Lincoln's View of Agriculture-1859 
 
 (with some Projections by Hopkins — 1909) 
 
 The story is told that Preacher Jones, of a southern country 
 church, was in the habit of quoting liberally from the great pulpit 
 orators, without giving very much credit for the quotations. A bro- 
 ther of the congregation who boasted some literary attainment, and 
 who recognized the quotations, took a front seat one Sunday morning, 
 and at the proper time he wrote something in a note book and said to 
 himself above a whisper: "That's Beecher"; and a few minutes later, 
 he added: "That's Lyman Abbott". 
 
 After another notation and a similar remark, distinctly audible to 
 most of the congregation. Preacher Jones stopped short and said: "I 
 want it understood by one gentleman in this aujience, that I'm doin' 
 the preachin' for this here church". 
 
 In the brief and awful silence which followed, the literary brother 
 quietly made another notation, and was heard to whisper to himself: 
 "That is Jones". 
 
 In the paper I have prepared upon Lincoln's Yiew of Agriculture, 
 I have included much of Lincoln's own language, taken from his Ag- 
 ricultural Address, delivered fifty years ago before the Wisconsin 
 State Agricultural Society. On paper I have made the proper use of 
 quotation marks; bat, if I sometimes fail to state just where these 
 quotation marks are, I think this audience will have no difficulty in 
 distinguishing the language of Lincoln from that of— Jones; and 
 you will doubtless observe, too, that, commonly in his own remarks, 
 Jones is thinking Lincoln's thoughts after him. 
 
 "Farmers, as a class are neither better nor 
 
 worse than other people but their interest is the 
 
 largest interest. It also follows that that interest is most 
 worthy of all to be cherished and cultivated— and if there be 
 inevitable conflict between that interest and any other, the 
 
 other should yield." 
 
 While Lincoln acknowledged that the farmers' interest was of 
 greatest importance because at that time they represented the most 
 numerous class, he also recognized the permanent success of Amer- 
 ican agriculture as the foundation upon which must rest our ultimate 
 national success.
 
 "My first suggestion is an inquiry as to the effect of 
 greater thoroughness in all the departments of Agriculture 
 than now prevails in the Northwest — perhaps I might say in 
 America. To speak entirely within bounds, it is known that 
 fifty bushels of wheat, or one hundred bushels of Indian 
 
 corn, can be produced from an acre Take fifty of 
 
 wheat, and one hundred of corn, to be the possibility, and 
 compare it with the actual crops of the country. Many years 
 ago I saw it stated in a patent-office report, that eighteen 
 bushels (of wheat) was the average crop throughout the 
 United States. " 
 
 These are Lincoln's words, spoken fifty years ago. The average 
 yield of wheat in the United States has now fallen to 13.7 bushels 
 per acre, as a ten year average, 1899-1908. 
 
 "As to Indian corn, and indeed, most other crops, the 
 case has not been much better It is true that hereto- 
 fore we have had better crops with no better cultivation, but 
 I believe it is also true that the soil has never been pushed 
 up to one-half of its capacity. 
 
 "What would be the effect upon the farming interest to 
 push the soil up to something near its full capacity. Unques- 
 tionably it will take more labor to produce fifty bushels (of 
 wheat) from an acre than it will to produce ten bushels from 
 the same acre; but will it take more labor to produce fifty 
 bushels from one acre than from five? Unquestionably 
 thorough cultivation will require more labor to the acre; but 
 will it require more to the bushel? If it should require just 
 as much to the bushel, there are some probable, and several 
 certain, advantages in favor of the thorough practice. It is 
 probable it would develop those unknown causes which of 
 late years have cut down our crops below their former aver- 
 age. It is almost certain, I think, that by deeper plowing, 
 analysis of soils, experiments with manures and varieties of 
 seeds, observance of reasons, and the like, these causes 
 would be discovered and remedied." 
 Lincoln? Yes, that's Lincoln.
 
 "It is certain that thorough cultivation would spare half , 
 or more than half, the cost of land, simply because the same 
 product would be got from half or from less than half, the 
 quantity of land. This proposition is self-evident, and can 
 be made no plainer by repetitions or illustrations. The cost 
 of land is a great item, even in new countries, and it con- 
 stantly grows greater and greater, in comparison with other 
 items, as the country grows older. 
 
