Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

THE TENNESSEE FARMERS' ASSOCIATION.

103

dent and Secretary. He shall give such bond as the State Central Committee may require.

5. The State Central Committee shall have the general management of the affairs of the Association. It shall be their duty to promote and effect the thorough organization of the farmers of the State; to aid, by their advice and instruction, in such organization in all parts of the State; to ask and secure necessary legislation, State and National, upon matters affecting the farmers' interests; and, in general, to do all things in their power to further the objects and advance the interests of the Association.

6. The Executive Committee shall perform such duties as may be assigned to it by the State Central Committee, and may call special meetings.

7. These By-Laws may be amended at any annual meeting by a majority vote, provided said meeting is composed of delegates from one-half of the counties which are members of this Association.

CHAPTER IX.

INNER WORKINGS OF FARMERS' CLUBS.

.FARMERS' CLUBS MUST BE SOCIAL.

If we could have Clubs throughout the length and breadth of the land, conducted on true social principles, so that the farmers of each neighborhood might meet together, both men and women, at stated times, especially during the winter months, and discuss matters of general interest (eschewing politics, of course), it would go a great way toward elevating the status of the fraternity. Heretofore, this has not been possible, but every day is making it easier and easier of accomplishment, as the country becomes more thickly settled, and facilities for locomotion increase. All that is wanted, is that individual leaders in each neighborhood inaugurate the movement, and hold out faithfully until it is accomplished. It would soon be found surprising how many facts could be gathered, even from the seemingly ig norant, which, stored up, would lay the foundation for future usefulness.

Thus each Farmers' Club would become the nucleus, from which agricultural societies, occupying a still higher plane, might be formed, to discuss and compile from the facts there gathered, some of the more important changes and transmutations that nature is working out so silently and with such seeming mystery.

CLUBS MUST COLLECT FACTS.

105

Let these societies increase, until their ramifications extend upward through town, county, district, and State societies; and culminate in one grand, yearly convention for the whole nation, composed of delegates from each State or district. If this were accomplished, we could eventually so organize as to control-for good, I trust-the destinies of a country, the inhabitants of which are made up of the most energetic and intelligent of the working populations of the earth.

CLUBS MUST COLLECT FACTS.

It is the duty of every farmer in the land to endeavor to collect facts. Nay, there is not a farmer in the whole country but does so, and again loses or forgets them. Through Farmers' Clubs, these valuable data might be preserved, and eventually classified, by means of the county and State societies, into definite shape. This done, we should be surprised to see how long we had been groping in ignorance, simply for the want of organized study. Even the simplest operations of the farm, for the lack of accurate knowledge relating to the fixed and simple law that somewhere governs each and every thing in nature, is lost to the farmer, and, consequently, to the world.

The collection of experimental facts is the legitimate work of our Agricultural Colleges also. These facts should be supported by the results of isolated experiments that the working farmer is collecting every day in the year, and losing again for the want of some place and means suitable for putting them on record for the benefit of others. The aggregation of these isolated units from year to year, properly condensed into readable shape, would, in the end, furnish data valuable to science in the highest degree.

Let us illustrate. The farmer, being of an experimental turn of mind, throughout the course of a lifetime collects

many facts-amasses a rich store of actual, practical, thoroughly-tested knowledge connected with his art. If a writer, he is likely to give the results through the public press; but if not, they are entirely lost at his death, unless, happily, the son succeeds the father, and happens to be imbued with the same love of experiment. Even in the former · case, many of those who read his articles will not profit by them; for, having no personal acquaintance with him, they pass his writings by, as but the opinion of one unknown. farmer-a man of like frailties of judgment with themselves. At all events, his contributions to agricultural science are not in their most valuable shape. But if the facts are gathered at our colleges, where the experiments carried out from year to year are chronicled and tabulated systematically, we shall, sooner or later, gather data that will be of immense value. If the professor die to-morrow, the observations and experiments are still carried forward by his successor.

In the case of the private individual, such records do not carry equal weight. To say nothing of the known fallibility of human judgment, there is, quite frequently, a disposition to suspect that the individual experimenter has some private end, or pet theory, to advance. Very much less of this feeling attaches to the work done, in the same direction, at a public institution. There the observer is supposed to be the servant of the people, and to be actuated by motives entirely above suspicion; and, hence, by virtue of his position, he can speak as one having authority.

SUBJECTS FOR DEBATE IN CLUBS, ETC.

While the local societies, founded solely on a social basis, must have a wide and beneficial effect upon our State Boards of Agriculture, this is not their only duty. The Granges

[graphic]

Not to be Trusted-The Patron versus the Politician.

107

« AnteriorContinuar »