4r58 
[December, 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
Walks and Talks on the Farm— Ho. 144. 
[COPYRIGHT SECURED.] 
The Deacon wants me to write a “ piece ” about 
the extravagance of farmers and of farmers’ sons 
and daughters. He thinks the young people spend 
four times as much now as they did when he first 
started in life. He claims that this fact has been 
proved by actual figures. I do not dispute them. 
But there is nothing new in all this. I was told 
the same thing when I was a boy. And my father 
brought forth as strong facts to prove his assertion, 
as any that the Deacon adduces now. But what of 
it ? Does the Deacon want us to go back to tallow 
candles and the spinning-wheel—to the flail and the 
reaping-hook ? Does .lie want to pull through the 
mud to get his mail “ every Tuesday and Satur¬ 
day?” Every day, about the time he is through 
his dinner, ho can see the “ Fast Mail ” fly past the 
station and leave him a copy of this “ mornings ” 
Tribune or Times, and take up letters for the west. 
And mark you, we live in the country—with all its 
“isolation” and “loneliness.” It is the most 
countrified of country places. We have no village, 
no store, no tavern. Our railroad station and post- 
office is in a field, with no public road to it. But 
we have a telegraph-office there, and messages are 
going and coming, “tick, tick, tick,” incessantly. 
On end of that wire is in the office of the American 
Agriculturist , at 245 Broadway, New York. It is in 
the busiest center of that busy city. There is the 
noble new Post-office Building, the City Hall, and 
the old Park. We can see nearly all the newspaper 
offices, and to me there is a fascination in looking 
at the places where the papers one has read for 
years, are published. The Christian Advocate, the 
Evangelist, the N. Y. Observer, the Methodist, the 
Christian Union, and the Independent, are associa¬ 
ted with the Sunday quiet of a country home, and 
one hardly expects to find them in this dense and 
bustling crowd. But they are all here, and many 
more. Then look at that stream of people on the 
side walks ! How fast they walk ; how well they 
are dressed; how animated and intelligent they 
look! An_ then see the omnibuses and carriages ! 
One needs a keen eye and active legs to get from 
one side of Broadway to the American Agriculturist 
office on the other side. And then on the left- 
hand side of the building, just inside the door, sits 
a pleasant looking young lady, and i write a few 
lines on a slip of paper with a pencil, and presently, 
while the Deacon is digging potatoes in the field 
near the station, 400 miles away in the country, a 
little envelop is handed him, and he reads “Good 
morning, Deacon. Tell Willie to meet me to-night.” 
I shake hands with the good people at th o American 
Ag>'icuiturist office, take the special express, and 
soon we are spinning along the side of the noble 
Hudson River, at the rate of 40 miles an hour; we 
cross the bridge at Albany, pass along the Mohawk 
Valley, get a good supper at Syracuse, and in two 
hours more Willie meets me and I am soon at home, 
and after a good night’s rest, am able the next day 
to dig as many potatoes as the Deacon. 
Now the age in which such things are done, and 
done every day, and done without thinking how 
wonderful they are, is a very different age from 
that of our fathers, when this same journey from 
New York to the “ Genesee Country ” would have 
been a most serious undertaking. What would 
have been extravagant then, is not extravagant 
now. We waste less time. We can do more work. 
Or rather, if we work as hard as our fathers did, 
we can accomplish much more. It does not require 
as much labor to make a suit of clothes, and conse¬ 
quently the same amount of work will enable us to 
clothe ourselves better and more comfortably. If 
the ladies will work as hard, they can afford to 
dress better than their great-grandmothers. The 
same amount of labor will light a house better 
with kerosene oil, than pine knots or tallow 
candles. The same amount of labor will furnish 
more and better meat. “ Hold on there,” said the 
Deacon, “ I don’t see how you can make that out. 
