Vol 6. 



GENESEE FARMER. 



99 



day, which he could not accomplish in a week, while 

 working against the course of nature. 



" On what does the productiveness of the farmer's 

 labor mainly depend ? Surely not on his mere mus 

 cular strength, for in that case the mechanical pow- 

 er of a cart-horse will exceed five-fold in value the 

 labor o.' an agr'culturist. It is the sound judgment, 

 experience and acquired knowledge of the directing 

 Mind, that impart productive value to the labor of 

 human hands. And it is mainly because the intel- 

 lect employed in rural pursuits is less developed than 

 the mind devoted to other and more professional oc- 

 cupations, that agricultural labor is so poorly re- 

 warded. The truth is that passive intellectual fac- 

 ulties are utterly valueless. They produce nothing. 

 Hence, as the mind of a human being lacks science 

 or knowledge, the market value of his mere physical 

 force ' epreciates in price. Without going into an 

 elaborate argument, your committee appeal to the 

 ten thousand improvements of the age in which we 

 live, as furnishing conclusive evidence that there is no 

 power on earth so productive of great and beneficent 

 results as the power of highly cultivated intellect." 



Surely, it is not the fault of other classes that 

 the intellect devoted to agricultural pursuits is not 

 so familiar with the laws of Nature, which transform 

 earth, air and rvatcr into good bread, meat and cloth- 

 ing as the writer of the above remarks could wish. 

 Nor is it the fault of the 500,000 field laborers them- 

 selves. Their position in society has been extreme- 

 ly isolated ; their opportunities for studying the nat- 

 ural sciences have been small indeed. I wish they 

 were better. I have labored to make them so. 



" But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page, 

 Rich ill the spoils of Time did ne'er unroll ; 



Cliill Penury repress'd tlieir noble rage, 

 And froze the genial current of the soul." 



Born, and raised with people that give twenty-six 

 hard day's work for ^10 and board, I confess that all 

 my sympathies are with the laboring classes. When 

 a nation, in her hour of imminent peril, needs a great 

 warrior or statesman, she must go to the ploiv to 

 find aCiNCiNNATus, or a WAsmwoTOK. Why then 

 shall we wait till abundant wealth, stolen from the 

 open pocket of honest industry, shall have cursed 

 the worshippers of Mammon with all the evils of 

 luxury, idleness and debauchery; and shall have fill- 

 ed our poor houses with paupers, our prisons with 

 criminals, and made " Anti-rentism" with the Indian 

 mask off, the ruling power of the State, before we 

 will remember the despised " field laborers" who are 

 held by many to be just fit to give ten hours toil for 

 one ? 



We all know that, as a general rule, those that 

 produce most of the good things of this world, do 

 not enjoy as much more of these comforts and lux- 

 uries as their productive powers call into existence. 

 Why is this ? Clearly, to my mind, it is owing to a 

 lack of knowledge hotv to keep, as well as hoiv to cre- 

 ate property. If all interest on money were abol- 

 ished, and all rents on lands, houses and other prop- 

 erty were discontinued forever, and all the products 

 of human industry now in the world were equally 

 divided, it would not help the difficulty at all. So 

 long as laboring men would give three or five day's 

 work for one, while the natural wants of all were 

 alike, and give 100 cents for 80 cents, and 80 cents 

 for 60, the property of the world would rapidly con- 

 centrate into a few hands. The remedy for this 

 enormous evil is not in arraying one class against 

 another— the poor against the rich— -but in a com- 



mon and generous effort so to enlighten the popular 

 mind in matters of labor, money, trade, interest and 

 rent, that every human being shall have an opportu- 

 nity to work to a good advantage, and if he chose so 

 to do, to keep for his own comfort the whole pro- 

 ceeds of his honest industry. It is vain for me to 

 clfiim the poor privilege of robbing a day-laborer, his 

 wife or his children of ten cents, which they have 

 fairly produced, by any contrivance of interest or 

 profit, and not conceiis the whole moral principle 

 which forbids them the equal right to rob the rob- 

 ber when a fit opportunity shall occur for them 

 in turn to take the advantage of a fellow being. We 

 cannot long prosper as a State or a Republic, in evil 

 doing. A just God will vindicate the rights of hu- 

 manity. 



You cannot go on, and concentrate the wealth of 

 the Empire State into a few hands, and not by some 

 indirection rob a large majority of its people. For 

 the few can not possibly produce this wealth over 

 and above their annual consumption. They can not 

 possibly purchase it for they have no fair equivalent 

 to give in exchange. In a community where every 

 man is a sovereign, and the majority will rule just as 

 it pleases, where is the safest depository of the great 

 mass of the surplus earnings of three millions of in- 

 dustrious people ? Is it in the coffers of one-tenth 

 of those that produce it, with 60 per cent, of the 

 whole population living from hand to mouth, with 

 all the terrors of the poor-house driving them into 

 nishonesty and crime ? No. The public peace and 

 safety require that the property of the State shall be 

 pretty equally divided among the great mass of la- 

 boring men, to impart to the whole lump a conser- 

 vative, law-loving feeling. Without this respect 

 for law and order, the wealth of the rich is no better 

 than chaff. Like all other vices and crimes, that of 

 avarice overreaches itself. Instead of attacking the 

 humble author of the Report in question with bitter- 

 ness and denunciation, those that wish to live on the 

 sweat of other men's faces, and not by the sweat of 

 their own, should have been willing to establish a 

 Model Farm and an Agricultural School at the pub- 

 lic expense, so as to place the science of producing and 

 of keeping property within the reach of the humblest 

 day labofer in the State. If the result had been what 

 the friends cf science and rural industry united, antici- 

 pate from such union, similar schools could be estab- 

 lished in all parts of the country wherever needed. 



At the time mv Report was written, I was called 

 on to vote tens of thousands from the State treasury 

 to pay citizen soldiers raised in the ci/i/ of New York 

 and in Albany, some two or three dollars a day be- 

 sides their expenses, to each soldier, for suppressing 

 civil discord and rebellion in one or two of the oldest 

 and most respectable farming counties in the State. 

 The teaiing down of the land-office with entire im- 

 punity, in Mayvillo, by the farmers of Chautauque 

 county, a few years since, was also fresh in my 

 memory. I knew that no honest field laborer at 

 present prices, can pos'-^ibly support himself and fam- 

 ily well, on the products of his own personal labor 

 without capital, and lay up more than $70 a year. 

 At this rate it would consume the entire surplus 

 earnings of 100 field laborers to pay $7,000 — the an- 

 nual interest on i|l 00,000. And when I called to 

 mind thp well known fact that the population of this 

 State doubles only once in 25 years; while $100,- 

 000 at 7 per cent, annual interest double in 10 years 

 and all at the expense of the little savings of labor, 

 ing people, I thought I saw the reason ivhy both an. 



