ing influences will at once occur to the thought of all. In the first place, farming 

 does not demand as do most other occupations, constant intercourse with men. It 

 rather forbids such intercourse. A great part of its activities must be carried on 

 in comparative soUtude. Its success does not require, as does that of most occu- 

 pations, the co-operation of other men, and constant contact with other minds. 

 The merchant, for instance, is dependent on his customers. He comes in con- 

 tact with them all the time. A kind of social and intellectual influence is inherent 

 in the very nature of the calling. So it is with the lawyer, the physician, the 

 clergyman, the teacher. A constant contact of life with life, and of mind with 

 mind, is an element inseparable from these professions ; and though seeking oth- 

 er objects as their ultimate end, some cultivation of the social and intellectual na- 

 ture is one of their necessary incidents. Even the life of an ordinary mechanic 

 is in this respect more favorable than that of the farmer. The village smithy, 

 and the village shoemaker's shop are always a kind of social center. Men are 

 continually gathering there by twos and threes to discuss politics and the news of 

 the day ; and though the discussions may not be very refined, or very profound, 

 yet they do tend in a measure to the quickening of the mind. The farmers' con- 

 tact, on the other hand, is not with man, but with nature. The life especially of 

 the small farmer, who is his own hired man, is passed mainly in soUtude ; and it 

 is inevitable that his lack of social opportunities, without very strong effort on hie 

 part to counteract the deficiency, should in the course of years, leave a marked 

 impress on his character, 



ISOLATION OF FAKMERS' HOUSEHOLDS. 



The comparatively isolated situation of the farmer's household is another ob- 

 stacle in the same direction. In this respect our custom differs materially from 

 that of the Continental countries. In Germany, for instance, the agricultural 

 population is not dispersed Uke ours on isolated homesteads, each family upon its 

 own farm, but is gathered into small villages, from which the laborers go out to 

 their work in the morning, and to which they come back at night. The influence 

 of this gregariousness upon the German peasant is of course more than balanced 

 by others that tend to the repression of the intellectual Ufe ; but there can be no 

 doubt that it is in itself an advantage. The results of our own method are not so 

 apparent in our thickly-settled Massachusetts as in other sections of the country, 

 but even here the farmer's isolation is such as to prove a decided obstacle in the 

 way of that attrition of mind with mind that all men need to their best develop- 

 ment. Some one, I believe it is Col. Waring, has suggested some readjustment 

 of our agricultural life in accordance with the Continental method. But such a 

 change, especially in the older parts of the country, is plainly out of the question. 

 Nor am I certain that it would be on the whole desirable even if possible. There 

 is a charm about the typical New England farm-house, standing in its independ- 

 ence and self-sufficiency, among its group of outbuildings, hke a feudal castle in 

 the midst of its dependent cottages, a charm that we could ill spare ; and there 

 are unquestionably advantages in other respects in this isolation, although unfa- 

 vorable to the freest intellectual and social life. 



THE farmer's exhausting LABOR. 



A third obstacle is the exhausting nature of the farmer's work as usually con- 

 ducted. The life of most farmers is in this respect simply that of day laborers. 

 In most cases it is doubtless a necessity, and there of course I have no criticism 

 to offer. Necessity knows no law but its own. Even objects so important ae 



