THE HOrE OF THE FARMER. 25 



survival. Tliose who can not do that may be of the salt of 

 the earth, but they are delivered over to the bondage of death. 

 The farmer, from the nature of his business, must be, or ought 

 to be, a property holder, and I wish here to compare him only 

 with other owners of property. In past years the American 

 farmer has been regarded as the type of an assured prosperity 

 within a very moderate range, and his occupation considered 

 as, upon the whole, the safest to engage in by those who were 

 prepared to be content with abundant nourishment, warm 

 housing, and moderate intellectual and social enjoyment, with 

 freedom from serious care. It has been thouglit that, upon 

 the whole, those who contended for the more brilliant prizes 

 of life, even if they achieved them, paid more for them than 

 they were worth ; much more the majority, who strove for 

 them and yet failed. It has been believed that the strain and 

 worry of the severer strife so seriously impaired their power 

 of survival as to far more than counterbalance any comforts 

 or enjojauents which they were able to secure. If, now, com- 

 paring the farmer of to-day with the farmer of half a century 

 since, we find that estimate still holding good, the farmer is 

 still holding his own, and need not be discouraged. If, on the 

 contrary, we find habitual worry, care, and dependence grad- 

 ually taking the place of the independence, comfort, and 

 security which he formerly enjoyed, then he is losing ground, 

 and must bestir himself. I do not propose to enter U[)on a 

 detailed comparison of the condition of the farmer as com- 

 pared with other property-owning classes. Each of my older 

 readers is as competent as I to compare for himself; I simply 

 record my own judgment, which is that the farmer has ceased 

 to be the independent man whom I knew in my boyhood. 

 He is attacked by the care and worry of the business man, 

 without the business man's equipment to meet them, and he 

 is losing ground. If I am wrong, I am glad of it, but I shall 

 proceed upon that assumption. 



Now this decadence of prosperity, in my belief, is entireh-- 

 unnecessary. The farm is the storehouse of vigor, without 

 which and the application it makes possible tliere can be no 

 knowledge, or the prosperity which knowledge brings; from 



