u at the end of the year whether he has made enough money to pay off
his bills and legitimate expenses, and allowing himself a compensation
for the time energy and experience put in the business, is not
successful, and I don't care to consider him, because he is not a farmer
as I see him. You must keep your figures and know how you stand. Before
I get to the photographs I want to go back to our convention at
Chattanooga. I don't know whether there is anybody here that was at that
meeting or not. I was third man on the program to respond to the address
of welcome by the mayor of the city, and I was new in the nut game and
new in the South. I went up there with this thought, "I will listen to
the other fellows, and take my cue from them, and make a little bluff at
doing the best I can under the circumstances." To make a long story
short, when the president called on the other two men to respond they
were not there and that left me with an audience of four or five hundred
people to talk to and nothing much to say. I apologized to them for
being unable to talk in a light way. I said, "I can't say anything
unless it is in earnest; I have got to talk about something I am
interested in." I went on to advocate this principle, and it is a
principle I wish every man or woman in America would grasp and retain
and put in execution today; that is that the calling of agriculture is
the most honorable calling a man can follow, and it is up to us to
inspire in the children of America the thought that such is the case,
and help them in every way to go out into the field of agriculture and
be successful farmers. That is what I want to say. I have no patience
with the men who farm and are not successful business men, because they
are the people that make life in the rural districts objectionable to
the children, and are responsible for the children of the best blood in
the country going into the turmoil of the city where it is largely lost.
You have to pay interest on the land you use, and you have got to pay
yourself a fair compensation for the brains and energy you use on it. I
want to call your attention to one other thing. This farm I bought nine
years ago from a man who had farmed it until it wasn't capable of
producing enough income to enable him to keep it, and I undertook to
build an orchard on that farm, and I have done it. Last October, where
these hogs are grazing in the picture, I planted a crop of oats and I
got forty bushels o