1 86 AMERICAN FARMS. 



political wisdom to ostracise public discussion, and to 

 favor the dependence upon petty bribes, secret influ- 

 ences, and pot-house arguments. 



Knowledge of the fact that in less than fifteen years 

 in Canada, over seventy elections have been voided by 

 the courts of that country for corrupt practices, should 

 cause all its right-thinking people to blush for its political 

 impurity. 



Even as late as thirty years ago, Simon Brown, the 

 politician, and gifted editor of the New England 

 Farmer of those days, had not lost hope for the future 

 of America, through the power of the rural population 

 to guide in wisdom and virtue the political, as well as the 

 social and economic destinies of the Republic. He saw 

 a future before the farmers of America as the proper 

 governors of the commonwealth. In January, 1859, he 

 said to them : " The people, the yeomanry, the dwellers 

 in the rural districts," — the readers of the New England 

 Farmer, and the like, must realize that they are the 

 legitimate rulers of the land, and act accordingly — must 

 take the reins of government into their own hands. 



Every year sees the farmer with less political influence 

 than ever before. This certainly is a lamentable fact. 

 When the people of Greece got to look upon its rural 

 populations as unfit for any thing but drudgery, they 

 were preparing the Grecian Republic for its downfall. 



This, then, is a first cause of the American farmer's 

 troubles, the neglect of his political rights and duties ; 

 others follow as consequences. 



