ON THE LAND

New Zealand Tablet, 24 February 1921, Page 43

ON THE LAND

. MISSOURI’S (U.S.A.) FARMER-PRIEST. “You’ve got to hand it to Father Moenig. He has made these hill-farmers prosperous.” So, a practicalminded observer testified of one side of the work done by the man who is priest, farmer, banker, doctor, and community - builder of the little village of New Hamburg, * Missouri, and the community round about, where live one hundred and thirty families of farmers, all but one man members of Father Moenig’s Church. Those people (says the Literary Digest ) look to their priest “not only for spiritual guidance, but for worldly guidance, too,” and he helps them to love their farms both by his practical every-day precepts and by his Sunday sermons as well. Writing in The Country Gentleman (Philadelphia), A. B. Macdonald quotes one of Father Moenig’s counsels: “Your farm is a sacred thing. Our Lord gave us the land to hold in trust for those who will ’come after we are dead and gone. We must not let the good soil from the hillsides wash away. We must not let our farms run down, we must not waste the land, but we must hand it down to posterity better and more fertile than when we received it.”

When a young man Father Moenig served in the German army, and ran away to this country after slapping an officer in the face. He was born in a city, and knew no-' thing about farming until he went to New- Hamburg, where, by the way, the ancestors of nearly all the people came from one village in Alsace. Eighteen years ago he was in danger of losing his parishioners, because they began to move to newly drained swamp-land, where the soil was much better. Father Moenig brought an agricultural expert from the State college to look things over, and after the first lesson in crop rotation, which he said "was an eye-opener," he began to study agriculture. As Mr. Macdonald tells us:

"He soon saw that the hills of his parish wero good for dairying, but his parishioners knew nothing of that, and there was not in all the parish a pure-bred animal. Father Moenig preached a sermon about dairying and how it might make their farms far more productive than they were. In that sermon he told them he was going to Wisconsin to study the dairying business, and invited all who would to go with him. He took 12 of his best farmers to Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin, and they visited different dairy farms. He bought seven pure-bred Guernsey cows and a pure-bred bull and shipped them to New Hamburg, and gave them out among the farmers. Father Moenig went to Louisville, Kentucky, and with his own money'bought for £19,000 dollars the entire herd of 85 pure-bred Guenrseys .off a breeder, and brought the cattle to New Hamburg and parcelled them out among his parishioners, taking their notes, for the cows. He paid 1500 dollars for the herd bull, King Lewis, which has since taken ribbons at State fairs in Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee. More than 100 of his pure-bred progeny are owned by farmers in New Hamburg; there are hundreds more of grade cows in the parish." -■

' At the time of Mr. Macdonald's visit Father Moenig had just made big tin signs which read "Pure-Bred Guernseys and Big-Type Poland China Hogs." Every member of the Guernsey and Poland-China Association was to have one to put on his fence, to give him more pride in the pure-bred business, and they plan to have a big Guernsey show next August. A cream station was established in New Hamburg through Father Moenig's influence, and super-cream to the amount of 14,000 dollars was sold through the. receiving-station last year. The priest gives weekly talks to : the boys of the community. He started reading Henry Wallace's clover book to them 10 years ago, and he told Mr. Macdonald:

"Since then the .boys and I have gone through many subjects together. I have taken them through courses on bees, lime, soil-washing, and crop-rotation. Oh, they have been through many things in 10 years. "Since then many of my boys have grown to be farmers and are practising the things we learned together in our Thursday-night readings and talks. I always try to make the subject interesting, so as to hold their attention and make them want to come. When a boy is ploughing he will think of that and it will keep him out of mischief. Just now we arc on electricity.!' ■■ r- ', Wv ,.,•,,...., .^,,. :r . ">_ r^..-iy . -,-,. W'i Father Moenig "found that the soil of his community, was excellent -fori peach-growing, - ! so- he got the county farm-agent to organise a boys' peach club, and 500 trees were id be set out. this spring;;• and an '"official sprayer!' appointed for all. the . orchards. ~ "You come , here ? five years from now and you'll see a peach orchard on every hillside," the priest said. The writer learned how much the; people depend*' on Father Moenig from the man who drove him

into New Hamburg.:, Ho; remarked: —., - “I don’t believe a woman would put a settin’ of eggs under a hen without" asking Father Moenig’s advice about it first. He tells them what to plant, and when to plant, and when to harvest; he goes to Wisconsin and buys cattle for them; ho tells them what kind of chickens to keep; ho markets their products for them; he teaches tlnhr children; marries ’em, baptises ’em, and, by gory—” “He isn’t a doctor, too, is he?” I inquired. “Yes, sir, he’s a doctor, too, as well as a banker and expert farmer. Lots of ’em won’t have any one else when they’re sick. And they say he’s a good doctor, too. When the smallpox come through all this country a few years ago he preached a sermon about it, and told them they all must be vaccinated, and he gathered them all together and vaccinated them, and the consequence was they didn’t have the smallpox in these hills, but they had it all round here. Yes, sir, he doctors ’em, nurses ’em, takes care of ’em in health and sickness, and when they’ are going to die he gets them ready for that, and buries their bodies in the ancient graveyard back of the church, and sees to it that their souls get safe off to heaven.” The driver fished up a plug of tobacco, bit off a chew, gave it a few munches, stowed it into his cheek, and went on: “Whether you’re a Catholic or not, you’ve got to hand it to Father Moenig. He has made 1 these hillfarmers prosperous.” The priest has a church that many a pastor must long for. It has not had a debt for 15 years, and he never has to think about money; when it is needed it comes in. He has persuaded and helped a friend “to be priest, pedagog, and physician, all in one,, to his people,” and now his fellow pastor “is enraptured with his work, and his people love him, and his church is crowded at Sunday worship.” Of his own people he said: “That worship in the church, that wonderful music, that intense spirit of devotion—all that is only the expression befoio God of what we have all been feeling and living all through the week in our daily work in the barns and fields and in our homes. The great sermons are preached to us by the living and growing things all about us, and we gather there on Sunday, in the presence of our Lord, just to commune with Him for a little while, and get closer to Him, and to thank Him for His goodness and love and tender mercy.” As Mr Macdonald was. leaving, he turned a corner in the road, and looked back to- the village, with Father Moenig’s big stone church, and his two schools, and his bank, and his purebred Guernsey milk-cows, and his orchestra, and his experiment farm. Ho concludes: ... good priest was standing yet in his gate, in the twilight, listening, and from the church tower above him, ‘ Softly the Angelas sounded, and over the roofs of the village Columns of pale-blue smoke, like clouds of incense ascending. ‘ , Rose from a hundred hearths, the homes of peace and contentment.’” vV.:.