No. 5. 



The Farmer^ s Life and Duties. 



151 



of yore ! The farmer has had his ups and 

 downs — at one time revelling- in preposterous 

 high prices, at another, ground to the dust by 

 low prices and high rents. We would see 

 him as he is, in a healthy state of the coun- 

 try, a rural king, sowing his grain and reap- 

 ing his harvest with a glad heart, amidst 

 the rejoicings of a numerous and happy pro- 

 geny. 



Political economists, carrying out their 

 theories of the power of capital and the divi- 

 sion of employments, have written many 

 plausible things in recommendation of large 

 farms. They tell you that the men of capi- 

 tal, who alone can hold large farms, can alone 

 afford to avail themselves of the aid of ma- 

 chinery for accelerating their operations, of 

 expensive manures, and of new and improved 

 breeds of cattle and sheep; all which require 

 long purses, that can afford to wait for dis- 

 tant returns. Now these are all excellent 

 reasons for having such men and such farms 

 in the country, by which the march and spirit 

 of improvement may be kept up, and from 

 which, as from reservoirs, may, in due course, 

 overflow the advantages they introduce to 

 their less wealthy neighbours at a cheaper 

 rate ; but they are no arguments at all against 

 the retention of less farms. It is, in fact, a 

 well-known circumstance, that the specu- 

 lative and amateur farmers generally farm at 

 a greater expense than their neighbours ; an 

 expense in most cases never fully made up 

 by the returns, and often really ruinous. 



It must be admitted that enlightened sys- 

 tematic views, the division of employments, 

 and a judicious outlay of capital, not always 

 in every man's power, enable large farmers 

 to sell at a lower rate than smaller and poorer 

 farmers; this is, to a certain extent, true, but 

 by no means to the extent supposed ; for no 

 farm which exceeds the ready and daily sur- 

 vey of the cultivator, will be found to pro- 

 duce these advantages, for, beyond that ex- 

 tent, there must be overlookers employed, 

 and these must be maintained at a cost, pro- 

 bably greater than a small farmer lives at, on 

 his rented farm ; nor can such a system be 

 expected to carry the intentions of the prin- 

 cipal into effect, with a success like that of 

 his own personal supervision. Again, the 

 small farmer has motives to exertion which 

 do not exist in a troop of hired labourers — 

 slave-labour is acknowledged to be inferior to 

 the labour of free-men, because the free-man 

 has internal motives that the slave never can 

 have; and in the same manner, a small farmer 

 who labours on his rented farm, has motives 

 to exertion that the common labourer, who 

 labours for a daily sum, cannot have. And 

 if the small farmer employs any of these, he 

 has them under the influence of his own eye 

 and example, and thereby communicates a 



stimulus that is absent on a larger scale of 

 cultivation: then, again, the small farmer 

 lives economically, frequently, there is no 

 question, more economically and better than 

 the labourer, because he has all his faculties 

 and energies at work to improve his farm and 

 better his condition — circumstances that do 

 not operate on the more labourer, who re- 

 ceives just a bare sufficiency in his wages, 

 and sees no possibility, and therefore enter- 

 tains no hope of accumulation. The small 

 farmer works hard himself, his children, if he 

 have them, assist him, and his wife, too, who 

 also is a manager and worker ; he looks 

 around him, for his eye is sharpened by his 

 interest, and observes the plans, and mea- 

 sures, and improvements of his wealthier 

 neighbour, adopts what he can of them, and 

 often makes cheap and ingenious substitutes 

 for others. But, even if it were a fact that 

 the large farmer could drive the small farmer 

 out of the country, would it not be a circum- 

 stance most deeply to be deplored 1 It 'Would 

 extinguish a class of men of hardy, homely 

 and independent habits — an irreparable loss 

 to any country ! It would break those steps 

 out of the ladder of human aspiration and the 

 improvement of condition, that would have a 

 most fatal influence on all society : an impass- 

 able gulf would be placed between the aris- 

 tocracy of capital and the freedom of labour, 

 which would produce, as its natural results, 

 insolence, effeminacy and corruption of man- 

 ners on the one side, and perpetual and hope- 

 less poverty on the other, with abjectness of 

 spirit or sullen and dangerous discontent! 

 Even if, as Miss Martineau has asserted, it 

 were true that the labourer would be better 

 clothed and fed than the small farmer, would 

 the mere comfort of food and clothes make 

 up, to men living in a free and Christian 

 country, and within the daily reach of its in- 

 fluences, for the destruction of that ascend- 

 ing path which hope alone can travel 1 There 

 would soon, on such a system, either in agri- 

 culture or manufactures, be but two classes 

 in the country — the great capitalist and the 

 slave — the capitalist would stand, like Aaron 

 armed with his serpent-rod, to eat up all the 

 lesser serpents that attempted to lift up their 

 heads above that level which he had conr- 

 demned them to ; the mass would be doomed 

 to a perpetual despair of ever advancing one 

 step out of the thraldom of labour and eom- 

 mand, and their spirits would die within 

 them, or live only to snatch and destroy what 

 they could not legitimately reach ! But such, 

 happily, is not the case; circumstances place 

 a limit to such things, and the small farmer 

 does exist, and has existed, to flourish in the 

 face of all this ; I have seen and known such, 

 and happier and more comfortable people do 

 not exist. I do not mean by a small farm» 



