Proceedings of tee Farmers' Club. 551 



assigned him in the economy of nature. There is another, which, 

 though incidental to the supply of food and the like necessities, is by 

 no means limited thereby. Beyond that important avocation, there 

 lies a realm in which he enacts the creator. The very existence of 

 the domestic animals crowding the belt of highest civilization upon 

 this globe is due to the farmer ! He creates them here. Not out of 

 nothing, to be sure, for out of nothing not anything can come ; but 

 their life in our climate is as truly due to him as though their ante- 

 types had never existed. Let him abandon them, and how many, 

 think you, would survive next winter ? Nor is their life and per- 

 petuity alone due to him, but their development as well. Compare 

 the noble quadruped to be found in the modern stable with the three- 

 toed brute said to have borne " Caesar and his fortunes ;" or with the 

 shaggy specimens of the equine species still to be found in the wild 

 places of the earth, and know that it is the farmer who has molded 

 that mere bundle of bone and muscle into the stately form yon see 

 " upon the avenue." Ring out the praises loud and clear of the 

 artists who create beauty with the pencil or mold it in marble ; 

 louder still for the artist, the farmer namely, who molds in flesh 

 and blood, who gives us not only beauty of form, to initiate which is 

 their highest praise, but beauty infilled with life. His marvels of 

 artistic skill have ftxiled to crown him with due honor, only because 

 in the {esthetic nose of genteel criticism his garments smell of the 

 stable rather than the studio. As between the production of a horse, 

 for example, and a copy thereof, in what you will, upon whose brows, 

 I pray you, should rest the artist's crown ? 



The Farmer A2i Artist. 

 But he is an artist in color as well as in form. Who developed 

 that many-tinted, double flower out of the single-leaved, one-hued 

 original? Who created that basket of luscious, blushing peaches,, 

 wliich certain artists in color only so delight to copy ? Those straw- 

 berries and cherries ? Those pears ? Miracles of form and color in 

 their way ; aye, and of flavor as well. Let him who will, his genius 

 60 determining, become an artist in stone or in bronze, in M'ood or on 

 canvas ; but let his admirers not forget that the highest place in all 

 that noble school belongs of right to the successful artist in life. 

 Practically, if unconsciously, he is also a sounder philosopher than 

 the graduates of the modern " development school," who plume them- 

 selves upon their descent in a right line from the noble family of 



