FAKM ECHOES. 29 



CHAPTER IV. 

 IS FARMING RESPECTABLE? 



No wonder the reader smiles at a question so intensely 

 absurd. 



However unnecessary it may appear to every well bal- 

 anced mind, there are some, I hope not many, whose 

 minds are, unfortunately, not well balanced, and who 

 need to be enlightened upon this subject. 



It is an old saying, and I am sorry to add, a very true 

 one, that " all the fools are not dead yet," for some have 

 crossed my path, in changing from city to country life, 

 who manifested such an aversion to the occupation of 

 farming as would cause those not on their guard to sus- 

 pect that there must be something discreditable insepa- 

 rably connected with it. 



Do I go far enough back, and to a source sufficiently 

 high and convincing, when I quote from the first and 

 second chapters of my Bible ? 



" God said Let there be light ; and there was light." 

 So it was in regard to the " firmament," etc. " He spake 

 and it was done." Not so, however, in the creation of 

 the "Garden eastward in Eden." "The Lord God 

 planted " it Himself, we are distinctly told. Having put 

 this garden in perfect order, and having watered it by the 

 river which he made to pass through it, a fit and beauti- 

 ful emblem of that river "the streams whereof shall 

 make glad the City of God," He placed the man whom 