 "It also would spare the making and maintaining of in- 
 closures for the same, whether these inclosures should be 
 hedges, ditches, or fences. This again is a heavy item — 
 heavy at first, and heavy in its continual demand for repairs. 
 I remember once being greatly astonished by an apparently 
 authentic exhibition of the proportion the cost of an inclosure 
 bears to all the other expenses of the farmer, though I can- 
 not remember exactly what that proportion was. Any far- 
 mer, if he will, can ascertain it in his own case for himself. 
 
 "Again, a great amount of locomotion is spared by 
 thorough cultivation. Take fifty bushels of wheat ready for 
 harvest, standing upon a single acre, and it can be harvested 
 in any of the known ways with less than half the labor which 
 would be required if it were spread over five acres. This 
 would be true if cut by the old hand- sickle; true to a greater 
 extent, if by the scythe and cradle; and to a still greater ex- 
 tent, if by the machines now in use. These machines are 
 chiefly valuable as a means of substituting animal power for 
 the power of men in this branch of farm- work. In the high- 
 est degree of perfection yet reached in applying the horse- 
 power to harvesting, fully nine-tenths of the power is ex- 
 pended by the animal in carrying himself and dragging the 
 machine over the field, leaving certainly not more than one- 
 tenth to be applied directly to the only end of the whole 
 operation — the gathering in of the grain, and clipping of the 
 straw. When grain is very thin on the ground it is always 
 more or less intermingled with weeds, chess, and the like, 
 and a large part of the power is expended in cutting these.
 
 It is plain that when the crop is very thick upon the ground, 
 a large proportion of the power is directly applied to gather- 
 ing in and cutting it; and the sraaller to that which is totally 
 useless as an end. And what I have said of harvesting is 
 true in a greater or less degree of mowing, plowing, gather- 
 ing in of crops generally, and indeed of almost all farm- 
 work, 
 
 "The effect of thorough cultivation upon the farmer's 
 own mind, and in reaction through his mind back upon his 
 business, is perhaps quite equal to any other of its effects. 
 Every man is proud of what he does well, and no man is 
 proud of that he does not well. With the former his heart 
 is in his work, and he will do twice as much of it with less 
 fatigue; the latter he performs a little imperfectly, looks at 
 it in disgust, turns from it, and imagines himself exceedingly 
 tired — the little he has done comes to nothing for want of 
 finishing, 
 
 "The man who produces a good full crop will scarcely 
 ever let any part of it go to waste; he will keep up the in- 
 closure about it, and allow neither man nor beast to trespass 
 upon it; he will gather it in due season, and store it in per- 
 fect security. Thus he labors with satisfaction, and saves 
 himself the whole fruit of his labor. The other, starting 
 with no purpose for a full crop, labors less, and with less 
 satisfaction, allows his fences to fall, and cattle to trespass, 
 gathers not in due season, or not at all. Thus the labor he 
 has performed is wasted away, little by little, till in the end 
 he derives scarcely anything from it. 
 
 "The ambition for broad acres leads to poor farming, 
 even with men of energy, I scarcely ever knew a mammoth 
 farm to sustain itself, much less to return a profit upon the 
 outlay, I have more than once known a man to spend a re- 
 spectable fortune upon one, fail, and leave it, and then some 
 man of modest aim get a small fraction of the ground, and 
 make a good living upon it. Mammoth farms are like tools 
 or weapons which are too heavy to be handled; ere long they 
 are thrown aside at a great loss."
 
