162 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER 



IDEC. 3, )183S,- 



are, what is tlie pinccs.s ? 1 wiil tell you, A man 

 •WHS one of our large farms. !t is paid for. He 

 raises up a large family. The girls are married 

 off, and ho gives car-h one her portion. lie him- 

 s«'f dies, and his farm falls to his five sons. One 

 nf these five takes the farm, and agrees to pay the 

 ether sons llieir shares. '1 hey go off to the west, 

 and retnrn no more. He undertakes by economy 

 and industry to keep all the farm, and send four- 

 fij'ths of its vahie to the west. By and by, he finds 

 he caimot do it as fast as he agreed to do it. Ho 

 goes to the Life Insurance Company, or some- 

 where else, mortgages his farm, and starts anew 

 to pay for it. All his life he toils — ^pays inteiest 



— thinks the far'iier has a very hard row to hoe, 



— and it is not till the close of his life that lie 

 gets free from debt. When he dies, the same 

 {irocess has to he gone over again, and thus, about 

 e»ery generation, we send off four-fifths of our 

 sens to the west, and then send four-fifths of the 

 value of our lands afler them. Now this is poor 

 policy ; and I sometimes wonder how it is that 

 eur farms are in any condition that is tolerable ; 

 for their worth, many times over has been sent 

 away to the west. !f, instead of this, our farmers 

 would divide up their farms, and make every acre 

 j^ield all that it can be made to yield, our towns 

 OTonlil not have that appearance of age and decay 

 •which too many of them have. ' Praise a great 

 fcrm,' says the immortal poet of Rome, 'but cul- 

 tivate a little one.' I have noticed that men as 

 tlicy grow old, seem to want more and more land, 

 and seldom do you find a man who feels that be 

 has enough. I know they talk of the fertility of 

 tlie west, and the heautilul land to be found there. 

 And I know, too, that a young man going out 

 tliere, if he do not die under it, will in a few- 

 years become thrifty. And why.' the process is 

 Bflsi^y described. He goes to the wilderness, pur- 

 chases his land, jives in his log cabin, sleeps on 

 the floor or more dkely on the ground, eats upon 

 a slab pinned up into the logs, and eats what 

 coines to hand, wears what he can get, and so he 

 lives, working early and late, and it vvould be 

 wonderful indeed if ho did not gain proper.y. 

 And so would he here. Let a young man take 

 the poorest farm you can name, and labor on it as 

 hard, and live just as he does at the west, for fif- 

 teen years, and he will be ricli here.. It is not so 

 much the land that makes the difference, as it is 

 ♦lifterence in the manner of living, between the 

 west and the east. I was struck while riding in 

 the staje in listening to the conversation between 

 two farmers, the one from Illinois, and the other 

 fi-om the state of Maine. The western man was 

 <l;scribing his country, and the fertility of the soil, 

 contrasting it with New England. 'VVhvbow 

 much corn can you raise to an acre?' says our 

 iwin from Maine. 'I can raise all of seventy 

 bushels with all ease.' ' And how much do you 

 ^t for it a bushel ?' ' Nine-pence a bushel at n)y 

 d»or.' ' Well,' says the 3Iaine farmer, ' I can 

 raise three hundred bushels of potatoes en my 

 land, and get twenty cents a bushel at my door.' 

 '-Aye, but you have to dig them.' ' I'rue, atid 

 don't you pick and then shell your corn, and after 

 all get but twelve and a lialf cents, and only sev- 

 enty bushels on an acre ? ' I repeat, with the 

 same economy, and the same industry, a youn" 

 fernier here can get rich as easiiy as at the west. 

 Whether they will practice equal economy and 

 industry, is more than I can say. But let the 

 fashion once prevail of having smaller farms and 



having them better cultivated, and you will be 

 surrounded by your own sons, instead of large 

 landho'der.s, and a floating ])opulation who hire 

 themselves out to cultivate it, and who own no 

 land. 



Another reason why our young men go to the 

 west and leave us, is, that there is one period in 

 a farmer's life, which is a severe one for a Yan- 

 kee to bear. I allude to a certain period in every 

 farmer's life, who does not inherit property, when 

 there is a severe struf^gle between thriftijiess and 

 poverty. Every farmer has known that there is 

 and must be such a period and such a struggle. 

 Like a ship moimtingup a high wave, every stick 

 of timber seems to groan and creak, and for a 

 moment, just as she is on the point of gaining 

 the top, she seems to liang, doubtfid whether she 

 will go up or down. Just so with a New Eng- 

 land farmer. Those who get over this point, do 

 well, and thrive, but how many sink away and 

 never surmount it ! Our young men, though they 

 do not philosophise about it, know that such a 

 time is before eTery young farmer, and rather 

 than to meet it, they will go and meet it away 

 from home, in the forests. It is not that they 

 will not there meet it, as well as here ; but it is, 

 that they shall meet it away from home, and not 

 under the gaze and the prophecies of their neigh- 

 bors. Now what I want, is, that our young men 

 should calculate to meet this ))eriod of twilight, 

 ami not feel that the moment it begins to come, 

 they umst pull up stakes and go to the west. I 

 want, too, that those who have pHssed throuffh 

 this hard time, should encourage and aid others 

 who are coming into it, and not encourage the 

 young farmer to go off, and leave his land for you 



to |)urchase. It does and must come to this, 



that if our farmers must have large farms which 

 they do not half cultivate, we must have a thin 

 population — we must send away the flower of 

 our youth, we must have poor people who go out 

 at day labor and get a precarious livelihood — we 

 must have not so much raised by three-fourths in 

 a given district, and we must have our farms 

 mortgaged, and our farmers in debt. 



