1847. 



GENESEE FARMER. 



253 



The Farmer. — His Positioxi, Responsibilities, 

 and Duties. 



NUMBER TEN. 



The subject of printing and its influence, is 

 one which only increases the more we contem- 

 plate it. The human mind, with its mighty 

 powers of expansion, and in its restless desire 

 for improvement, requires just such a machine 

 as the printing press to give it full play ; it puts 

 within its grasp a power just suited both to means 

 and end. It is the philosopher's stone to the 

 mind — multiplies the thoughts of man into infi- 

 nite numbers, and scatters them over millions of 

 the race at the same time. It catches up every 

 important discovery, and gathers together the 

 mighty thoughts and great conceptions of the 

 master spirits of the earth, and with one effort 

 scatters them far and wide, to instruct and en- 

 lighten the world. 



The farmer at his fireside, the mechanic in 

 his shop, and the student in his study, may, 

 through the agency of the press, collect together, 

 in a small compass, all the valuable information 

 and discoveries appertaining to their respective 

 callings, and by proper application make them 

 available to the every day business of life j but 

 to no one class does the press promise so much 

 good as to the agriculturist — to none is it a means 

 so easily effective for advantage, and by none 

 should it be cherished so heartily and warmly. 

 The mechanic may have his journals and period- 

 icals devoted exclusively to his interest, but after 

 all there is an intricacy in the details of his trade, 

 a vast amount of minutise, which cannot be re- 

 duced to paper, or explained only by practice, 

 and much is lost by the attempt, and half the 

 effect is destroyed by reading what it is so diffi- 

 cult to communicate with tool and material be- 

 fore him. But a great deal of the operations of 

 the farmer is so plain and simple that it may be 

 spread on paper and made intelligible by words 

 and figures ; and the farmer may study to-day 

 and practice to-morrow, and reduce to immediate 

 test and advantage knowledge thus communica- 

 ted — and particularly is this the case when he 

 has been educated a farmer and trained to habits 

 of thought and action, suitable to a tiller of the soil. 

 I do not wish to be understood as advancing 

 the idea that any body can make a good farmer 

 in a day, a week, or a year. I verily believe 

 that men should be educated and trained from 

 their youth up for farmers, and when thus fitted 

 and prepared they are in a position to receive 

 the full advantage of the press ; then it is that 

 knowledge comes to them in all its force, and 

 they are fully prepared to adopt, use, and profit 

 by it, at less expense and with less trouble than 

 any other class. I repeat, the farmer, above 

 every body else, should prize the press — for who, 

 like him, can enjoy his newspaper, his magazine. 



and his books 1 — who has so much leisure to 

 peruse, read, and study them 1 — who so free 

 from mental strife and perplexing cares ? — and 

 who, then, can so fully enjoy intellectural pur- 

 suits, and so easily store the mind with useful 

 information 1 — whoso cheaply partake the pleas- 

 ures and gather in and enjoy the fruits of knowl- 

 edge ? Just look at the position of the farmer 

 in this particular. He has no profession with its 

 office, to harrass the mind with its perplexing 

 questions relating to property or to life ; nor (as 

 is the case with most of offices,) to dissipate the 

 mind with idle visitors. He has no store with 

 its goods and wares, its day-books and ledgers, 

 tJ distract his attention and trouble him by day 

 and by night. He has no shop in which to toil, 

 and labor, and sweat, day and night, without 

 recreation or rest. 



The farmer's retreat and place of rest when 

 the labors of the day are past, is his own home, 

 by his fireside and in his family circle. And 

 what place on earth so sacred, hallowed, and 

 so like heaven, as the farmer's peaceful, quiet 

 home 1 Pride has not entered there to de- 

 spoil it of its simplicity and purity ; fashion 

 has not sung her syren song within its bowers, 

 to lure its inmates into habits of extravagance, 

 and to deform them with its outside gear. Nor 

 has vice and dissipation crept in, satan like, to 

 distract the harmony and break up the peace of 

 the happy family. At least in thousands of 

 farmers' homes, none of these things have yet 

 entered ; and is not such a place sweet and holy. 

 What a beautiful place is such a family cii-cle ! 

 — what a charmed spot, where kindred hearts 

 gather around the same fireside, and mingle to- 

 gether under the same roof common sympathies 

 and n:utual affections. This world has no bright- 

 er or better pictures. And it is within this holy 

 place, his own good home, that 1 would have the 

 farmer enter when the day's work is done, after 

 all the bars are put up and the barn doors se- 

 cured—and after the beasts of the field have 

 been cared for — and there, surrounded by his 

 idols, his household gods, whom to love is no 

 sacralege and to reverence no idolatry — there, 

 with his little ones about him, I would have him 

 take his newspaper, his periodical, and his book, 

 and amuse and improve himself by reading and 

 conversation, by study and reflection. There, 

 in his sanctum sanctorum, the farmer may share 

 the highest social and intellectual pleasures, and 

 there fit and prepare himself for the good farmer, 

 the useful and virtuous citizen, and the honest, 

 upright man. 



There are doubtless seasons of the year when 

 the farmer cannot enjoy all the advantages above 

 indicated — when the hurry of the harvest is 

 pressing and when the fatigues of the long sum- 

 mer day have exhausted the system — but this is 

 comparatively but a short season ; at least nine- 

 twelfths of the year the farmer has abundant 