 "The prudent, penniless beginner in the world labors 
 for wages awhile, saves a surplus with which to buy tools or 
 land for himself, then labors on his own account another 
 while, and at length hires another new beginner to help him. 
 This, says its advocates, is free labor — the just, and gener- 
 ous, and prosperous system, which opens the way for all, 
 gives hope to all, and energy, and progress, and improve- 
 ment of condition to all. If any continue through life in the 
 condition of the hired laborer, it is not the fault of the sys- 
 tem, but because of either a dependent nature which prefers 
 it, or improvidence, folly, or singular misfortune. I have 
 said this much about the elements of labor generally, as in- 
 troductory to the consideration of a new phase which that 
 element is in process of assuming. The old general rule 
 was that educated people did not perform manual labor. 
 They managed to eat their bread, leaving the toil of produc- 
 ing it to the uneducated. This was not an insupportable 
 evil to the working bees, so long as the class of drones re- 
 mained very small. But now, especially in these free States, 
 nearly all are educated — quite too nearly all to leave the la- 
 bor of the uneducated in any wise adequate to the support of 
 the whole. It follows from this that henceforth educated 
 people must labor. Otherwise, education itself would be- 
 come a positive and intolerable evil. No country can sustain 
 in idleness more than a small percentage of its numbers. 
 The great majority must labor at something productive. 
 From these premises the problem springs, 'how can labor 
 and education be the most satisfactorily combined?' 
 
 "By the 'mud-sill' theory it is assumed that labor and 
 education are incompatible, and any practical combination of 
 them impossible. According to that theory, a blind horse 
 upon a treadmill is a perfect illustration of what a laborer 
 should be— all the better for being blind, that he could not 
 kick understandingly. According to that theory, the educa- 
 tion of laborers is not only useless but pernicious and danger- 
 ous. In fact, it is, in some sort, deemed a misfortune that 
 laborers should have heads at all. Those same heads are re-
 
 6 
 
 garded as explosive materials, only to be safely kept in damp 
 places as far as possible from that peculiar sort of fire which 
 ignites them. A Yankee who could invent a strong-handed 
 man without a head would receive the everlasting gratitude 
 of the 'mud-siir advocates. 
 
 "But free labor says, 'No', Free labor argues that as 
 the Author of man makes every individual with one head 
 and one pair of hands, it was probably intended that heads 
 and hands should cooperate as friends, and that that parti- 
 cular head should direct and control that pair of hands. As 
 each man has one mouth to be fed, and one pair of hands to 
 furnish food, it was probably intended that that particular 
 pair of hands should feed that particular mouth — that each 
 head is the natural guardian, director, and protector of the 
 hands and mouth inseparably connected with it; and that be- 
 ing so, every head should be cultivated and improved by 
 whatever will add to its capacity for performing its charge. 
 In one word, free labor insists on universal education." 
 
 "This leads to the further reflection that ng other human 
 occupation opens so wide a field for the profitable and agree- 
 able combination of labor with cultivated thought as agricul- 
 ture. I know nothing so pleasant to the mind as the dis- 
 covery of anything that is at once new and valuable — 
 nothing that so lightens and sweetens toil as the hopeful pur- 
 suit of such discovery. And how vast and how varied a 
 field is agriculture for such discovery! The mind, already 
 trained to thought in the country school, or higher school, 
 cannot fail to find there an exhaustless source of enjoyment. 
 Every blade of grass is a study; and to produce two where 
 there was but one is both a profit and pleasure. And not 
 grass alone, but soils, seeds, and season — hedges, ditches, 
 and fences — draining, droughts, and irrigation — plowing, 
 hoeing and harrowing — reaping, mowing, and threshing — 
 saving crops, pests of crops, diseases of crops and what will 
 prevent or cure them — implements, utensils, and machines, 
 their relative merits, and how to improve them — hogs,
 
 horses, and cattle — sheep, goats, and poultry — trees, shrubs, 
 fruits, plants, and flowers — the thousand things of which 
 these are specimens — each a world of study within itself. 
 
 "In all this, book-learning is available. A capacity and 
 taste for reading gives access to whatever has already been 
 discovered by others. It is the key, or one of the keys, to 
 the already solved problems. And not only so: it gives a 
 relish and facility for successfully pursuing the unsolved ones. 
 The rudiments of science are available, and highly available. 
 Some knowledge of botany assists in dealing with the vege- 
 table world — with all growing crops. Chemistry assists in 
 the analysis of soils, selection and application of manures, 
 and in numerous others ways. The mechanical branches of 
 natural philosophy are ready help in almost everything, 
 but especially in reference to implements and machinery. 
 
