree. They make more pleasant and more strong and more durable. The bond of social and political union among us. Again if as Pope declares happiness is our being skandha name our affairs contribute much to that end and aim as occasions of recreation as holidays constituted as man is he has positive need of occasional recreation and whatever can give him this associated with virtue and advantage and free from vice and

disadvantages a positive good such recreation. Our fares afford they are a present pleasure to be followed by no pain as a consequence. They are a present pleasure making the future more pleasant. But the chief U.S. of agricultural fairs is to aid him in improving the great calling of agriculture in all its departments and minute divisions to make mutual exchange of agricultural discovery information and knowledge so that at the end all may know everything which may have been known to but one or two but few at the beginning to bring together especially all which is supposed to not be generally known because of recent discovery or invention. And not only to bring together and to impart all that has been accidentally discovered or invented upon ordinary motives but by exciting emulation for premiums and for the pride and honor of success of triumph in some sort to stimulate discovery and invention into extraordinary activity. And this these

fairs are kindred to the patent clause in the Constitution of the United States and to the department and practical system based upon that clause. One feature I believe of every fair is a regular address the Agricultural Society of the young prosperous and soon to be the great state of Wisconsin has done me the high honor of selecting me to make that address on this occasion and honor for which I make my profound and grateful acknowledgment. I presume I am not expected to employ the time assigned me in the mere flattery of farmers as a class. My opinion of them is that in proportion to numbers they are neither better nor worse than any other people and the nature of things they are more numerous than any other class. And I believe there really are more attempts at flattering them than any other. The reason which I cannot perceive unless it be that they can cast more votes than any other. On reflection I am not quite sure there is not cause of suspicion against you in selecting me

in some sort of a politician and in no sortie farmer to address you. But farmers being the most numerous class it follows that their interest is the largest interest. It also follows that that interest is most worthy of all to be cherished and call of ated that if there be inevitable conflict between that interest and any other that other should you. Again I suppose it is not expected of me to impart to you much specific information on agriculture. You have no reason to believe and do not believe that I possess it. Is that what you seek in this address. Any one of your own number or class would be more able to furnish it. You perhaps do expect me to give some general interest to the occasion and to make some general suggestions on practical matters. I shall attempt nothing more. And in such suggestions by me quite likely very little will be new to you and a large part of the rest possibly already known to be Iranian.

My first suggestion is an inquiry as to the effect of greater thought on us in all the departments of agriculture than now prevails in the northwest. Perhaps I might say in America. To speak entirely within bounds it is known that 50 bushels of wheat or 100 bushels of Indian corn can be produced from an acre bestin a year ago I saw it stated that a man buy extraordinary care and labor had produced of wheat. What was equal to two hundred bushels from an acre. But take fifty of wheat and one hundred of corn to be the probability and compare it with the actual crops of the country. Many years ago I saw it stated in a Patent Office report that eighteen bushels to the acre was the average crop throughout the wheat growing region of the United States and this year an intelligent farmer of Illinois assured me that he did not believe the land harvested in that state this season had yielded more than an average of eight bushels to the acre. The bread crop I heard of in our vicinity was two thousand bushels for 90 acres. Many crops refresh producing no more than three

bushels to the acre much was cut and then abandoned as not worth threshing and much was abandoned without cutting. It's two Indian corn and indeed most other crops the case has not been much better for the last four years I do not believe the ground planted with corn in Illinois has produced an average of 20 bushels to the acre. It is true that here too for we have had better crops with no better cultivation. But I believe it is also true that the soil has never been pushed up to one half of its capacity. What would be the effect upon the farming interest to push the soil up to something near its full capacity. Unquestionably it will take more labor to produce 50 bushels from an acre than it will to produce 10 bushels from the same acre. But it will take more labor to produce 50 bushels from one acre than from five. Unquestionably thought all cultivation will require more labor to the acre but will it require more to the bushel. It should require just as much to the bushel. There are some probable and several certain advantages in favor of the thorough

