FARMERS' mSTITUTES. 97 



Better give your children more time to study, though you leave them an inher- 

 itance of less acres. Instill in them habits of industry, without making it 

 drudgery; teach them economy, without parsimony. 



There is another small class of farmers that we approach with feelings of 

 the greatest delicacy, and that is tiie class known as the farmer politicians. 

 If you suceed in finding a first-class representative of this variety you are pretty 

 apt to find a first-class failure as a farmer. 



Now the faithful, conscientious study of the political (questions of the day 

 is one of the highest duties of citizenship, that the ballot, in tlie hands of the 

 voter, may be an instrument of good and not of evil. And for him who with- 

 out asking it or stifling his convictions, is placed in positions of trust by the 

 suffrages of his fellow citizens, and who fills that position to the best of his 

 ability, we have nothing but feelings of profound respect. But there is many 

 a farmer who has seen his family neglected, his farm become unproductive, 

 and finally mortgaged in the petty scrabble after office. Such a one never 

 wants office, it is true, but he never declines. He's a capital good fellow, a 

 good hand-shaker, free with his cash, cares only for the honors; like the Irish- 

 man who was running for the office of constable, who declared that '*he 

 didn'nt care anything about the office, but 't would give him notoriety 

 abroad." He feels that his time and talents belong to the public, and he fears 

 that the public may fail to assert its owership. The man who can think and 

 act successfully upon many things at a time is the exception and not the rule. 

 If his mind is always dwelling upon the action of the party's caucus, it will 

 naturally be drawn away from the care and profits of his stock and fields. The 

 professional man who reaches eminence in his profession is the one who makes 

 the study of that profession his principal life-work. Not that farmers shouldn't 

 have anything to do with politics or political meetings, for that would just suit 

 the political dead-beats ; but that there is nothing gained by being so absorbed 

 in the petty wrangling after office, to the exclusion of everything else, that in 

 the end they have nothing but the satisfaction of being political dead-beats 

 themselves. Hunt out fearlessly and independently the political evils, whether 

 they be men or theories, and apply the remedy, and you have performed the 

 highest duty that accompaniess the ballot. With a universal disposition to 

 first excel in some honorable employment, there will be but little danger in 

 American politics. 



The slack farmer. Probably all sometimes train in his company. "With all 

 the improvements for saving labor, still there seems to be no decrease in the 

 amount expended. Wants have outgrown the simplicity of early days. Cares 

 accumulate. New markets are opened, which must be supplied. One farmer 

 must get his produce into market as cheaply as his neighbor, or fall behind in 

 prosperity. The law of competition, though just, is rigid and exacting. The 

 man who thinks to defy the spirit of the age will certainly be overwhelmed. 

 He must adopt the new improvements and new methods, and raise more and 

 better, or somebody will ride over him rous-h shod. He must measure forces 

 with shrewd and experienced men. In the battle for bread, pluck, energy, and 

 good judgment win the day. It is no wonder that amid all this push and bustle 

 men sometimes feel compelled to sacrifice order and neatness. But there are 

 those who are habitually negligent. They are forever toggling up instead of 

 repairing or making new. Their crops are never put in in season, and they are 

 harvested equally as promptly. They will drive stock out of tlieir crops a liuu- 

 dred times in a year, rather than make a fence that will turn them. They won't 

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