Burlington tri-weekly hawk-eye. [volume] (Burlington [Iowa]) 1852-1855, 1855-01-25
MAKE Farm LIFE ATrRAcTIyE.

Why do your young men run, as by some
uniyers i instinct, from the farm, where they
were born, to the city, where they so often
learn to wish they had not been born any
where? Chiefly, whatever explanation they
NAV put forward rs having handsomcr look
chiefly because on the farm tEere is sup
posed to be an inevitable doom to hard, mo-
Dotinous, wearing bodily toll, from daylight
till shutdown, life through, with no room for
mental expansion, or generous tastes, or So
cill recreation; and, secondly, because, af
ter all this labor, the farmer makes too little
money Nor will my faith in young mems
natures snffer me to believe this is always q
sordid calculation with them. For, think
ing of money, they think OF it oftener as u
means than an end. They want it for what
it brings. On the farm very frequently, are
rooms without books, walls without pictures.
manners without grace, clothes without fit
ness, grounds without shape or decoration
On the contrary, the city merchant buys a
library and works of art, sends his children
to schools where they learn to move with ell
egarce as well a. to cipher and purse, gets
garments that are finer and fit, and is not SO
exhausted, physically, at nightfa.l, as to pre-
fer sleep to any company or booA. lie comes
back into the country and lays out a beautiful
estate, sometimes with stateli,r AM nails, and
selecter fruits, and tider fences and hedges.
and more blooming gardens on it, than his
n.ighbor, who has all the while been staying
there and making farming th, busi ess Of lis
life. Now, 1t would be Il hard task in per-
suaslon to convince most young men that
these things are not good, not desirable, and
that the dollars which command them are not
OF the nature of an aiyanage. | confess |
should be a bad subject for such persuasion
myself. Besides, these things are all Of the
naturc Of pictnrc-work; the boy cannot help
>eeins them; they work upon him while he
stops on his way from pasture under the fra
grant shruhbery, Or peeps through the pickets
at the mellow peaches and pears.
j know perfectly how apt his sanguine
blood, and his ignorance Of the ninety odd
failures in city for every single success, are
to put fallacy into his plans and cheat his
choice. Bat none the less is it true, that he
goes to the city for chance, though but a
chance, for certain means Of refinement, lib
erality, and width in the whole style OF life
such as scarcely any farmer, in the old way
Of farming, has displayed. Who ever knew
conf 'ent and chivalrous youth to doubt he
should be one of the five that succeed, though
five hundred fail? And, moreover, many
young men at that aspiring period of life,
before the charm and glory Of early IDEAS
have faded oil, thirst homes ~ for more slim
ulus o mental action, more charging minis
tri 5 to thought, than they have found in ru-
raj places. This they dream of find ny in
the pressure of crowds and the sharp colls-
ions If traffic. Perhaps they dream delusons;
but this is the feeling. Depend upon it, if
you uld mold your sons and brothers back
from roaming away into perilous centeis, you
must steadily IN k. thrAe attempts-to abatc
the ttskwork of farming, to rise maximum
crops and profits, and to surround our work
with exhiiarations of in ellrctual pro gress.-
You must elevate the whole spirit Of your
voc ton, for your vocation's sake, till no
other can oulstrip in what most adorns and
strengthens civilized state.- Address Of
Rev. ID. Huntington, before Norfolk, Mass,
Agricultural Society, 1853.