practice. It is probable it would develop those on known clauses are developed on known cures for those causes which of late years have cut down our crops below their former average. It is almost certain I think that in the deeper plowing analysis of soils experiments with menorahs and varieties of seeds observance of seasons and the like of these cures would be found. It is certain that the roll call of ation would spare half or more than half the cost of land simply because the same product would be got from half or from less than half the quantity of land. This proposition is self-evident and can be made no plainer by repetitions or illustrations. The cost of land is a great item. Even a new countries and constantly girls greater and greater in comparison with other items as the country grows older. It also would spare a large proportion of the making and maintaining of enclosures the same way that these enclosures should be hedges ditches or fences. This again is a

heavy item at first and having its continual demand for repairs. I remember once being greatly astonished by an apparently authentic exhibition of the proportion of the cost of enclosures bears to all the other expenses of the farmer. But I cannot remember exactly what that proportion was. Any farmer if you will can ascertain it in his own case for himself. Again a great amount of locomotion is spared by federal cultivation. Take 50 bushels of wheat ready for harvest. Standing up on a single acre and it can be harvested in any of the known ways with less than half the labor which would be required if it were spread over five acres. This would be true of cut by the old hands tickle. True to a greater extent if by the scion cradle and still to a greater extent if by the machinery now in use these machines are chiefly valuable as a means of substituting animal power for the power of men in this branch of farm work. The highest degree of perfection yet reached in applying the horse power to harvesting fully

nine tenths of the power is expended by the animal and carrying himself and dragging the machine over the field leaving certainly not more than one plant to be applied directly to the only end of the whole operation. The gathering in the grain and clipping of the straw. When grain is very thin on the ground it is always more or less intermingled with the weeds chests and the like. And a large part of the power is expended in cutting these. It is plain that when the crop is very thick upon the ground a larger proportion of the power is directly applied to gathering in and cutting it and the smaller to that which is totally useless as an end. What I have said of harvesting is true in a greater or less degree of moaning plowing and gathering enough crops generally and indeed of almost all farm work. The effect of sorrel called ovation upon the farmer's own mind and in reaction threw his mind back upon his business is perhaps quite equal to any other of its effects. Every man is proud of what he does well and no man is proud of what he does not do well with the former

His hided is in his work and he will do twice as much of it with less fatigue. The latter he performs a little imperfectly looks at it in disgust turns from it and imagines himself exceedingly tired. The little he does comes to nothing for want of finishing. The man who produces a good full crop will scarcely ever let any part of it go to waste. He will keep up the enclosures about it and allow neither man nor beast to trespass upon it. He will gather it in due season and store it in perfect security. Thus he labors with satisfaction and saves to himself the whole fruit of his labor. The other starting with no purpose for a full crop labors less and with less satisfaction allows his fences to fall and cattle to trespass gathers not in due season or not at all and stores in securely or not at all. Thus the labor he has performed is wasted away little by little till in the end he derives scarcely anything from it. The ambition for Broad Acres leads to poor farming even with men of energy. I

scarcely ever knew a mammoth farm to sustain itself much less to return a profit upon the outlay. I have more than once known a man to spend a respectable fortune upon one fail and leave it and then some man of more modern games get a small fraction of the ground and make a good living upon it. Mammoth farms are like tools or weapons which are too heavy to be handled. Ere long they are thrown aside at a great loss. The successful application of steam power to farm work is it is it or a Tim especially a steam plough. It is not enough that a machine operated by steam will really plough to be successful it must all things considered plowed better than can be done with animal power. It must do all the work as well and cheaper or more rapidly so as to get through more perfectly in season or in some way afford an advantage over ploughing with animals or else it is no success. I have never seen a machine intended for a steam plough much praise and admiration are

bestowed upon some of them and they may be for aught I know already successful. But I have not perceived the demonstration of it. I have thought it a good deal in an abstract way about a steam plough. That one which shall so will be contrived so as to apply a larger proportion of its power to the cutting and turning of the soil and the smallest to the moving itself over the field will be the best one. It is to be hoped that this steam plough will finally be successful and if it shall be floral cultivation putting the soil to the top of its capacity producing the largest crop possible from a given quantity of ground will be most favorable to it doing a large amount of work upon a small quantity of ground. It will be as nearly as possible stationary while working and as free as possible from locomotion. Thus expanding its strength as much as possible upon its work and as little as possible in travelling I thanks in some time something more substantial than thanks are due to

