94 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



the window to empty houses upon which are large placards, 

 "Tenements to Let," which is the same watchword only that 

 it is printed in different letters. The manufacturer and mer- 

 chant, with warehouses heaped with cases of goods for which 

 there are no orders, and ledgers full of charges to men who 

 are solvent but who have not the ready means to pay their 

 bills, tell to each other the doleful news and look into the 

 future with something of hope that the bottom may have been 

 reached, and yet with something of foreboding for fear it 

 may be still lower down. The banker, with his gouty feet 

 stretched upon a tal)le level with his head, twirls his thumbs 

 across his aldermanic stomach, and, thinking of the piles of 

 useless greenbacks and heaps of more useless silver in his 

 vault, drops into a doze to the music of "hard times, hard 

 times," which comes up to him through all the grades of 

 labor and of speculative effort from all the walks and avenues 

 of life. And yet not all. From the home of the industrious, 

 economical farmer there comes no sound of want, no cry of 

 distress. The wolf which knaws at so many, many doors 

 where is but a single loaf of bread to keep him away, turns 

 from the farmer's home, as the rattling stones of hail turn 

 from the transparent window during a fierce winter storm. 

 The farmer may not be rich, but if he has been industrious 

 he is certainly independent ; and though he hears men speak 

 of the " hard times " with deep concern, it is something that 

 gives him little anxiety ; although it must be admitted if he 

 had put less of his hard-earned money into Western railroads 

 and more into improvements upon his buildings, and under- 

 drains and thorough culture upon his farm, the capital in his 

 business could have been kept from shrinking, and his divi- 

 dends have been more secure. 



But though "hard times" seems to be a sort of universal 

 watchword, in these days, it is not by any means a new one. 

 There was never a time in all the past when grumblers did 

 not live, and "hard times" has been the grumbler's watch- 

 word from the beginning of the ages. Now, however, the 

 cry is not one of fault-finding, alone — it comes from men and 



