"I REGARD the yellows as one the greatest blessings which ever fell to the lot of peach growers. It has checked the recklessness and inflation which follow uniform success." This bit of heresy was given us recently by a peach grower of large experience and observation in the Chesapeake peninsula. We had ourselves taught that diseases and difficulties which can be readily overcome or can be checked without great sacrifice, are directly beneficial to any community, because they drive out the shiftless and incompetent growers, and because they lessen production, and, therefore, aid in keeping prices within the limit of profit. But we had hesitated to make the same declaration in regard to such serious and obscure diseases as pear blight and yellows, and we had never thought of the discipline of difficulties in checking the recklessness of success. This, our informant assures us, has been true in many parts of the Chesapeake country. It is almost an axiom that the most staid and honest people are found in regions where greatest effort is demanded.

It will be interesting to carry our friend's remark to its logical conclusion. In the first place, difficulties, whereever we find them, are moral goads. The man who does not overcome them must turn out of their way. Therefore, they drive from any business those men who are not staid and courageous enough to oppose and overcome them ; they rid the business of an uncertain and therefore unstable element.

Again, difficulties engulf most seriously those who are ignorant of the details of the business or who lack perception and alertness. As a rule, other thing being equal, the most competent men in any business are those who have confined their attention to a comparatively small field. Difficulties, therefore, tend to drive out the general or old-style farmer, and the greater the difficulties the greater must be the exodus.

We cannot escape our friend's conclusions ; the difficulties of any business drive out the incompetent and careless, and tend to make specialists. And the more serious the difficulties, the more intense must be the specialization. General and mixed farming, in connection with fruit growing, is constantly becoming less satisfactory.

Specialization is the salvation of our agriculture, for whether we wish to throw the responsibility of present depressions upon politicians or upon the moon, it is still true that the man who is most skillful in a special line is bound to be the most successful. A prominent educator recently remarked to us: "The agricultural colleges are bound to attract more attention from the farmers, for the difficulties of farming are constantly becoming greater. The boys want help".