9 



Some of tliem are in this line, too, of ultimate pecuniary advan- 

 tage. There is its comparative freedom from the evil of sudden 

 and sweeping losses. There are the opportunities always afford- 

 ed upon a farm for the employment of time, so that none need be 

 lost ; the occasions for continual and permanent improvements, 

 which tell in the end upon one's estate ; the constant incite- 

 ments to economy and thrift that belong with the possession 

 and culture of land, wliich, talien together with other kindred 

 habits of life they involve or favor, have made our farmers to 

 be not relatively poor by any rule of measurement that can be 

 found. In this matter of money they can stand against any 

 other class. Let any other pursuit in which large numbers of 

 men are engaged be taken. Make the comparison not with a 

 part of these men, Init for all, and for a lifetime with all, and 

 the farmers will not be found the poorer. I do not except from 

 this comparison the mercantile pursuits, nor what are called 

 " the learned professions," — saving only the ministry ! 



In this first great matter, then, of furnishing the means of 

 living, the farm does not do poorly for the farmer unless it be 

 when the farmer does poorly by his farm. It will give him 

 more than a bare subsistence, and will afford him as much of 

 resource and as fair a setting out in this respect toward man- 

 hood, as any other business would be likely to do. There will 

 be need of work and of prudence, but there are necessities in 

 all human life, and within their appropriate bounds are to be 



thought of as blessings and not grievances. 



* 



Passing, therefore, onward from this point, we may notice 

 again that the farm affords to the farmer the peculiar advan- 

 tages of a 'permanent home and a fixed place of occupation. 

 Certain tendencies in this fixedness of place toward thrift, by 

 the improvement of time and the investment of labor, have 

 already been alluded to as bearing upon the pecuniary resources 

 and gains of the farmer. Besides these there are influences 

 from the same source acting directly on the man himself, and 

 by means of which the farm may make the farmer to be more 

 a man. 



