Rein in and stop, here on this high hill! Look north, look east where the sun rises, look south, look west where the sun sets—on all sides the scene is the same. In every field the steady mule, the steady plowman and the children dropping corn. Close the eye a moment and look at the picture fancy paints. Every field in Georgia is there, every field in the South is there. And in each the figures are the same—the steady mule and the steady man, and the pattering feet of the children dropping corn. In these furrows lie the food of the republic; on these fields depend life, and health and happiness. Halt those children—and see how the cheek of the world would blanch at thought of famine! Paralyze that plowman—and see how national bankruptcy would shatter every city in the Union. Dropping corn! A simple thing, you say. And yet, as those white seeds rattle down to the sod and hide away for a season, it needs no peculiar strength of fancy to see a Jacob’s ladder crowded with ascending blessings. Scornfully the railroad king would glance at these small teams in each small field; yet check those corndroppers and his cars would rot on the road and rust would devour the engines in the roundhouse. The banker would ride through those fields thinking only of his hoarded millions, nor would he ever startle himself with the thought that his millions would melt away in mist were those tiny hands never more to be found dropping corn. The bondholder, proud in all the security of the untaxed receiver of other people’s taxes, would see in these fields merely the industry from which he gathers tribute; it would never dawn on his mind that without the opening of those furrows and the hurrying army of children dropping corn his bond wouldn’t be worth the paper it is written on. Yet it is literally so. Feed the world, and it can live, work, produce and march on. Starve it, and what becomes of railroads, banks, mills, mines, notes, mortgages and bonds? Great is the might of this republic!—great in its schools, churches, courts, legislatures; great in its towns and cities; great in its commerce, great in its manufactures, great in its colossal wealth. But sweep from under it all these worn and wasted fields, strike into idleness or death the plowman, his wife and his child, and what becomes of the gorgeous structure whose foundation is his field? Halt the food growers, and what becomes of your gold and its “intrinsic value”? How much of your gold can you eat? How many of your diamonds will answer the need of a loaf? But enough. It is time to ride down the hill. The tinkle of the cow-bell follows the sinking sun—both on the way home. So with many an unspoken thought I ride homeward, thinking of those who plant the corn.