I can get ground limestone for $2.90 a ton now, delivered at Blue Mound in bulk in carload lots. We are hoping to get it still lower, and I think we will, for some of the big lime manufacturers, such as the company at Riverton, are making plans to furnish ground limestone; and the railroad companies are likely to make better rates, or the State will do so for them.
It is truly a lamentable situation, when our hills and mountains are full of all sorts of limestone, and our exhausted lands are crying for that more than anything else. We understand, even better than you, that everybody is poor in a country where the land is poor; and it should be to the greatest interest of the railroad companies as well as to all other industries, to unite in an effort to make it possible for every landowner to apply large amounts of limestone to his land,—the more the better,—and no one should expect any large profit from the business; but wait till the benefit is produced on the land,—wait till the farmer has his increased crops, and some money from the sale of those crops. Then the railroads can make profit hauling those crops to market and hauling back the necessary supplies, and even the luxuries, which the farmer's money will enable him to buy and pay for. Then the factory wheels will turn; for, as you told us, the Secretary of Agriculture reports that eighty-six per cent. of all the manufactured products are made from agricultural raw materials.
There is no danger but what the railroads and manufacturers and commercial people will get their share out of the produce from the farms; but it is absolutely sure that, when the farms fail to produce, then there is no profit for any of them, and the last man to starve out will be the farmer himself, for he can live on what he raises even though he has nothing left to sell.
We are all well. My son Charles is still bookkeeping for a Richmond firm, but he is becoming greatly interested in my alfalfa, and says he sometimes wishes he had taken an agricultural course instead of the literary at college. His grandmother says she reckons the agricultural college could give him about all the literature he needs keeping books for a hides and tallow wholesale company; and I am coming to believe that she is about right. I still remember that the dative of indirect object is used with most Latin verbs compounded with _ad, ante, con, in, inter, ob, post, pre, pro, sub, _and _super, _and sometimes _circum; _but it would have been just as easy for me to have learned forty years ago that the essential elements of plant food are carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen; nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium; magnesium, calcium, iron and sulfur; and possibly chlorin; and I am sure that the culture of Greek roots and a knowledge of Latin compounds have been of less value to me during the forty years than the culture of alfalfa roots and even a meager knowledge of plant-food compounds have been during the last three years.
Adelaide is teaching; Frank is in the academy; and the younger children are all in school.
We shall always be glad to hear from you.
Very respectfully yours,
CHARLES WEST.
"That is an exceptionally good letter," said Mrs. Johnson, as Percy finished reading.
"Not for Mr. West," he replied. "His letters are always good, always helpful and encouraging, almost an inspiration to me. Mr. West is in many ways a very exceptional man. If he had not been tied down all his life to a so-called worn-out farm of a thousand acres, he might just as well have been the Governor of the State. Even in spite of himself he has been practically forced to accept some very responsible public offices, but the financial sacrifice was too great to permit his retaining them very long. I never realized until I was nearly through college that the trustees of our own University devoted a large amount of time to that public service with no financial remuneration whatever. They are merely reimbursed for their actual and necessary travelling expenses."