change the agreement on your part merely because
it suits convenience."
68 "Well," growled the man, "we know who HE follows, don't we?"
69 "I agree with him," put in another man. "No matter how modern we
become we can still keep the old Traditions. They're our heart and
soul. They're what make us what we are. If we give them up merely to
make us rich, then maybe we don't deserve the riches."
70 "What about when they're trying to keep us from using modern
things," argued another man. "My brother's a big farmer and they're at
him about using too much insecticide. They say it's destroying the
wildlife and even making people sick. Why worry about the damned
wildlife? If the bugs destroy the food , we'll have famine, and what
good is your damned wildlife then?"
71 "They don't want to stop using insecticide altogether," put in
another man, "they simply want us to cut back. There's other ways of
fighting insects. I used to pour insecticide on my garden. Now I've
been following THEIR advice, in their 'Joys Of The Land Magazine,' and
I'm getting better crops than I ever got before, and, for far less
cost."
72 "Those things might work on a small scale," continued the other man,
"but they're no good on large production farms."
73 "Nonsense," said Smiling Fox, "it's been well proven that the crop
rotation systems and known predators work just as well on large farms
as in small gardens. All that is needed is the cooperation of the
farmers and we could cut the use of insecticide and fertilizer by
three- fourths. Of course the insecticide producers don't like that
idea. It might hurt their profits. By the way, sir, what do you do for
a living?"
74 The man just gave him a disgusted look, opened a magazine, and
started reading, ignoring the rest of the conversation.