only from the past. Tradition could teach the farmer how to
raise the raw materials, under the old economy, in which the farmhouse
and community were sufficient unto themselves. But in a time when the
wool of the sheep in Australia goes halfway round the world in its
passage from the back of a sheep to the back of a man, the sheep farmer
becomes dependent upon the scientist. He cannot afford to raise sheep
unless the scientific man assures him that in the production of wool
his land has its highest utility. "The American farm land is passing
into the hands of those who will use it to the highest advantage."[12]

The dependence of the scientific farmer or husbandman upon the world
market and upon the scientists who are studying agriculture enlarges the
circle of his life from the rural household to the rural community. In
the rural community agriculture can be taught; in the household it
cannot. The only teaching of the household is tradition; the teaching of
the community is in terms of science. The country school and the country
church take a greater place as community institutions just so soon as
the farmer passes out of the period of exploitation into that of
scientific husbandry.

The husbandman is the economist in agriculture. He is to the farm what
the husband was to the household in old times. One is tempted to say
also that the husbandman is he who marries the land. American farm land
has suffered dishonor and degradation, but it has known all too little
the affection which could be figuratively expressed in marriage. The
Bible speaks of "marrying the land."--"Thy land shall be called Beulah
for thy land shall be married." Side by side in this country we have the
lands which have been dishonored, degraded, abandoned, dissolute, and
the lands husbanded, fertilized, enriched and made beautiful.

The husbandman or rural economist cares more for qualities than for
quantity. He works not merely for intensive cultivation of the soil, but
also for the preservation of the soil and use of it in its own terms, at
its highest values.

The principle at work is not the increase in the farmer's material gains
or possessions. The husbandry of the soil is not a mere increase in
market values. It is a deeper and more ethical welfare than that which
can be put in the bank. "Agriculture is a religious occupation." When it
sustains a permanent population and extends from generation to
generation the same experiences, agriculture