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.”
I have strong hopes of this gentleman. He has a conscience. He attends church; and although I consider him intellectually as far superior to most of the preachers of the day, yet if the right man should become his pastor, I fully believe that there is salvation for him even in this life.
As to the other three the case seems at least to be a very doubtful one. One can not but be reminded of the anecdote of the three little boys who had commenced studying the catechism. Some one asked them if they had learned any of it? “Oh, yes,” says one of them, “I am past justification.” A second one says, “I am past sanctification.” The third jumps up and says, “I have beat them all; I am clear past redemption.” It is much to be feared that the three first described gentlemen are all of them clear past redemption.
Let us turn for a moment to a farmer’s garden of another order. He has a beautiful as well as an excellent farm. Around his house are quite a number of handsome trees that stood there when the Indians were the proprietors of the soil. The present owner has added such other trees as he thought would add both to its beauty and comfort. The house is a number of rods from the highway, and in the summer is one of the most beautiful rural homes that I ever saw. Back of, and near by, the house is his garden. It is so arranged that most of its crops can be cultivated with a horse and cultivator. A nice asparagus bed furnishes not only himself and family an abundant supply of this the first as well as one of the best of the products of the outdoor garden, but also a quantity to sell. His strawberry beds, containing only a few of the standard varieties and a very few plants of some of the most promising of the new ones, were models of both beauty and economy in their arrangement for cultivating both well and cheaply. The same was true of his peas, beans, sweet corn, cabbages, potatoes, etc. His raspberries, both red and black-caps, furnished an abundant supply for the family during their season. The same is true of his blackberries and grapes.
A short distance from these well cared-for necessaries and luxuries of his farm is a moderate-sized and well cared-for orchard. I have no doubt he can, if he wishes, have some of the products of his orchard or garden, or both, upon his table every day of the year.
The gentleman who owns and controls this farm has never been president of any State dairymen’s association, nor has he ever been sent to Congress. But, gentlemen, he is one of the most thoroughly wide awake and enterprising, as well as one of the very best farmers that Wisconsin can boast of; and we have some good ones.
The question very naturally arises, Why is it that so many, not only of our common, but of our very best farmers, fail to have anything that can be called even a poor garden? It is not because they do not like its products.