No. 4.] FARMING AS AN OCCUPATION. 327 



FARMING AS AN OCCUPATION. 



BY CHAS. E. WARD OF BUCKLAND. 



The history of agriculture as an occupation dates from the 

 Garden of Eden. We read that Adam was driven from the 

 garden to till the ground from whence he was taken. Abel 

 was a keeper of sheep, untroubled by free wool, and Cain 

 was a tiller of the ground. Cain, being unsuccessful, went 

 into the land of Nod and founded a city. Farming must 

 have been hard in those days, for we are told that the ground 

 was cursed, and was to bring forth thorns and thistles, and 

 its products to be eaten in sorrow. Some farmers at the 

 present time seem to think that this curse was never re- 

 moved ; but we are told in Holy Writ that in the days of 

 Noah the Lord said in his heart, *' I will not again curse the 

 ground any more for man's sake. While the earth remaineth 

 seed time and harvest shall not cease." After the flood 

 Noah planted a vineyard and made a bad use of its fruit. 

 Jacob seems to have been a successful breeder of stock. I 

 doubt if any of our modern breeders have any more shrewd- 

 ness than he, for it will be remembered that when Laban 

 promised him the ring-streaked and speckled of his flock for 

 his labor, it was not long before all the best of them ivere 

 ring-streaked and speckled. Stock raising was carried on 

 to a much greater extent than is possible at the present time, 

 and we read of ]\Ioab paying Israel tribute of a hundred 

 thousand lambs and a hundred thousand rams, with the 

 wool. Job had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand 

 camels, one thousand yoke of oxen and one thousand 

 she-asses. 



These old patriarchs had these advantages over farmers of 

 the present age ; they had no difiiculty in keeping the boys 

 on the farm and no fear of the tuberculosis commissioner. 



