47 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
man who is worth nothing himself, gets into busi¬ 
ness by the aid of endorsements from his friends; 
soon, through them, his credit is established, and 
others aid him; his friends then withdraw their 
aid. He gets the name of having business abili¬ 
ties, which generally means, according to strict 
truth, that having nothing to lose himself, he dash¬ 
es away hap-hazard, at buying, and selling, and 
speculating. If he makes, all is well; if he loses, 
and a failure is inevitable, he gets his creditors to¬ 
gether and makes the best settlement he can for 
himself, and then goes on again with his business, 
as if nothing had happened. If this man of trade 
lived in a two story house before his failure, but a 
few years roll round ere he gets into one of three 
stories; but after being so fortunate, does he scarce 
even think it worth while to settle up his old ac¬ 
counts, that haffe been cancelled by a release from 
his creditors, to enable him to go on with his bu¬ 
siness? We say seldom— so seldom that a man 
who does it is a marked man; marked for his hon¬ 
or and integrity —and fora deed which is only one 
of common honesty, he is made the recipient of 
silver pitchers or an elegant gold watch. And 
then, when a gr'eat panic comes, and a general 
blow uv, arising from everybody trying to get 
rich too fast, men are despatched to Washington, 
and the state legislatures, to legislate how debts 
can be got rid of; and bankrupt laws, &c., come 
into existence to meet the great emergency. 
I well know that there are many high-minded, 
honorable men engaged in business. We wish to 
wage no war on men, but simply refer to facts 
which any man may satisfy himself of by looking 
around him. 
Let us now turn to the position of the farmer. 
His operations are confined to a small compass— 
his capital and labor bring him but one dividend 
annually. He has no opportunity to speculate in 
stocks or real estate, even if he felt the disposition 
to do so. The merchant, the lawyer, the doctor, 
have chances for these things if they wish to avail 
themselves of them, and they do so in numerous 
instances, but the farmer has nothing of this kind 
to fall back upon. His sphere is labor. He ful¬ 
fills the commandment of earning his bread by the 
sweat of his brow. If he wants money, he must 
give ample security—bonds and mortgages are 
principally required from him. Let him but prove 
unfortunate, he cannot pay 25 or 50 per cent, and 
then go on again with his business, but foreclosure 
and sale come; he must give up all and seek some 
other way of getting his livelihood. But there is 
another difficulty of no small magnitude, which 
the farmers have to contend with who live within 
marketing distance of large cities, where land is 
usually high, and consequently more capital must 
be invested in farming operations, namely, the 
fact that too many people live out of them. Now, 
we are willing that all mankind shall live, but we 
do not feel exactly willing that they shall live out 
of us, demanding, as they do, the lion’s share. 
What we mean is simply this: we send produce 
to New-York city by the boats, railroads, &c.; 
the produce is bought there by various indi¬ 
viduals, and it is sold again in turn by them. It 
thus passes through several hands before it gets to 
the consumers; so that a barrel of apples, for ex¬ 
ample, which brings the former but 75 cents at the 
boat, is sold in the market for $1.50. Consumers 
in the city think the farmers are obtaining great 
prices for their produce, and must be coining mo¬ 
ney, little thinking that men with perhaps not $200 
in the world invested in their business, and mere¬ 
ly the trouble of buying and selling, are standing 
between them and the farmers, and are making a 
greater profit than the farmer, who labors, hard 
and has a capital of several thousand dollars in¬ 
vested in his business. Such evils could be cor¬ 
rected without much difficulty, and without in- 
fringment upon the rights of any man—and they 
should be. 
Too much hard work for the money earned, is the 
general cry against farming; and there has been, 
in days past, and still is much truth in it. Let 
any man spend some time in an agricultural dis¬ 
trict, and see the labor of men, women and child¬ 
ren, and we feel sure he will be disposed to join 
the cry; but we hope for improvement in this re¬ 
spect. Farmers are becoming better educated than 
they have been, and with education will come 
wants and tastes to be gratified; and with educa¬ 
tion, too, will come the ability to gratify those 
wants. We do not mean to say that we ever ex¬ 
pect or wish to see the time come when farmers 
will desire to live according to the fashionable 
mode of- living in our large cities, but we do de¬ 
sire and pray for the time to come when they will, 
as a mass, be educated with the manners and feel¬ 
ings of true gentlemen, possessing, too, the learn¬ 
ing and ability to make their wants known, and to 
demand the rights which belong to them as owners 
and occupants of the soil of this vast Republic. 
We would see farmers not lords of the creation in 
name, while they are truly slaves in deed, but ele¬ 
vated to their proper position. It can be done— 
it must be done. We feel that now is the time to 
press this matter upon the attention of the farm¬ 
ers. The movements for our benefit must origi¬ 
nate with us; certainly no other class of men will 
undertake them for us. A convention of farmers 
called to meet at Albany, at some future day, 
when no other business would be before them to 
distract their attention, Avould be productive of 
