No. 4.] PLEASURES OF FARMING. 375 



farm boys would like to be l)ell rung out of their beds every 

 morning in the year, or whistled out and in for an hour's 

 nooning and again at the close of a long day, with never a 

 rainy day for trouting, or a pleasant one for hunting, unless 

 it is boui2:ht at so much an hour. Those who rise above the 

 place of the common daily laborer are in the great minority. 

 Occasionally one rises to be a foreman or superintendent of 

 some department, but these are the exceptions. From the 

 nature of the lousiness, the great majority of operatives must 

 remain near the foot of the ladder. 



Let me turn for a moment to the merchants of our land. 

 As the business of the world is carried on, the merchants are 

 a necessary class. It is a very large one, an important cle- 

 ment, but when you come to analyze it, what is it ])ut a go- 

 between between the producer and consumer? If you leave 

 out an increased profit, I know of nothing that a merchant cre- 

 ates. I am not ready to think even that they could be dis- 

 pensed with, but they could not live a day were it not for the 

 producing farmers. The same is true of the manufacturing 

 operatives, and the rule is good both ways. The farmers 

 are entirely dependent upon non-producing consumers. 

 Hence, every individual in this country being so absolutely 

 dependent upon some other individual for his daily bread, 

 what are we but a gigantic body of partners for life ? And 

 being so, why is not one branch of the total business quite 

 as respectable as any other ? 



The manufacturer, by ingenious and intricate machinery, 

 transforms the wool from the sheep's bodies or the cotton 

 from the fields into fabrics of endless variety for the use of 

 mankind ; the merchant, adding his living to the goods, sells 

 them to the consumer, while the farmer, with God's lavish 

 kindness, has produced them. Xo one save the Almighty 

 has created anything, but in creation and production I 

 maintain that the farmer stands next to the Almighty. 



I insist, therefore, upon the great respectability of farm- 

 ing as a means of living, and though I may have apparently 

 strayed from my subject, I have been constantly near it in 

 speaking of drawbacks to pleasure in other employments. 



You will pardon me if I say that I passed twenty years of 

 my life in New York. I must have been a dull scholar in- 



