--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Tanner, Joseph M. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 11 number: 10 published: 1908-08 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Joseph M. Tanner, "Thoughts of a Farmer. IX. Summer-Fallowing," *Improvement Era* 11, no. 10 (August 1908): 759–761.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera11010unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera11010unse start_page: 759 end_page: 761 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1908-08) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera11010unse publication_year: 1908 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1908, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Thoughts of a Farmer. IX. Summer-Fallowing THOUGHTS OF A FARMER. BY DR. JOSEPH M. TANNER. IX.— SUMMER-FALLOWING. In farming, in Southern Alberta, especially where wheat is practically the only crop, and where moisture is very scarce, we practice what is called summer-fallowing; that is, the ground is planted to wheat only every other year. Alternate summers it is summer-fallowed by plowing, disking and harrowing, so as to keep, in the first place, as much moisture in the soil as possible, and in the second place, to expose as much of the soil as possible to the action of the oxygen and carbonic acid of the air. If ground were sowed to crop every season, it would soon be- come deficient in plant food and also in moisture, so that the plants would have less to eat and less to drink. Plants must eat and drink if they are to grow well, just as human beings eat and drink to make them grow. Did it ever occur to you that men sometimes go along through life exercising, all the time, their powers in one direction without any rest, or without any change? The work they do makes a con- stant demand on their natures, until in time their powers diminish and a process of stagnation sets in, and they become dry and crisp just like a stock of wheat that lacks both plant-food and moisture. Have you ever noticed such men in life? Sometimes we say of them, they have fallen into a rut. Of course, people get their growth as a rule by the time they are twenty-one years of age, but that growth refers to their physical nature. They may grow after they become of age, spiritually and intellectually.They may develop grand qualities of the heart, and develop the most beauti- ful and broadening attributes which God made possible in the hu- man soul. 760 IMPROVEMENT ERA. Now, men who have a fixed vocation in life, and have set their minds upon a single purpose, and pursue that purpose relent- lessly day by day throughout their entire lives, naturally become hardened and narrow. Many of the beautiful qualities which God gave to human life dry up and wither away, and they are therefore in a very starved condition.You see, sometimes, men upon tbe streets who are lank and lean, who are so withered up physically that you say a gust of wind would blow them away. It is easy to pick out such men wherever you meet them, because the physical eye detects the physical withering of the body; but there are other men who have plump, round bodies, but who have withered souls and withered minds. There is wanting in them friendship, love, charity, sympathy, sometimes even sociability. What is the trouble with those men? The scientific farmer will tell you that they need summer-fallowing. They need a rest. They must have a changed condition. How is this changed condi- tion to come to them? They must support their families, and they imagine, therefore, that they must pursue, day by day, without rest or change, the single occupation to which they are devoting their lives It is true that the wife and children must have bread . to eat, but, after all, man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. As a rule, it may be safe to say that the life of a man so hardened and so limited, however much bread it may bring to the house, brings little love, sympathy, charity and heartfelt cordiality. Men, therefore, should change their course of life, for a season at least, and allow the air and the sunshine of heaven to penetrate their being, and give an increased supply of food to their better lives. Just stop arid think of Nature's ways, — how we must yield to her demands, or she shuts off our supplies. So it is with God's ways in respect to the human being. We must yield to his regu- lations or we shut off from our souls the spiritual powers which he gives us, and the attributes of his life cease to be the attributes of ours. Stop and think for a moment how he has dealt in the past with his people, how he deals with them now, how he changes their circumstances, how he permits them to be driven, how they are called upon missions, and undergo a process of THOUGHTS OF A FARMER. 761 spiritual summer-fallowing, that their souls may take on a new life, food; that the air and moisture of heaven may work spiritual changes in them, as they work chemical changes in the soil The school teacher might say that the farmer was giving his land a year s vacation, that is exactly what he is doing, but that vacs^tion is not mere idleness. It is a period in which nature is given an opportunity to work, to supply that which in the soil has been exhausted. Now, some men take out of their lives all meditation. They have no time to dream; they have no time to open their souls to new and beautiful impressions. The result is their souls dry up and wither away. The finer qualities of life are taken out of them in some pursuit that controls and enslaves them. They cease to be the masters of toil, and are subservient creatures of an exacting and hardening labor. I once heard a conversation something like this: A , addressing B wondered how B , managed to provide food and raiment for the large family whose care B was respons- ible for. B replied that he found it easier to provide food and raiment, than he did to provide contentment, love, happiness, and good cheer. He found that it was quite easy for him, in the cus- toms and spirit of the age, to drift into the rut of material exist- ence and neglect the spiritual and intellectual attributes of what is, after all, the higher and better life. In the modern struggle for financial supremacy, men are losing some of the best and most beautiful qualities of life. What thousands of men, therefore, need, more than anything else in the world, is the process of summer-fallowing, some time for meditation, for the unfolding of their human nature in such a manner as to receive those divine attributes which the atmosphere of heaven would distil upon their souls, were their lives left free and open to receive them. Alberta, Canada.