We used to get meat a good deal cheaper than we 
do now.” That is not the point. What I assert is 
that it costs less labor to produce good beef, mutton, | 
pork, poultry, eggs, milk, butter, and cheese, than 
it did a hundred years ago. And consequently 
if we work as hard , we can afford to live better. 
“That would be true,” said the Deacon, “ pro¬ 
vided we could raise these articles with less labor, 
but 1 do not seem to see it.” Will not the mowing 
machine, the tedder, the horse-rake, and the un¬ 
loading fork enable up to cut the grass, cure it, and 
put it in the barn with less labor ? Will not the 
steam engine or the horse-power enable us to cut 
it into chaff, and to feed it out with less waste, and 
to great advantage ? Will not our improved plows, 
harrows, rollers, drills, buskers, cultivators and 
shellers, enable us to prepare, plant, cultivate, and 
harvest an acre of corn with less labor than form¬ 
erly ? Are not our cows as good milkers ; are not 
our churns as good. Are not our processes of 
cheese making better. And can not we, therefore, 
produce a pound of beef, butter, and cheese, with 
less labor than in the good old days of our great¬ 
grandmother, of whom it couid be truly said : 
“ She seeketh wool and flax, and worketh wil¬ 
lingly with her hands. She riseth also while it is 
yet night, [that is before daylight], and giveth meat 
to her household, and a portion to her maidens. 
She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands 
hold the distaff.” 
Now mark the result of this industry : “ She 
stretclieth out her hand to the poor; yea, she 
reacheth forth her hands to the needy. She is not 
afraid of the snow for her household, for all her 
household are clothed with scarlet. She maketli 
herself coverings of tapestry; her clothing is silk 
and purple. She looketh well to the ways of her 
household, and eateth not the bread of idleness. 
Her children arise up and call her blessed ; her hus¬ 
band also, and he praiseth her.” 
Now if such things could be said of the rrood 
women of the past, what shall not be said of the 
good women of the present. They have greater 
opportunities for usefulness. The sewing machine 
is better than the spindle ; an apple parer better 
than the distaff. The same labor will produce far 
more comforts now than in any previous age. It 
is not extravagant to enjoy the fruits of our in¬ 
dustry. A farmer recently remarked that his 
daughter went to church on Sunday with a “hun¬ 
dred bushels of oats on her back.” He forgot that 
she often milks half-a-dozen cows, and makes all 
the butter, and it would take several silk dresses to 
pay for all she does for his comfort and profit. And 
there is more than one young farmer who would be 
willing to take her off his hands. 
You and I, Deacon, must trust the j'oung people. 
I dislike to see the boys smoking cigars and driv¬ 
ing fast horses, but wo shall not cure them by 
scolding. The country is not going to the dogs, 
nor our children to the bad. We have much to be 
thankful for. 
Half our troubles are imaginary. The remedy 
for these is hope; and the remedy for the other 
half is work. Work will give us nope, and hope 
makes labor easy. What will not a little extra 
work do for our comfort, and the comfort of our 
families ? One-half hour’s extra work a day, would 
make all the difference between a dispirited house¬ 
hold and a home of comfort. Let a poor discour¬ 
aged man tiy it. Brooding over our troubles does 
no good. It will pay no debts. Work will make a 
creditor wait. And let me say right here, that I do 
not think farmers, as a class, or their families, are 
given to extravagance in dress, or in their style of 
living. Just now the tendency is all the other way. 
They are spending less than usual. And it is a 
capital time to make improvements. In periods of 
general depression like the present, some people 
seem to think that the world is coming to an end. 
Be that as it may, it is wise in us to continue plow¬ 
ing and sowing. It is a great thing to feed and 
clothe the world. We have had a good breakfast, 
and shall soon want a good dinner, and will not 
want to go to bed without supper, and to-morrow 
we shall want another breakfast, dinner, and sup¬ 
per, and so on during all the days of the week, and 
the month, and the year. There are 3651 days in 
the year. Suppose we should forget that one-quar¬ 
ter of a day, and the world on the first of January 
next, should wake up and find no breakfast. There 
would be a fine rumpus when the world found that 
it had to wait six hours for dinner on an empty 
stomach. Why, then, need a farmer fear! His 
products will never go out of fashion. Bread, 
milk, butter, cheese, beef, mutton, pork, poultry, 
e Sff s > fruit, and potatoes, will be wanted every day, 
until the end of time. And it is our duty and pur 
interest, to see that the world does not come to an 
end for the want of food ? 