every man engaged in the effort to produce a successful steam bottle. Even the unsuccessful will bring something to light which in the hands of others will contribute to the final success. I have not pointed out difficulties in order to discourage but in order that being seen they may be more readily overcome. The world is agreed that Labor is the source from which human wants are mainly supplied. There is no dispute upon this point from this point our men immediately diverged much disputation is maintained as to the best way of applying and controlling the labor element. By some it is assumed that labor is available only in connection with capital that nobody labors on less somebody else owning capital. Somehow by the use of that capital induces him to do it. Having assumed this they proceed to consider whether it is best that capital shall hire laborers and thus induce them to work by their own consent or by them and drive them to it without their consent. Having

proceeded so far they actually conclude that all labors are necessarily either hired laborers or slaves. They further assume that whoever is watching hired labor is fatally fixed in that condition for life and thence again that his condition is as bad as or worse than that of a slave. This is the mud sill theory. But another class of reasoners hold the opinion that there is no such relation between capital and labor as assumed and that there is no such thing as a free man being fatally fixed for life in the condition of a hired laborer that both these assumptions are false and all inferences from then groundless. They hold that labor is prior to and independent of capital. That in fact capital is the fruit of labor and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. That Labor can exist without capital but that capital could never have existence without labor. Hence they hold that Labor is the superior Raby disappear of capital. They do not deny that there is and probably always will be a relation between

labor and capital. The areas they hold is in assuming that the whole labor of the world exists within that relation. If you Man own capital and that that few avoid labor themselves and with their capital hire or buy another futile labor for them. A large majority belong to neither class neither work for others nor have others work for them. Even in all our sleeve states except South Carolina a majority of the whole people of all colors are neither slaves nor masters. In these free states a large majority are neither hires nor hired men with their families wives sons and daughters work for themselves on their farms in their houses and in their shops. Taking the whole product to themselves and asking no favor of capital on the one hand nor of hirelings are slaves on the other. It is not forgotten that a considerable number of persons mingle their own labor with capital that is labor with their own hands and also buy slaves or hire free men to labor for them. But this is only a mixed and not a distinct class. No principle stated is

disturbed by the existence of this mixed class. Again as has already been said the opponents of the mud sill theory insist that there is not of necessity any such thing as the free hired labor being fixed to that condition for life. There's demonstration for saying this. Many independent men in this assembly doubtless a few years ago were hired laborers and their case is almost if not quite the general rule. The prudent penniless beginner in the world labors for wages a while saves a surplus with which to buy tools or land for himself then labors on his own account another while and at length hires another new beginner to help him. This say its advocates is free labor that Justin generous and prosperous system which opens the way for all gives hope to all and energy and progress and improvement of condition to all. If ANY continue through life in the condition of the hired labor. It is not the fault of the system but because of either a dependent nature which prefers it or of improvidence follow your singular

misfortune. I have said this much about the elements of labor generally as introductory to the consideration of a new phase which that element is in process of assuming the old general rule was that educated people did not perform manual labor. They managed to eat their bread leaving the toil of producing it to the un educated. This was not an insupportable evil to the working bees so long as that class of drones remain very small but now especially in these free states nearly all are educated quite to nearly all to leave the labor of the un educated in any way adequate to the support of the whole. It follows from this that henceforth educated people too must labor. Otherwise education itself would become a positive and intolerable evil. No community cancers sustain in idleness more than a small percentage of its numbers. The great majority must labor at something useful something productive from these premises. The problem Springs. How can labor and education be the most

satisfactorily combined. By the mud sill theory it is assumed that labor and education are incompatible in any practical combination of them impossible according to that theory a blind horse up on a treadmill is a perfect illustration of what a Labor should be all the better for being blind. That he could not tread out of place or kick understandingly according to that theory the educating of laborers is not only useless but pernicious and dangerous. In fact it is in some sort deemed a misfortune that Labor should have heads at all those same heads are regarded as explosive materials only to be safely kept in damp places as far as possible from that peculiar sort of fire which ignites them. A Yankee who could invent a strong handed man without a head would secure the everlasting gratitude of the mud sill advocates. But free labor says no free labor argues that as the author of Man makes every individual with one head and one pair of hands it was probably

