453 



But we will say that farming is not a mere meaus of making money. 

 Our fields are not a mint in which to coin dollars. Our profession is 

 the occupation for life of souls as well as bodies; of minds as well as 

 hands. A farmer has many other and much higher duties than merely 

 raising good crops, and selling them at a good price. He is a man, 

 and as such, immortal, with a glorious destiny beyond the grave, and all 

 the duties pertaining to the Christian Pilgrimage are his. He is a free- 

 man ; on his action and example depends more or less the welfare of 

 his country; and without being a politician he is bound to do all he can 

 for the upholding of virtue, and the down-treading of vice. He is a 

 husband and a father ; on his kindness, attention, and industry, depends 

 the happiness of one who, in the trusting affection of her heai-t, gave 

 herself to him for better or worse. On his example, training and Uber- 

 ality, wholly depend the character and welfare of those children who are 

 to follow him in the busy cares of life, long after the green sod has cov- 

 ered him, and hLs place knows him no more. Still further, he is a rep- 

 resentative of a great class, and he may assure himself that every step 

 he takes in the right direction, every new truth he brings to light, is so 

 much added to the well being of the world, and the respectabihty of his 

 profession. It is feared that we too often forget these truths ; and di- 

 recting our attention to business alone, we become men of one idea; we 

 do not recognize that this is only one out of many duties ; and that it is 

 inferior to many others, as the body is to the life. 



And in consequence, we do not know our profession as we ought to 

 do. Because some foolish people ridicule it, we learn to agree with 

 them. Because a foolish aping of foreign aristocracy — a thing utterly 

 contemptible in this republican country — endeavors to divide the occu- 

 pations of mankind into those that are " respectable," and " not respect- 

 able,'' and importing the worst prejudices of feudal Europe, refuses to 

 call a man a gentleman, because he works with his hands, we give place 

 to such rules of the social system, and we bow in spirit before them ; 

 and what is more, we teach the same mischievous error to our children, 

 till they despise their fathers, any seek any employment, however worth- 

 less, in a city, because it is called genteel, rather than remain in the coun- 

 try, to be true workei-s, and the master of broad acres. In this, I fear, 

 we are ourselves grealtly to blame ; and to this cause may partly be at- 

 tributed the lamentable desertions of rural life, and the crowding to 



