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POOR FARMING

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 28, 1882

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 59, No. 13.

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POOR FARMING.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

BY ELD. D. M. CANRIGHT.
I once knew two farmers in Kinderhook, Mich., where I lived, who farmed it on opposite plans. Mr. A. was a very ambitious, energetic man. He was always anxious to do large things, —to have big fields of grain, and run a large business. But in his haste, he did not do his work well. He would only skim over the top of the ground, when he ought to have plowed deep. He would put in fifty acres of corn, when he was able to cultivate properly only twenty-five. In consequence, the corn would be left to grow among weeds. He would get but half a crop, and this of a poor quality. His teams were overworked and often injured. Everything was done in a hurry and behind time. Hence the profit of labor and land was largely lost. The result was that he finally lost his farm and became a poor man, all by trying to do too much, and so doing it poorly.
Mr. B. took an entirely different course. He did all of his work well, extra good. He would plough deep, narrow furrows, and put in only fifteen acres where A. had fifty; but this he would have in on time and in the most careful manner. Not a weed was allowed to grow, nor too many stalks in a hill. He would get double and treble as much per acre as A. Then it was of such an extra quality that he would get an extra price for it. There was not only some pleasure in such farming, but much profit. B. became wealthy.
Now it appears to me that the same principle holds good in planting and training churches. Where we try to do about two or three times as much as we can do well,—to plant more acres than we can cultivate,—how can we expect anything but weedy fields and poor crops? Where we raise up churches and leave them largely to shift for themselves, how can we expect them to grow strong and bear much fruit? Such hopes are vain, and the fruit of much of our labor proves it to be so. Strong, healthy, working churches,—churches out of trial and growing in numbers,—are the exception with us; while weak, run-down churches, churches in trial, are the rule.
It is positively discouraging to think of raising up new churches to be left in turn to run down like the old ones. Do we not sin against God, his truth, and the souls of our people, by doing such work? Let us plant less and cultivate more.