362 Transactions of the American Institute. 



December 5, 1871. 



Nathan C. Ely, Esq., in the chair ; Mr. John W. Chambehs, Secretary. 



Farming as it Makes Character. 

 Dr. J. V. C. Smith read the following paper : — During the sum- 

 mer and autumn past, in travels through northern and western New 

 York and in Massachusetts, I have noticed many hundreds of farms, 

 and had opportunities of observing the leading traits of that great 

 class of workers by whose industry all the rest live. As a race of 

 men, the eastern farmers are industrious, intelligent and aspiring, far 

 beyond the average of the American people. The desire and the 

 resolution are almost universal among them to grow in fortune, to grow 

 in knowledge and in social position. These aspirations extend to the 

 family ; and if a farmer has made up his mind to remain and die in 

 the station in which it has pleased God to place him, he always hopes 

 that his children will have better advantages, and stand higher in the 

 scale of social life. This aspiration has impressed me as quite remark- 

 able, and it explains the fact that so many of our ablest and strongest 

 men in all departments of life have come from behind the plow. 

 But in order that this admirable succession may be continued, our 

 farms should be places where the conditions of high health are all 

 complied with. A farm affords the means of making the soundest 

 constitutions, the best possible illustration of the old Latin maxim — 

 mens sana in corpore sano. But to secure this, the farmer's table 

 should be supplied not only with an abundance, but with a variety of 

 the most wholesome food. Too many of the craft seem to be ambi- 

 tious to sell all they gather, and put themselves and dependents on 

 a course of regimen that would not be satisfactory were it imposed 

 upon them by others. To glean the land and deprive one's self of 

 the luxuries that constitute the pride of a market is voluntarily 

 exchanging what their stomachs require for money, which, when that 

 is a governing principle, is gathered for others to enjoy who neither 

 know nor care from what source it was accumulated. Prudence is a 

 virtue, and should be encouraged both by precept and example ; but 

 avarice is a vice, when a disposition to hoard discards the comforts and 

 conveniences of a well-ordered home. Farmers should live gener- 

 ously, on the best products of their domain. If their tables are 

 served with what will not sell, their minds will never develop to a 

 standard of intelligence on which the success of farming positively 

 depends, and their children will have transmitted to them an inca- 



