FARMER'S HOME, PAST AND FUTURE. 209 



Then the cellar is not now so often filled with cider, to 

 brutalize old soakers, and lay the foundation of intemper- 

 ance in the farmer's son. The haying can now be done 

 without New-England rum in the field, with all its attendant 

 evils. The schools are better, and the churches better built 

 and cared for, except in those hill-towns where the number 

 of inhabitants has greatly diminished. Some of these places 

 have still to contend against great disadvantages, so much 

 of the spirit of fifty years ago still dwells in some of them. 

 I do not now speak of those isolated examples, but of the 

 general movement all along the line of New-England farm- 

 life. 



But the movement has not been so rapid or so general as 

 it should have been ; and therefore I wish to throw out the 

 suggestions that have occurred to me in observing what 

 has been done, and what still remains undone. I see, or 

 think I see, great possibilities in the farmer's life yet to be 

 reached. 



Agriculture is now, and must from the nature of the case 

 ever remain, the employment of the great mass of people in 

 the world. Men cannot live on the products of mines and 

 mills. The raw materials of food and clothing, to say the 

 least, must come mainly from some form of agriculture ; and, 

 while this is so, agriculture must employ the greatest num- 

 ber of any business in the world. 



The Commissioner of Agriculture reports that a majority 

 of the adult males of the United States are engaged in agricul- 

 ture, and that farms and farm-implements represent fully two- 

 thirds of the productive wealth of the nation. This condition 

 of life, so far as we can see, must, from the necessity of the 

 case, remain, essentially as it now is. Since men and women 

 are the final product we wish to reach, and the increase of 

 rational human enjoyment the great end of rational labor, it 

 is of the utmost importance that this great mass of human- 

 ity connected with farm-life should be able to secure the 

 least possible conditions for human development and enjoy- 

 ment. 



The home is the centre of life ; and the farmer's home we 

 wish to improve, — to carry on more rapidly and intelligently 

 that good work that has been going on for the last forty 

 years. It is an exceedingly uncertahi thing to prophesy in 



