Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1845-05-30
From the New England Family Magazine
THE ENGLISH FARMER

There are few things which give one such feel
ing of the prosperity of the country as seeing the
country people pour into large town on market
day. There they come, streaming along all the
roads that lead to it from the wide country round
The foot-paths are filled with hardy and homely
succession of pedestrians, men and women, witt
their baskets on their arms, containing their butter
eggs, apples, mushrooms, walnuts, nuts, cderber.
ries blackberres, bundles of herbs, young pigeons
fowls, or whatever happens to be i'll season. There
boys and girls, too, similarly loaded, and also
baskets of birds nests in spring, cages of young
birds, and old birds, baskets of tame rabbits, and
punches of cowslips, primroses, and all kinds OIL
flowers and country productions imaginable. The
carriage-road is equally alive with people riding
along; farmers and country gentlemen, country
clergymen, parish overseers, and various other per-
sonages, drawn to the market-town by some real OF
imagined business, are rafting forward on horse
back, or in carriages of various kinds pips and
spring-carts, and carts without springs There arc
carriers wagons, and covered carts without end
many of them showing from their open fronts whole
troops of women snugly seated while their dogs
chained beneath, go struggling and barking along,
pushing their heads forward in their collars every
minute as if they would hang themselves This in
the morning; and in the afternoon you see them
pouring out again, and directing their course to
many tar-oH hamlet and old -fashioned abode
But there is a wide difference between coming in
and gong out. The wagons and carts 90 heavily
and soberly, for they are laden with good solid
commodities, groceries and draperies, mops, brush
es, hardware and crockery newspapers for the pol
iticions, and sundry parcels Of teas, sugars and
soaps, and such ct ceteHs, for the village shops
but the farmers go riding and driving out three
times as fast as they came in for they are PINNED
with good dinners and strong beer They have
Chartered, and smoked, and talked with the great
graziers and the great contractors and their horses
full of corn, too, and away they 60 in tours and
fives, filling the whole width of the road and rails
ing dust if there be the least dust to be raised,
or making the mud fly in all directions; away they
CO. talking all together while their horses are tro
ting Mt such pace, as, one would think, would
shake the very teeth out of their heads. The So
Der foot-people, who are trudging homeward more
sobery than they came, say, as they fly past " One
woul MT think times were bad neither" And the
carriers hold their horses heads as they rush past
and smiling significantly, say just as they are gone
past-"W Well done, my lads that IS it 20 it, nv
lads goit 70 rden, though your horses 90 a-foot u
There is no class of men, if times are but toler-
ably good that enjoy themselves so highly as farm
ers. They are little kings. Their concerns arc
not huddled into corner, as those of the town
tradesman are. In town, many man who turns
thousands of pounds per week, is hemmed in close
by buildings, and cuts no figure at all. narrow
shop, contracted warehouse, without an inch Of
room besides to turn him, OH any hand; without q
yard, stable, or clubhouse ofsny description; per-