RICHARD B. BEST, Eldred, Ill.
The task of setting down ideas for the reflection of the NNGA fills me with consternation. My scanty rills of thinking are inadequate.
You remember the old Arabian tale of the poor student who was shut up in an enchanted room in the bosom of the earth. You remember how the earth opened only once each year. The student was waited upon by demons and spirits who furnished deep and dark knowledge. When the door opened, the student emerged, loaded with great lore and pertinent facts. Like this Arabian student, by delving into antiquity and our old annual reports of the NNGA, I have put together some thoughts from men living and dead.
Irving says: this pilfering disposition which some of us have may be implanted in us for a good reason. Maybe through us pilferers or borrowers, Heaven takes care of the seeds of knowledge and wisdom from age to age. The worthwhile thoughts which some of our early members gave us may be purloined by me and made to sparkle again in today's light, even though the early members' general idea is obsolete.
So, just as nature has provided for the distribution of her plant varieties through the maws of birds and animals, so it may be that Heaven has provided for the fine thoughts of our old members to be caught by us predatory individuals and made to bear fruit again in this new day. Really this is one way we exist and go forward in our organization.
A crop of "tares" which we read about in the scripture enriches the soil for the next crop. As a forest dies, a new crop of trees spring up. Even a dead tree gives rise to a whole creation of countless bacteria and fungi.
So on "ad infinitum." Members who have talked and studied our problems in the past have made possible our work here today. So, likewise, our words will sleep with the others from whom we have borrowed. So, to escape with a good conscience, to avoid having fingers pointed at me, of hearing cries of—"you stole this from me," I will try to give credit where credit is due.
Otherwise, I might be, figuratively speaking, stripped of my material here piece by piece, and I would finally stand before you with hardly a loin cloth of an idea which I could call my own.
There is a popular appeal to the nut business which most of us are susceptible to,—like wanting to produce large nuts,—and of seeing the first nut,—and to again gather nuts like we did as children. Ask a man how large a nut he found and he will lie as he will about a fish he has just caught.
Then, there is the romantic visionary who would transform the whole universe into a sort of fairyland nut grove—where there are no insects, diseases, or squirrels,—and where the nuts fall polished into open bags.