1854 . 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
175 
Stick to the Farm. 
BY HENRY F. FRENCH. 
Stick to the farm, young men. Now when land and 
its products, the true wealth of the nation, are within 
your control—when corn and wheat, and hay and cattle, 
and the produce of the dairy bring double their former 
prices, while the wages of farm labor, always the last 
to be affected by fluctuations of business, or political 
affairs, have advanced comparatively little; now, 
when the nations of the earth are re-converting their 
plowshares and pruning hooks, into swords and spears, 
when great armies are gathering together to destroy 
each other, and lay waste the beautiful earth, which 
God has given to man to “ till and to keepnow, 
when the labor of whole countries is diverted from pro¬ 
ducing the means of feeding and clothing and shelter¬ 
ing and blessing mankind, to a worse than idle con¬ 
sumption of the produce of your labor; now while the 
farmer is rapidly gaining the, respect and wealth and 
influence due to his position as “lord of the land,” be 
not seduced from your honorable and independent 
place, by whisperings, of ambition, urging you to seek 
for wealth or ease, or honor, in a city life. 
You are tempted to exchange the hard work of the 
farm, to become a clerk in a city shop, to put off your 
heavy boots and frock, and be a gentleman, behind the 
counter ! You, by birth and education, intended for 
an upright, independent, manly citizen, to call no man 
master, and to be no man’s servant, would become 
at first, the errand boy of the shop, to fetch and carry 
like a spaniel, then the salesman to fill the place which 
at best, a girl would fill much better—to bow and 
smile and cringe and flatter—to attend upon the wishes 
of every painted and padded form of humanity—to 
humbly suggest to rakes and harlots, as Well as to 
starched and ruffled respectability, what color and fab¬ 
ric best becomes the form and complexion of each— 
and finally, to become a trader, a worshipper of mam¬ 
mon, as Garlyle says, “a kind of human beaver that 
has learned the art of ciphering,” compelled to look 
anxiously at the prices current of cotton and railroad 
stocks, in order to learn each morning, whether you 
are bankrupt or not, and in the end, to fail, and com¬ 
promise with your creditors and your conscience, and 
sigh for your native hills. 
Or, perhaps, your party being in power, you would 
obtain a clerkship at Washington, and remove your 
little family from the north, to a more genial climate, 
to live at your ease, and grow rich on twelve hundred 
dollars a year! You give up your little farm, your 
New England privileges of schools and churches, your 
independentyand influential membership of parish, and 
district and town and church, the woods and play 
grounds for your children, your friends and kindred 
and home. Twelve hundred dollars is a large sum to 
you, half the price of your farm perhaps, twice the 
amount of the minister’s salary. With your habits of 
economy and thrift, you can live on half the amount. 
Your arrangements are to be made. The homestead 
is sold, and you ar e landless. After all, it is not so 
easy parting with our household gods. The trees our 
hands have planted take root in our hearts, the vine.s 
and roses, twined by our own fingers, and those of our 
loved ones, over rustic arbors, cling round us more 
closely than we thought. Your labor has been mingled 
with the soil of every field. Tears are in the eyes of 
your wife, at every thought of departing, but she trusts 
in your superior judgment, and no murmur escapes her 
lips at your decision. 
You have left your home. At the end of a single 
yea'r in “ the city of magnificent distances,” you have 
bitter realizations of the meaning of that phrase. It 
has proved indeed to be full of magnificent distances, 
for you, from happiness, from independence, from ad¬ 
vantages of every kind. For the first time, you have 
felt how sore a thing it is, for a northern freeman to be 
dependent, to labor at stated hours, at the bidding of 
a, superior officer, to feel that the office you fill, on 
which depend your very means of living, for yourself 
and family, is held at the arbitrary will of another, 
who may, if he please, make a servile conformity of 
your views with his own, on political or what you may 
deem moral questions, the condition, by which you re¬ 
gain your place. You, who'at home, had never seen 
the man who dared claim to be your superior, are 
forced to submit to the iron ride of caste, to send your 
card to the Secretary, whom you once knew perhaps as 
ah equal, and wait an hour, with the colored servant 
in the hall, to be told at last, to call another day—to 
be ^slipped over, or shaken off by the “member” 
whom you helped to elect, and who had now no further 
use for you ; and consume your energies in endeavor¬ 
ing to keep the toe of your boot from proximity with 
that part of his person, where his honor holds its seat 
—to be assessed to support party presses, whose princi¬ 
ples you may despise. In short, you have sold your 
manhood for an office, your birthright for a mess of 
pottage. But the half is not yet told, for the mess of 
pottage even, is not sufficient for your wants. Your 
salary is at starvation point. You must pay two hun¬ 
dred dollars for a house, with two parlors and a base¬ 
ment for servants, without a cellar, without a closet, 
without a pump or aqueduct, without a sink, or clothes- 
yard or garden. Your wife with the aid of a servant, 
cannot do the work so easily as she did it alone, at the 
north. All the water comes from the city pump a 
dozen rods off in buckets; the slops are poured into 
the street, your clothing is crammed into wardrobes, 
your supplies must be procured daily at market, in 
contemptible quantities—in short, everything, except 
the parlors, which are for show, and to make you seem 
respectable, must be richly carpeted and curtained, 
everything else is adapted to the idea, that labor is de¬ 
grading, and that the comfort and convenience of those 
who perform it, is not worth consulting. The thrift, 
and energy and comfort of northern households, is un¬ 
known in this latitude. 
Look now, at the prices of necessary articles of food. 
On your farm, however small, your cellar was always 
