The Council Bluffs nonpareil. [volume] (Council Bluffs [Iowa]) 1857-1867, 1858-10-30

The farmer is the Board Of Quarantine
He has not only the life bat the health of
others in his keeping. He is the capital Of
health as his farm is the capital of wealth.
And it is from him and his influences that
the worth and power, moral and intellectu-
al, OF the cities comes. The city is always
recruited from the country. The men in
the cities who are the centres Of energy, the
driving wheels in trade or politics, OF arts
or letters; the women of beauty and genius,
are the children or grand children of farm
ers, and are spending the energies which
their hard, silent life accumulated in frosty
furrow, in poverty, in darkness, and in ne
cessity, in the Summers heat and Winters
cold. Then he has universal factory. He
who digs and builds well and makes a
fountain, he who plants grove of trees
oy the roadside, who plants an orchard and
builds durable house, or even puts stone
seat by the wayside, makes the land lovely
and desirable, and makes fortune which
ne cannot carry with him, but which is USE
ful to his country and mankind long after
ward. The man that works at home moves
society throughout the world. If it be true
that not by the fiat of political parties, but
upon external laws of political economy,
slaves are driven out of Missouri. out Of
Texas, out Of the Middle States, out of Ken
lucky, then the true Abolitionist is the far
mer of Massachusetts, who, needless of
laws and Constitutions, stands all day in
the field investing his labor in the land and
making product with which no forced Ia
Dor can in the long run contend. The rich
man, We say, can speak the truth. 1t is the
boast that was ever claimed for wealth, that
it could speak the truth, could afford homes
ty, could afford independence of opinion
and action, and that is the theory of nobili-
ty. But understand this: 1t is only the
rich man in the true sense who can do this
the man who keeps his outgo within his
income.
The boys who watch the spindles in the
English factories, to see that no thread
breaks or gets eutaugled, are called mind
ers.' And in this great factory of our Co.
pernican Globe, shifting its slides of con-
stelasions, tides aud times, bringing now
the day of planting, now the day of water
ing, now the day Of reaping, now the day
of curing and storing, the farmer is the
'minder.' His machine is of colossal pro-
portions: the diameter of the water
wheel, the arms Of the lever, the power of
the battery, out of all proportions; and 1t
takes him longer to understand its abilities
and its working. This pump never sucks.
The screws are never loose. This machine
is never out of order. The piston and wheels
and tires never wear out, but are self-re-
pairing. Let me show you then what are
his aids.
Who are the farmers servants? Not the
Irish-Gold help him. No, but chemistry;
tho, Sh r.. a1-,& &b, ~
cloud; the winds that have blown in the in
terminable succession of years before he
was born; the sun which has for ages soaked
the lamp with light and heat, melted the
earth, decomposed the rocks and covered
them with forests, and accumulated the stag
nun which makes the heat of the meadow.
The students of all nations have in past
years been dedica,ing their education to uni
versal science, and they have reformed our
school books, and our terminology. The
four quarters of the globe are no longer Eu-
rope, Asia, Africa and America, but Car
bon, Oxygen, Hydrogen and Nitrogen. The
four seasons af the year are now Gravita-
ton, Light, Heat and Electricity. Science
has been showing how nature works in re-
gard to the support of marine animals by
marine plants. So nature works on the
land-on plan of all for each and each for
all. You cannot detach any portion of its
forces and retain perfect nature. The
fame of fire that comes out of the cubic
foot of wood or coal is exactly the same in
amount as the light and heat which was
taken in the sunshine in the form of leaves
and roots, and now is given out after hum
dred thousand years. Thu, lie in the farm
inexhaustible magazines. The eternal rocks
have held their oxygen and lime undimin-
ished and entire as they were. No particle
of oxygen can run away or wear out, but has
the same energy as on the first morning.
The great rocks seem to say, "Patient, wait
ers are no losers.' We have not lost so
much as spasm Of the power we received.
The earth works for man. 1t is ma
chine which yields new service to every ap
plication of intellect. Every plant is a
mandatory of soil. In the stem of the
plant development begins. The tree can
draw on the whole air, or the whole earth,
or the rolling main. The tree is all suction
pipe, imbibing from the ground with its
roots. from the air by its twigs, with all its
might. The atmosphere is an immense dis
tillery, drinking in the oxygen and the car
bon from the plants, and absorbing the
Juice of every solid on the globe. 1t is the
receptacle from which all things spring, and,
takes form and solid mass. Our senses are
sceptics, and only believe what is demon
stated to them-that these vast mountain
chains are made of gases and rolling wind.
They do not believe what is true; that one
half the rocks which compose the great
globe, every solid substance, the soils we
cultivate, are made up of animals and
plants, and invisible oxygen. Nature is as
subtitle as she is strong. Her processes of
decomposition and reconstruction night be
followed out in higher grades of existence,
rank into rank, to sentient beings. They
burn with internal fire which wastes while it
works. The great agencies work in man as
in all.
There is no porter like gravitation. who
will bring down any weight which you can
not carry, and if he wants aid, he knows
where to find his fellow laborers. Water
works in masses, and sets his irresistible
shoulder to your mills and your shops, or
transports vast boulders of rock thousand
miles. But its far greater power lies in its
capacity to enter the smallest holes and,
pores. By its agency the vegetable world
exists, carrying in solution the elements
needful to every plant. Water! That daily
miracle substance as explosive as gun
powder-the electric force contained in
drop of water being equal in amount to
that which is discharged from thunder
cloud. quote from the exact Farraday.
While the farmer has these grand fellow
laborers to assist him, and these majestic
tools to work with, it must be owned that
he is not quite competent to their direction.
His servants are sometimes too strong for
him. His tools are too sharp. But his in
equality finds its remedy in practice. Ex-
perence gradually teaches him, and he is
thoughtful. The farmer hates innovation;
he hates the hoe till he triesit, preferring to
scratch with a stick; he will talk till he has
tried the railway car; but the oldest fogies
among US, now that the Atlantic Cable is
laid, would hardly set out to dispatch let
ter across the ocean by swimming with it in
its mouth. While such great energies are
working for the farmer, he is also to recol-
lect the great power that is in small things.
1t is very little that is required. Its inter-