THE FARM.

Colonist, Volume LVI, Issue 13391, 12 February 1914, Page 8

THE FARM.

APPLES AND LUCERNE.

. f-3Vtr;.Alva Adams, .chairman of the' ißanama Exposition 'Commission' which recently"visited-New Zealand, is a keen student of agricultural affairs. He delivered a characteristic address before the National Farm Land Congress in Chicago, selecting the above title as a text from which to preach a sermon upon rural life. The following extracts furnish a fair idea of this striking "back to the land" appeal:—

Apples and lucerne are permanent find.abiding. Gold exhausts —it has -jbtil one crop; it plants no seed. Civilisation -depends upon reproduction, therefore gold cannot be its- prophet and saviour. , The gold that Solomon mined litters the bottom of the seas, the very mines from' which it came are tost; but the seed of the apple that played its part in the drama of Eden finds, V its progeny in the bud and blossom and fruit that glorify the orchards of the twentieth century. For two hundred generations the'apple has blessed the race,' almost making amends ior being the cause of man's expulsion from Eden. Lucerne goes back to- ihe'infancy of the world. God. made it- on the third day' of creation. It was lucerne salad upon which Nebuchadnezzar fed; his foraging in the fields with the brutes was physical and moral tonic, for the Bible says that after., seven • years" browsing in the lucerne pastures, he became a greater king, with the glory of his kingdom and his honour and brightness restored.

What the Bessemer patent was to the iron industry a generation ago lucerne promises to be to the presentday farmer. As an investment it is better and safer than Wall Street or brewery stock. Lucerne is the best rotation crop; it restores the nitrogen of which grain and beets rob the soil and makes it as rich as before the plough turned the virgin sod. The destiny of this country and free government depend upon those who till the soil. Land-ownership and the public school are the antidotes for the poison that floods our country through the gates. of Castle Garden. Every man who owns an acre of lucerne or< sits beneath his own vine and fig-tree is a pillar in the temple of national safety. The man who ploughs a field and plants a tree can be trusted; he will defend the flag and never pollute it. Hayfields and orchards, a pasture and a garden land, may not develop millionaires, but they will raise men and diffuse prosperity and independence. The prayer of the patriarch was that he be given neither poverty nor riches. . . The test of civilisation is the average welfare of all, not the opulence of a few. . Those who raise- lucerne and apples, who own and work their limited acres, will not be interested.in the price of private cars, but they will never know the road that leads to insolvency. The bankrupt court is an unknown continent to them, but their days will be filled with healthful, useful toil, and their nights with untroubled dreams. The tillin? of the soil is the first of professions the king of trades. There is no dan-ger-line in land-culture, no shipwrecks, no collisions or derailments, no explosions, no risks or hazards to insure against. With industry, commonsense, and water the harvests are sure. Altogether it is not only the oldest but the safest business. It is a self-reliant pursuit, a respectable voca.tion. No man ever attained such eminence in our country that he was not proud to claim the farm as his oiigin.

If I am called in spring-time, no flower will be more welcome to my fleeting spirit than apple-V.ossous; no monument would be finer to ;r«rk n.y place of rest than an apple-tree; and when 1 enter that realm where every month has its fruit, where flowers ever bloom, and woman is always young and fair, I can ask no heaven more perfect than where the fields are perei nial with the purple and green (f lucerne and the paths are embroil red with apple-trees in blossom and tho air fragrant with their perfume.—' Jcurnal of Agriculture."