sophy of the oneness in nature and the unity in living things.

_The farmer's relation_

The surface of the earth is particularly within the care of the farmer.
He keeps it for his own sustenance and gain, but his gain is also the
gain of all the rest of us. At the best, he accumulates little to
himself. The successful farmer is the one who produces more than he
needs for his support; and the overplus he does not keep; and, moreover,
his own needs are easily satisfied. It is of the utmost consequence that
the man next the earth shall lead a fair and simple life; for in riotous
living he might halt many good supplies that now go to his fellows.

It is a public duty so to train the farmer that he shall appreciate his
guardianship. He is engaged in a quasi-public business. He really does
not even own his land. He does not take his land with him, but only the
personal development that he gains from it. He cannot annihilate his
land, as another might destroy all his belongings. He is the agent or
the representative of society to guard and to subdue the surface of the
earth; and he is the agent of the divinity that made it. He must
exercise his dominion with due regard to all these obligations. He is a
trustee. The productiveness of the earth must increase from generation
to generation: this also is his obligation. He must handle all his
materials, remembering man and remembering God. A man cannot be a good
farmer unless he is a religious man.

If the farmer is engaged in a quasi-public business, shall we undertake
to regulate him? This relationship carries a vast significance to the
social order, and it must color our attitude toward the man on the land.
We are now in that epoch of social development when we desire to
regulate by law everything that is regulatable and the other things
besides. It is recently proposed that the Congress shall pass a law
regulating the cropping scheme of the farmer for the protection of soil
fertility. This follows the precedent of the regulation, by enactment,
of trusts and public utilities. It is fortunate that such a law cannot
be passed, and could not be enforced if it were passed; but this and
related proposals are crude expressions of the growing feeling that the
farmer owes an obligation to society, and that this obligation must be
enforced and the tiller of the soil be held to account.

We shall produce a much better and safer man when we make him
self-controlling by develop