intended that heads and hands should cooperate as friends and that that particular head should direct and control that particular pair of hands as each man has one mouth to be fed and one pair of hands to furnish food. It was probably intended that that particular pair of hands should feed that particular mild that each head is the natural guardian director and protector of the hands and mouth inseparably connected with it and that being so every head should be called evaded any improved by whatever will add to its capacity for performing its charge in one word free labor insists on universal education. I have so far stated the opposite theories of mud still and free labor without declaring any preference of my own between them on an occasion like this I ought not declare any. I suppose however I shall not be mistaken in assuming as a fact that the people of Wisconsin prefer free labor with its natural companion education.

This leads to the further reflection that no other human occupation opened so wide a field for the profitable and agreeable combination of labor with cultivated thought is agriculture. I know not nothing so pleasant to the mind as the discovery of anything which is at once new and valuable nothing which so lightens and sweetens toil as the hopeful pursuit of such discovery. And how vast and Al varied a field is agriculture for such discovery the mind already trained a thought in the country school or higher school cannot fail to find it in it. And exhaustible source of profitable enjoyment. Every blade of grass is a study and to produce to where there was but one is both a profit and a pleasure and not grass alone but soils seeds and seasons hedges ditches and fences draining droughts and irrigation ploughing hoeing and harrowing

reaping moaning in threshing saving crops. Pests of crops diseases of crops and what will prevent or cure them implements utensils and machines their relative merits and how to improve them hawgs horses and cattle sheep goats and poultry trees shrubs fruits and flowers the thousand things of which these are specimens. Each a world of study within itself. In all these book learning is available capacity and taste for reading gives access to whatever whatever has already been discovered by others. It is the key or one of the keys to the already solved problems. And not only so it gives a relation facility for successfully pursuing the yet unsolved ones. The rudiments of science are available and highly valuable some knowledge of botany assists in dealing with the vegetable world with all growing crops. Chemistry assists in the analysis of soils selection and

application of manures and in numerous other ways. The mechanical branches of natural philosophy already helps in almost everything but especially in reference to implements and machinery. The thought occurs that education cultivated thought can best be combined with agricultural labor or any labor on the principle of thorough work that careless half performed sloppily work makes no place for some such combination and thorough work again renders sufficient the smallest quantity of ground each man. This again conforms to what must occur in a world less inclined to wars and more devoted to the arts of peace than here too for the population must increase rapidly more rapidly than in former times and ere long the most valuable thing of all arts will be the art of the arriving a comfortable subsistence from the smallest amount of soil. No community who is every member possesses this art can ever be the victim of oppression in any of its forms.

Such community will be alike independent of crowned kings money kings and land kings. But according to your program the awarding of premiums awaits the closing of this address. Considering the deep interest necessarily pertaining to that performance it would be no wonder if I am already heard with so many patients I will detain you about a moment longer. Some of you will be successful and such will need but little philosophy to take them home and cheerful spirits. Others will be dissatisfied and will be in a less happy mood to such let me say late not too much to heart. Let them adopt the maxim. Better luck next time. And then by renewed exertion. Make that better luck for themselves. And by the successful and the unsuccessful let it be remembered that while occasions like the present bring their silver and durable benefits we excel to patients and mortifications of them are but temporary that the victor will soon be the

vanquished. If he relax in his exertion and that the vanquished this year may be the victor the next in spite of all competition. It is said an eastern monarch once charged his wise man to invent him a sentiment to be ever in view and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations they present it in the words. And this too shall pass away. How much it expresses how chastening in the hour of pride how consoling in the depths of affliction. And this shall pass away. And yet let us hope it is not quite true. Let us hope rather that by the best call of ation of the physical world beneath and around us and the intellectual and moral worlds within us we shall secure an individual social and political prosperity and happiness whose course shall be onward in upward and which while the earth endures shall not pass

away this day. They beat Lincoln as social profit. The third in a series of readings on Abraham Lincoln commemorating Illinois sesquicentennial today's reading by a Northern Illinois University speech instructor Marvin saying R. was entitled The key to the future of agriculture. Next week freedom fighter 1858. A production of WNYC Radio in Northern Illinois University. This program was distributed by the national educational radio network.