“I don’t see,” said the Deacon, “what all this 
has to do with the extravagance of the age. i r ou 
may say what you will, but I tell you farmers can’t 
stand it. We are spending more money than we 
can earn,” and the old gentleman pushed up his 
hat and left, without giving me a chance to say 
more. I sometimes feel just as the Deacon does on 
this subject. But I think that at this time farmers 
need to take a more hopeful view of the future. 
Our products will certainly be needed, and good 
farming will pay in the future as well as it has 
paid in the past—and I think a good deal better. 
We should be more economical in time and labor, 
rather than in food, fuel, light, and clothes. We 
should live well, and work to the best advantage. 
I do not mean to say that farmers do not work 
hard enough. They often work too hard. I know 
intelligent, well-to-do farmers who do all their own 
work in the winter. And they boast of it. Nine- 
tenths of the work they do could be done, with a 
little superintendence and direction, by a man who 
would be willing to work for little more than his 
board. Surely this is false economy. There are 
many things on a farm that you can not hire done, 
you must do them yourself—or sec that they are 
done. I am sure it would pay such a farmer as I 
have in my mind, to get a man to help him this 
winter to do most of the hard work. And let the 
farmer himself spend his time in seeing that every¬ 
thing is convenient about the house, in the wood¬ 
shed, and in the cellar. Let him look to the stock. 
He can save fodder and grain enough to more than 
pay for the board and wages of the man. But this 
is not half the advantage. The stock will receive 
more care, and all their little wants will be supplied. 
Said a farmer to me last spring, “ When we were 
drawing out manure, I let the boys drive to the lot 
and I stayed in the yard, because 1 could put on 
better loads. And the cows commenced to give 
more milk right off.” Now this man is one of the 
best farmers in the county. He keeps a thorough¬ 
bred Short-liorn bull, and raises capital grades. He 
has a splendid barn, that I have several times 
thought ought to be figured in the American Agri¬ 
culturist. He thrashes by steam; cuts his straw 
and hay, and corn-fodder, with a big feed cutter, 
having an elevator attached, and is one of our 
model farmers. But there is no nonsense about 
him. He is no fancy farmer. He is up by four 
o’clock, (which is the worse thing I know about 
him), and looks after his stock. During the day he 
is in the field or in the woods. He reads the 
American Agriculturist, and I believe gets up a club 
for it. In short, he is an active, industrious, intel¬ 
ligent, experienced farmer; and yet when he is 
piling manure in the yards, his cows give a percep¬ 
tible increase in their milk. Why? One of his 
handsome grade Short-horns that he is so proud of, 
seeing him around, goes up to him and says, as 
plain as a cow can say, “ Give me a lock of hay,” 
and he gives it to her. Another says, “Mr. Stevens, 
don’t you think that rack wants cleaning out,” and 
on looking, he finds to his surprise that there is a 
lot of dirt, and wet hay seeds, and rubbish at the 
bottom. He scrapes it all out and rubs it clean 
with some straw, and as soon as his load is filled, 
and while he is waiting for the next wagon, he gets 
a little feed and puts it in the rack, and the cows 
eat it and feel grateful. Between the next loads he 
takes the curry-comb and brush, and gives one of the 
cows a good cleaning.. The other cows come round 
him, and he has a gentle word and friendly pat for 
each of them. He is a good looking man, and the 
cows like to look at him. He is a gentleman, and 
his presence has a soothing effect. They chew the 
cud of contentment and peace. As he goes past 
