other Papers. 273 



commands every advantage, you purposely or negligently make the 

 life of the farm one of dry, gloomy, iiopeless slavery. If you would 

 use your wits more in your business as producers, you would make 

 ten times more money, and have to do very much less labor. That 

 is what every man of observation sees ; what the experience of a^ 

 who have tried it proves. Raising grain to sell, paying out :i 

 thousand dollars for machines, and living in a house little better 

 than a hog-pen, taking one or two county newspapers and deeming 

 that a useless expense, wasting at the bungliole while forever catch- 

 ing drops at the spigot ; driving your offspring late and early like 

 slaves, exercising a poor cultivation over hundreds of acres, and 

 never dreaming of giving your children a chance to do anything 

 for themselves on acres appropriated to them, treating your wive.-, 

 yourselves, and all around as mere drudges — must be changed. For- 

 tunately there are even now country homes where the owners have 

 made by steady but easy industry and sound judgment, little Edens 

 — homes where the hearts of the sons and daughters ever will 

 turn — homes that teach us all what the life of the country should 

 be. 



To the man of really independent soul, how far superior is this 

 life of the woods, fields and orchards to that narrow, artificial one 

 of the town, with its mean ambitions, its envies and strifes about 

 trifles ? How fearful is the responsibility that rests upon us of the 

 towns, who have those depending on us, to nim wlio stands upon 

 his own broad acres, but a pleasing position. He feels himself 

 subject to no danger of ousting. At worst, the very worst, 

 there will be abundance to live upon. He need never hear his own 

 asking for bread. 



In our once new, but now prematurely old country, life gives 

 no such easy opportunities. Education is no longer a living, it is 

 not even a distinction. Every place is crowded. Thousands upon 

 thousands of able-bodied youths idle more than half their time. 

 Advertise in one of our village weeklies for a clerk or book-keeper, 

 or for any one to hold " a soft place in the shade," or in any gilded 

 serfdom, and your doors are crowded before daybreak. 



The universal premeditation that now possesses millions of 

 minds is, when shall we make the rush upon the new president for 

 that place,' and what is Cleveland going to do about this thing ? 

 More and more are new places made to accommodate this evil state 

 of things, until, what with cabinets, bureaus, commissions, clerk- 

 ships, secretaryships, attaches, appointees, agents, assistants, 

 collectors, assessors, examiners, referees, etc., until the vocabulaiy 