 "The thought recurs that education — cultivated thought 
 — can best be combined with agricultural labor, or any labor, 
 on the principal of thorough work; that careless, half per- 
 formed, slovenly work makes no place for such combination; 
 and through work, again, renders sufficient the smallest 
 quantity of ground to each man; and this again, conforms to 
 what must occur in a world less inclined to wars and more 
 devoted to the arts and peace than heretofore. Population 
 must increase rapidly, more rapidly than in former times, 
 and ere long the most valuable of all arts will be the art of 
 deriving a comfortable subsistence from the smallest area of 
 soil. No community whose every member possesses this 
 art, can ever be the victim of oppression in any of its forms. 
 Such community will be alike independent of crowned kings, 
 
 money kings, and land kings." 
 
 The story is told that, when the ark began to float, a skeptfc, 
 worthy to represent the Emerald Isle, hung on the outside till Noah 
 rapped his fingers and made him let go; whereupon, as he swam to 
 higher land, he shouted back: 
 
 "Go long wid ye; it's only a little shower annyway". 
 
 If I say to you that the most important material problem of this 
 Union is to discover and to adopt systems of farming that will not 
 only maintain but increase the productive capacity of our so-called
 
 8 
 
 rich land, some of you would agree with me; but when I say that, if 
 our future shall be a continuation of our past agricultural history, 
 famine and starvation in America are easily possible for your children's 
 children in the twentieth century, who will believe my report? 
 
 Moralists sometimes tell us that the fall of the Babylonian Empire, 
 the fall of the Grecian Empire, and the fall of the Roman Empire, 
 were all due to the development of pride and immorality among those 
 peoples; whereas we believe that civilization tends rather toward 
 peace, security, and higher citizenship. Is not the chief explanation 
 for the ultimate and successive fall of those great empires to be found 
 in the exhausted or wasted agricultural resources of the country? 
 
 The land that once flowed with milk and honey might then sup- 
 port a mighty empire, with independent resources sufficient for times 
 of great emergencies, but now that land seems almost barren and 
 supports a few wandering bands of Arabs. 
 
 The power and world influence of a nation must pass away with 
 the passing of material resources, for poverty is helpless; and Igno- 
 rance is the inevitable result of continued poverty. Only the pros- 
 perous can afford education or trained intelligence. 
 
 Old land is poorer than new land. There are exceptions, but this 
 is the rule. This fact is known and recognized by all men. 
 
 What does it all mean? It means that the practice of the past 
 and present art of agriculture leads toward land ruin,— not only in 
 China, where famine and starvation are common, notwithstanding 
 that thousands and thousands of Chinese are employed constantly in 
 saving every particle of fertilizing material, even gathering the hu- 
 man excrements from every house and by-place in village and country, 
 as carefully as our farmers gather honey from the hives; not only in 
 India where vast multitudes of people suffer want and hunger; not 
 only in Russia where famine is frequent; but, likewise in the United 
 States of America, the present practice of the art of agriculture 
 tends toward land ruin. 
 
 Nations rise and fall; so does the productive power of vast areas 
 of land. Better drainage, better seed, better implements, and more 
 thorough tillage, all tend toward larger crops, but they also tend to- 
 ward ultimate land ruin, for the removal of larger crops only hastens 
 soil depletion. 
 
 Do you ask how it is that Rhode Island and Connecticut produce 
 more corn per acre than Illinois? Because Rhode Island and Con- 
 necticut make large use of manures produced in part from Illinois corn 
 and oats. 
 
 H is well to know, and well to remember, lest we be deceived by 
 false arguments, that the corn acreage of Rhode Island is less than 
 half of one township; that the corn acreage of Rhode Island and Con-
 
 9 
 
 necticut combined is less than one-tenth of Champaigrn county, and 
 that the total corn acreage of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont 
 Massachusetts, Connecticut, Khode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, 
 New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland, all combined, is less than the 
 corn area of Georgia. The acreage of corn in Illinois is twice as large, 
 and the average yield three times as large, as that of Georgia. 
 
