Published monthly by The Agassiz Association, ArcAdiA: Sound Beach, Connecticut 



Subscription, $1.00 a year Single copy, 10 cents 



EnteieJ as Second-Olass Matter June 12, 1909, at Sound Beach Post Office, under Act of March 3, 1879 



Vol 



ume 



VII 



Guidance for JULY. Publication for June. 



Numb 



er 



Crandall — The Farmer-Poet. 



BY EDWARD F. BIGELOW, ArcAdiA: Sound Beach, Conn. 



VERY farmer should be a 

 poet. Every farmer to a 

 certain extent is a poet, al- 

 though he may not realize 



ciation of the beauty of living and of 

 acting and struggling faithfully in 

 life's contests. This is a world of spe- 

 cialization. Comparatively few supply 

 the fact. With many that the things that everybody uses. This 

 extent is limited. It is a is as true of poetry as of everything 

 question of degree, but any else. We all may speak poetry and 

 one that loves nature sufficiently well live poetry, but it remains for the spe- 

 lo abandon the crowded haunts of man cialist in versification and in rhythm 

 for the seclusion of a farm in the dis- to put into transmittible shape the 

 tant country, there to deal directly thoughts that are common to human- 

 with Mother Nature, has in his heart ity. If there were no users of plows 

 the germ at least of the true poetic in- and pills and ribbons, plows, pills and 



stinct. This, to a limited degree, is 

 true of any occupation in life. There 

 is poetry in every form of activity, as 

 there is in every spoken word, al- 

 though one must sometimes search 

 long and faithfully to find it. One may 

 be a poet without writing poetry. Few 



ribbons would not be supplied. If 

 there were no lovers of nature this 

 magazine would not be needed. If 

 there were no people that desire to 

 know about other people's doings and 

 the events in human progress, news- 

 papers would not be needed. Editors 



have the power of poetical expression, and publishers are comparatively few 



but every man that likes to live with 

 the trees and the birds and that likes 

 to plow, likes to see the sun rise, and 

 likes to drive the cows to pasture, is a 

 poet. So is he that takes shellfish out 

 of the sea, or pounds iron on the anvil, 

 or sells ribbon or pills or harrows. It 

 is doubtful if there can be found in all 

 the world a human being so sordid, so 

 utterly utilitarian as not sometimes to 

 have uplifting thoughts, some appre- 



although everybody likes to read the 

 newspapers. Although everybody di- 

 rectly or indirectly depends upon the 

 blacksmith, comparatively few stand 

 by the glowing forge. Such thoughts 

 were in my mind as I made an ap- 

 pointment to go northward from 

 Stamford to visit Idylland. It was a 

 journey to the home of one that not 

 only lives amid beautiful surround- 

 ings, that knows the delight of chop- 



Copyright 1914 by The Agassiz Association, ArcAdiA: Sound Beach, Conn. 



