Our country began as a nation of farmers. During the periods that gave
it its character, when our independence was won and when our Union was
preserved, we were preeminently a nation of farmers. We can not, and we
ought not, to continue exclusively, or even chiefly, an agricultural
country, because one man can raise food enough for many. But the farmer
who owns his land is still the backbone of this Nation; and one of the
things we want most is more of him. The man on the farm is valuable to
the Nation, like any other citizen, just in proportion to his
intelligence, character, ability, and patriotism; but, unlike other
citizens, also in proportion to his attachment to the soil. That is the
principal spring of his steadiness, his sanity, his simplicity and
directness, and many of his other desirable qualities. He is the first
of home-makers.
The nation that will lead the world will be a Nation of Homes. The
object of the great Conservation movement is just this, to make our
country a permanent and prosperous home for ourselves and for our
children, and for our children's children, and it is a task that is
worth the best thought and effort of any and all of us.
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