1889.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 4. 331 



wear ; to clothe them all ; to educate his children ; to pay 

 for stated preaching, and enjoy it ; and generally to improve 

 his farm and his animals. The farmer regards himself as 

 bearing to the fullest extent the primal curse imposed by the 

 Almighty for '< man's first disobedience by the fruit of that 

 forbidden tree, whose mortal taste brought death into the 

 world, and all our woe." To him alone, of all occupations, 

 comes the doom, "cursed is the ground for thy sake; in 

 sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life." 



While his life has more freedom and independence of 

 action than others enjoy, it is laborious, and made more so 

 by the constant trials and contests against forces of nature, 

 from which other occupations are exempt. 



The farmer is naturally a pessimist in his talk, and con- 

 veys in his conversation discouraging ideas. He is not 

 usually inclined to admit that he is making money. He 

 sometimes brags that his lambs brought a pretty fair price, 

 though qualified by the statement that he ought to have had 

 a little more; that his steers had done very well, but the 

 market was a little down ; that his shotes at seven months 

 old were fat, and brought more than he expected, but, if he 

 had kept them a week longer, he would have got a quarter 

 of a cent a pound more. But he does not expect these little 

 ebullitions of success to count and be remembered, and 

 especially not to be recalled on the first of May. He in- 

 clines to the belief that the assessors are natural enemies, 

 and he does not purpose that they shall have any insight into 

 his afiairs more than the law allows. 



The two inevitables are before him, — death and taxes. 

 The first he prepares himself to meet indefinitely and in- 

 difierently ; the other, to avoid if it be possible, consistent 

 with the most attenuated honesty. 'Next to the icy hand of 

 death, he dreads the frosty touch of the collector of taxes. 



This secretive tendency in this direction, natural to all, is 

 more developed in the farmer, because all he has is, or ought 

 to be, in sight : in his land, his buildings, his crops, his 

 stock, and his implements and machines, — visible subjects 

 for taxation, on which he often pays for the support of his 

 government and his church more than his wealthier neigh- 

 bors in other vocations, more lucrative, if not as honest, the 