One more reason why our yoimg men en)igrate 

 — and that is, that farming is not looked upon as 

 so reputable a business as it is, and as it ought to 

 be. I know not why it is, or who set the fashion, 

 that a feeling prevails with some,"that farming is 

 not as respectable employment as any that can be 

 named. For myself, I attribute it to the fact, that 

 with all their good qualities, farmers are not true 

 to themselves in some respects. They do not 

 cultivate their minds sufficiently. For example, 

 some years ago, a student in his walks discovered 

 a farmer laying a stone wall. This was in Mil- 

 ford, Con. The stone which he was laying up, 

 the student at once saw was marble. In a short 

 time he discovered a splendid quarry, from which 

 stones have since been worked. Now all the 

 farmers in that place had been making walls of 

 marble for forty years — and yet no one of them 

 had the sagacity to discover it. But had they but 

 a very small portion of a reading spirit, they 

 vvould have seen it at once. 



You have frequently seen men leave my pro- 

 fession and go to the farm, — and some indeed 

 without leaving the profession. And they almost 

 mvariable, as you have noticed, succeed and grow 

 rich. 'Jhe reasim is, that every particle of mind 

 which is cultivated is of use in farming. It is a 

 mistake to say that ignorance will do on a farm. 



Were Daniel Webster now to leave bis public 

 duties and go to farming, I should have no doubt 

 but he would succc^ed, and this, because he would 

 bring his powerful mind to bear upon it ; and it 

 would be useful. I see .hat this is beginning to 

 be felt, and that soirie of our farmers are begin- 

 ning to read, to write, and to conmiuicate their 

 experience to their neighbors. And I wish this 

 might become more and more uaiversal. Let our 

 farmers write, as some do, for the New England 

 and the Genesee Farmer, and no one would hold 

 any feelings towards the profession, e,-scept those 

 of resjiect. Let the profession once be properly- 

 respected, and our yoting men will seek it. And 

 the way, and the only way, to have respect, is to 

 deserve it by having cultivation of mind. It is 

 mind, and it always will be mind, that men covet 

 tnore than all other things ; and that can be ob- 

 tained only by cultivation. You will not under- 

 stand me to say that the farmer in New England 

 is behind the rest of the community in general 

 intelligence ; all who have addressed a city audi- 

 ence and a country audience, know better. But 

 I want to have the standard much higher than it 

 now is. 



I have other reasons for keeping our young 

 men at home besides the good of New England. 

 From my soul, I do wish we had ten times our 

 present nuiid)er of farmers! You know the his- 

 tory of the last year. It is dectided that in our 

 cities the mob rides, and the laws are cobwebs. 

 It has been decided that to horsewhip a clergy- 

 man in the streets shall cost sixty dollars; for a 

 black man to horsewhi]) the chairman of the se- 

 lectmen, only thirty dollars ; and for common 

 men to destroy property and beat and kill one 

 another, it shall cost nothing! Look forward, 

 and what is before us ! There is not a city in 

 this land which the mob cannot rule when they 

 please and as they please ; and there is an end to 

 law, when even a neighborhood chooses to nullify 

 it. Who is surprised to read in a newspaper even 

 innocent men are Lynched, as it is called, abused, 

 degraded, dishonored, and yet no law will reach 

 them to protect his life, or to punish the trans- 

 gressors. There is one class of men upon whom 

 we can as yet rely. It is the same class that stood 

 on the little green at Lexington, — that gathered 

 on the heights of Bunker Hill, and that poured 

 down from the hills of New England, and which 

 were the life blood of the nation when the En- 

 glish lion was ready to devour it — I mean the 

 farmers of New Englai.d. They -were never in a 

 mob — tliey were never found tramp'ing on law 

 and right, ^\'ere I to commit my character to 

 any class of men, — my life when in danger, — 

 my family, and my country's safety, it would be 

 to the farmers of New England. They are a 

 class of inen such as the world never saw, for 

 honesty, intelligence, and Roman virtue, sweeten- 

 ed by the Gospel of God. And when this nation 

 quakes, they and their sons are those who will 

 stand by the sheet-anchor of onr liberties, and 

 hold the ship at her moorings till she outrides the 

 storm. Why cherish New England so ? Why 

 keep her sons on her soil .' Because God has 

 given her a heritage sufficient, and our sons need 

 not wander away from the graves of their fathers. 

 They may be free, independent, and rich here : 

 and here they certainly will be virtuous and hap- 

 py. Here sleep our fathers ! names that need not 

 to go to fable to become illustrious ; no changes 

 in time can obscure their glory ! Shall we not 



