20 
AMEEICA^^" AGRIOULTUEIST. 
[January, 
Tramps and the 
Farmers. 
—o— 
0 most people tliere 
is always sometliing 
humorous about a 
tramp. His grotesque 
rags, his queer shifts 
to jirotract his worth¬ 
less existence, his ab¬ 
solute iiidiffereuce to 
all the conventional¬ 
isms of decent society, 
render him a curious 
object to people not 
coming into too inti¬ 
mate contact with him. 
But the farmer knows the tramp to his sorrow. 
The vagabond, in the city a mere caricature of 
humanity, provoking as much amusement as con¬ 
tempt, is in the country as veritable a pest, though 
not quite so destructive as locusts, grasshoppers or 
potato bugs. “ I’d rather see an Army-worm than 
a tramp,” said a Long Island farmer to us last 
summer. “Because, you see, I can kill an army- 
worm.” lie looked as if he could have killed a 
tramp, too, but for his reverence for law. Others 
similarly afflicted will excuse his desperation. 
Within a hundred miles around any great city, 
the tramp most abounds. Apparently a city pro¬ 
duction, he only goes upon his wanderings when 
his home quarters become too warm for him. Sum¬ 
mer is his favorite season for travel, but in the bit¬ 
terest weather specimens of him wander over the 
snow-covered land, apparently as insensible to the 
elements as he is to sobriety and soap and water. 
Exactly what are his ideas of existence, no one 
has ever been able to define. Although idleness 
and contempt for decency are his own paramount 
virtues, he can not regard them as virtues in others: 
if all others were like him he would starve. We 
once asked a burly tramp by the I'oadside, who de¬ 
sired to share our lunch, why he did not go to work. 
— “ Why should I go to work ?” said he ; “ there’s 
so many working now that wages is getting lower 
every year.” This fellow was a type of perhaps the 
least offensive class of tramps. He belonged to the 
humorous order. He was plump, well-fed, and had 
a round, gveasy face, with a perpetual smile strug¬ 
gling through his stubby beard, and a broad grin 
disclosing his tobacco-stained teeth. He wore the 
remains of a pair of very “loud” tweed pantaloons, 
what was left of an old hunting jacket, and a far- 
gone velvet vest over an old red flannel undershirt. 
The ruin of a once jaunty Derby was cocked over 
his eye. A big bunch of daisies flourished in his 
buttonhole, and he had a bundle done up in an old 
bandanna. As he leaned on his stick, and poised 
In his hand the sandwich we gave him, he was a 
picture of such self-satisfaction, that wo willingly 
added a dime for the privilege of sketching him. 
The Clerical tramp is another of the less objec¬ 
tionable of his kind. He has a strong ministerial 
leaning in his costume. His shiny coat, once black, 
pinned under his chin, has always a dirty wisp of 
paper collar visible over it—about the closest ap¬ 
proach to a shirt the clerical tramp ever makes. 
His old carpet-bag looks as if it had once held dyna¬ 
mite and suffered an explosion, and his cane is an 
old umbrella stick. He .rubs his hands together 
as he talks to you, his voice a whine like that of a 
beggar at a London street crossing. The worst 
about the clerical tramp is his hypocrisy. He 
would be amusing if such a -worthless creature did 
not make religion a cloak for his degradation. 
The humorous tramp never tells you anything 
about himself. He cracks jokes and utters funny 
sayings, earning his bite and sup by putting you in 
a good humor. But the clerical tramp always dis¬ 
gusts you by unfolding a doleful history of himself, 
appealing to your pity, not to your good nature. 
Amother tramp makes the same appeal, though in 
a different way. The Boy tramp is one of the most 
painful manifestations of modern recklessness and 
misery. There are altogether too many of them 
wandering about, gaining your compassion and hos¬ 
pitality with a pitiful story of a cruel parent, and 
learning, in his wandering, lessons of precocious 
wickedness, horrible to reflect upon. Bad compan¬ 
ions and, more than all, bad literature, are constantly 
adding to the already large army of boy tramps. 
The Idiot tramp is a familiar figure in the rural 
districts. Pity and amusement combine to render 
him welcome almost everywhere. It is a trait of 
our common humanity that the poorest and most 
selfish of us have still sympathy and respect to 
spare for that most dreadful affliction to mankind. 
Who does iiot recall some specimen of that most 
horrible of living creatures, the Female tramp, bun¬ 
dled in her filthy rags, with her shameful old face 
leering from under dirty gray hair, tied around with 
a rag of a handkerchief ? Who does not know her 
greasy and dirt-besmeared old basket on her arm, 
holding always, if nothing else, a bottle. She is as 
revolting as the rufflan tramp is menacing. She 
never begs, not she. What she wants she asks for, 
and if she does not get it, it takes a thick wall and 
a deaf ear to save you from her flood of objurgation. 
Generally, it is j)robably safe to assume that all 
tramps are thieves. The lives they live do not tend 
to render them particularly sensitive to moral ad¬ 
monitions from within, when they see a full elothes- 
line or a stray fowl near their stick. Their exten¬ 
sive depredations often fall on those least able to 
sustain them. They cost the farmer and his wife 
many a dollar’s loss, and in many a waya 
But the Rufflan tramp is the only one really dan¬ 
gerous to the person and pocket of the community. 
He exists in every variety. You find him big and 
bratal, little and sneaking, bullying or sullen, ac¬ 
cording to his temperament. But in all cases he is 
a depraved, vicious scoundrel, absolutely with no 
redeeming trait, and of -wdiom the earth would be 
well rid. This miscreant has recently so increased 
in numbers and in insolence that he has become a 
perfect curse upon rural communities. In certain 
sections these modern bandits camp in squadrons, 
and levy on the neighborhood for supplies, like an 
army in an enemy’s country. Not content with this, 
they wantonly destroy what they cannot use. A 
terror to women and children, a burden on men 
who labor honestly for their livings, an outrage on 
society itself, their existence can only be regarded 
like that of all creatures of prey as one of the 
inscrutible mysteries of nature. 
There are two things of which the gardener 
rarely has an excess—leaves and manure—the 
former often helping to increase the quantity of 
the latter. For covering plants of all kinds during 
the winter, leaves, nature’s ovvn covering, are espec¬ 
ially fitted. A hot bed is much more lasting and 
more under control, if the manure is mixed with 
one-third or one half its bulk of leaves. Used as 
bedding for horse or cow, they absorb the liquids, 
and when they are added to the manure heap, they 
soon decompose and increase its value. It is well 
to gather the leaves from the lawm and road-sides 
as they fall, before they are scattered by the 
winds. Those in the woods may be left until later. 
THE HTJMOKODS, THE CLERICAL, AND THE IDIOT TRAMP. 
THE EOT, THE FEMALE, AND THE RUFFIAN TRAAIP. 
