The Highland weekly news. [volume] (Hillsborough [Hillsboro], Highland County, Ohio) 1853-1886, 1858-12-30

tual, less cultivated grandfathers. It il
the most melancholy feature of oui
present condition, that very few of oui
bright, active, inquiring, intellectual
youth are satisfied to grow up and set.
tie down farmers. After all the elo.
quence of poetry that has been lavished
upon the farmers vocation-its indie.
pendence, its security, its dignity, It's
! quiet, its happiness-there are not many
decidedly clever youth, even in the
households Of farmers, who are doliber-
ately choosing the farmers calling as
| preferable to all others. Hundreds
drift or settle into Agriculture because
they cannot acquire professional train
ing, or because they hate to study, or
because they cannot get trusted for a
| stock Of goods, or for some one of a
hundred other such reasons; very few
because they decidedly prefer this life to
another
Advertise in the same papor to-mor-
row for a clerk in a store and for a man
to work a farm, the wages in each case
being the same and you will have TWEEN
ty applications for the former place to
one for the latter This fact argues a
grave error somewhere; and, as l don't
believe it is in human nature, nor in
that Providential necessity which re-
qUires most of us to be farmers, I
must believe it is to be detected in the
arrangement and conditions under which
farm labor is performed. We must
study out the defect, and amend it.
When the rural neighborhood shall
have become more social, and the farm
er's home more intellectual-when the
best books and periodicals, not only Az
ricultural but others also, shall be found
on his evening table, and his hired men
be invited to profit by them-the gener
al repuguance of intellectual youth to
farming will gradually disappear.
Nor can l refrain from insisting on
the beOutifying of the farmers home
stead as one of the most needed reforms
in our Agricultural economy. We
Americans, as a people, do less to rem
der our homes attractive than any other
people Of equal means on earth. And !
for this there is very much excuse.
We are "rolling stones" which have
not yet found time to gather any very !
graceful moss. We are on our march |
from Western Europe to the shores of
the Pacific, and have halted from time
to time by the way, but not yet settled.
That sacred and tender attachment to
Home which peryades all other human
breasts, has but slender hold upon US
There are not many of us who would
not sell the house over his own head, if
we were offered good price for it. Not
one-fourth of us now live in the houses
in which we we're born; not half of us
confidently expect to die in the homes
we now occupy. Hence we cannot
plant trees, and train vines, and set
towering shrubs, as we might do, if we
had, in the proper sense of the word,
Homes.
But we ought to have homes-we
ought to resolve to have them soon. 1 i
would say to every head Of a family,
else you may do or forbear to
10, select your home forthwith, and re-
Iolvo to abide by it. Let your next
move, if move you must, be inAexibly (
your last. I would say to your youth, h
never marry, never fix upon any place
If abode or occupation, until you shall /
lave selected your home. IF you will
lave it in Oregon or California, so be it:
,ut fix it somewhere, and so soon as
nay beat least before you form any
,ther ties that promise to be enduring. \
Though it be but hut on q patch of S
arth, let it be your fixed home ever S
more, and begin at once to improve and i
Ieautify it in every hour that can be '
pared from more pressing avocations
nd needful repose. So shall your later ]
ears be calm and tranquil--so shall /
GU realize gnd diffuse the blessedness i
,hich inheres in that sacred temple,
Iomel {