460 The Farmer. 
that instead of the king of our country merely condescending once 
a year to guide the plow across the field, our sovereigns follow it 
as a profession for years and for life. 
The farmers constitute the greater number of those who are to 
form the popular opinion; and unless they underrate and despise 
their own calling it must be popular. 
I would not undervalue any business pursuit, for all are proper 
and useful to a greater or less extent, but it must of necessity and 
truth be admitted that the cultivation of the soil is of the most 
importance as well as most productive of happiness. 
The farmers are the dependence of all other classes. They are 
the providers, strength and defenders of all and of our country. 
Let them rest from their labors for but one single year, or let 
there be a failure from their seed sowing, and the world, the busi- 
ness world, including the financial and commercial affairs, is at 
once paralyzed, thrown into confusion and ruin, from which there 
can be no possible relief without a return of business and pros- 
perity to the tillers of the soil. The merchant, the mechanic, the 
clergyman, the lawyer, and every other class of men, may suspend 
their labors without any such truly serious consequences, although I 
will admit that all pursuits of men are intimately interwoven, and 
the suspension of any one of the wheels will jar to a greater or 
less extent the whole machinery. But experience has established 
it as a t! uism that the prosperity of the farmer is the prosperity of 
the world. 
The life of the farmer is the most independent that man can 
live. With his own hands he can produce whatever he may need 
to eat, drink or wear; and whilst asleep and at rest, his crops 
and stock are growing in accumulation of his supplies and wealth. 
Neither night nor sickness stop their growth, nor the increase of 
wealth springing up from the farm. 
Not so with any other class of citizens. When the mechanic 
lays down his hammer, or goes to rest at night, his capital ceases 
its increase until he returns to his toil again. Thus with the pen 
and tongue of the lawyer, and gown of the cleigyraan. The 
merchant stands behind his counter dependant upon the voluntary 
favor of customers, and when a customer leaves the shop the stock 
in trade suspends its increase. Thus with all others. 
The life of the farmer is the one the creator of man intended 
him to enjoy. It affords that healthful exercise of the body essen- 
tial to health and strength, and the best possible occupation of 
the mind for its moral developments and elevation. The cultiva- 
tion of the fields will teach no moral pollutions nor carry man into 
those vain speculations which the political and trafficing world 
originate and carry him into, to take captive his honest judgment 
and pel vert his moral sense. Turning the furrow, sowing the 
