The husbandman is the economist in agriculture. He is to the farm what the husband was to the household in old times. One is tempted to say also that the husbandman is he who marries the land. American farm land has suffered dishonor and degradation, but it has known all too little the affection which could be figuratively expressed in marriage. The Bible speaks of "marrying the land."--"Thy land shall be called Beulah for thy land shall be married." Side by side in this country we have the lands which have been dishonored, degraded, abandoned, dissolute, and the lands husbanded, fertilized, enriched and made beautiful. The husbandman or rural economist cares more for qualities than for quantity. He works not merely for intensive cultivation of the soil, but also for the preservation of the soil and use of it in its own terms, at its highest values. The principle at work is not the increase in the farmer's material gains or possessions. The husbandry of the soil is not a mere increase in market values. It is a deeper and more ethical welfare than that which can be put in the bank. "Agriculture is a religious occupation." When it sustains a permanent population and extends from generation to generation the same experiences, agriculture is productive in the highest degree of moral and religious values. In the words of Director L. H. Bailey, of Cornell, "The land is holy." This is especially true at the present time, when the land is limited in amount. Already the whole nation is dependent upon the farmer in the degree intimated by the statement of Dean Bailey. "The census of 1900 showed approximately one-third of our people on farms or closely connected with farms, as against something like nine-tenths, a hundred years previous. It is doubtful whether we have struck bottom, although the rural exodus may have gone too far in some regions, and we may not permanently strike bottom for sometime to come."[13] The service of the few to the many, therefore, is the present status of the husbandman. The very fact that one-third of the people must feed all the people imposes religious and ethical conditions upon the farmer. The dependence of the greater number for their welfare upon those who are to till the soil brings that obligation, which the farmer is well constituted to bear and to which his serious spirit gives response. This means that with the growing consciousness of the need of scientific agriculture there will arise, indeed is now arising, a new ethical and religious feeling among country people. The church which is made up of scientific farmers is a new type of church. A notable testimony to the influence of the church in developing husbandry is by Sir Horace Plunkett,[14] who testifies to the religious influence that led to the agrarian revolution in Denmark.