 Do you ask why the average yield of wheat in England is more 
 than 30 bushels per acre while that of the United States is less than 
 14 bushels? Because England produces only 50 millions bushels of 
 wheat, while she imports 200 million bushels of wheat, 100 million 
 bushels of corn, nearly a billion pounds of oil cake, and other food 
 stuffs, from which large quantities of manure are made; and, in addi- 
 tion to this, England imports and uses much phosphate and other 
 commercial plant food materials. 
 
 Germany imports great quantities of wheat, corn, oil cake, and 
 phosphates, and thus enriclies her cultivated soil, and Germany's 
 principal export is 2 billion pounds of sugar, which contains no plant 
 food of value. 
 
 Denmark produces 4 million bushels of wheat, imports 5 million 
 bushels of wheat, 15 million bushels of corn, 800 million pounds of 
 oilcake, andother foodstuffs, phosphate, etc., and exports 175 million 
 pounds of butter, which contains no plant food of value, but sells for 
 much more than these imports cost. 
 
 Phosphate is the only fertilizing material the American farmer 
 will ever need to buy for use in establishing permanent systems of ag- 
 riculture on our normal soils, and, from our limited deposits, we allow 
 a million tons of our best phosphate to be exported annually for 
 which we receive less than five million dollars at the mines, while the 
 additional corn that this phosphate would ultimately produce, if ap- 
 plied to our soil, would be worth more than six hundred million 
 dollars. 
 
 To bring about the adoption of systems of farming that will re- 
 store our depleted Eastern and Southern soils and that will maintain 
 or increase the productive power of our remaining fertile lands of the 
 Great Central West, where we are now producing half of the total 
 corn crop of the entire world, is not only the most Important mate- 
 rial problem of the United States; but to bring tliis about is worthy 
 of, and will require, the best thought of the most influential men of 
 America. 
 
 In these latter days there is much talk of conserving our natural 
 resources, but 90 percent of the talk is directed toward 10 percent of 
 the resources. Without a prosperous agriculture in America there 
 can be no permanent prosperity for our American institutions. While 
 some small countries can support themselves by conducting trade,
 
 10 
 
 commerce, and manufacture, for other countries, American agricul- 
 ture must not only be self-supporting, but. in large degrees, agricul- 
 ture must support our other great industries. 
 
 Without agriculture, the coal and iron would remain in the earth, 
 the forest would be left uncut, the railroads would be abandoned, the 
 cities depopulated, and the wooded lands and water ways would again 
 be used only for hunting and fishing. Sliall we not remember, for ex- 
 ample, that the coal mine yields a single harvest-one crop-and is 
 then forever abandoned: while the soil must yield a hundred— yes, a 
 thousand crops, and even then it must be richer and more productive 
 than at the beginning, if those who come after us are to continue to 
 multiply and replenish the earth. 
 
 Even the best possible system of soil improvement, we must admit, 
 is not the absolute and final solution of this, the most stupendous 
 problem of the United States. If war gives way to peace and pesti- 
 lence to science, then the time will come when the soils of America 
 shall reach thelimit of the highest productive power possible to be 
 permanently maintained; and before that limit is reached, if power, 
 progress, and plenty are to continue in our beloved country, there 
 must be developed and enforced the law of the survival of the fit; 
 otherwise, there is no ultimate future for America different from 
 that of China, India, and Russia, the only great agricultural coun- 
 tries comparable with the United States. An enlightened humanity 
 must grant to all the right to live, but the reproduction and perpetu- 
 ation of the unfit can never be an absolute and inalienable right. 
 
 "It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise 
 men to invent him a sentence to be ever in view, and which 
 should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. 
 They presented him the words, 'And this, too, shall pass 
 away.' How much it expresses! How chastening in the 
 hour of pride! How consoling in the depths of affliction! 
 'And this, too, shall pass away'. And yet, let us hope, it is 
 not quite true. Let us hope, rather, that by the best culti- 
 vation of the physical world beneath and around us, and the 
 best intellectual and moral world within us, we shall secure 
 an individual, social, and political prosperity and happiness, 
 whose course shall be onward and upward, and which, while 
 the earth endures, shall not pass away."
 
 I