Saint Paul weekly Minnesotian. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1858-1859, 1858-10-16
Farmers and Farming--.Addrcss ol
Ralph Waldo Emerson.

! from all parties, more entire Soou VIII ina
this rural festival. Town and country, trade
and manufactures, church and laymen, sailO
and soldier. men and women, all have a
equal GOOD will, because an equal stake in tn
prosperity of the farmer. 1t is well with a
when it is we'll with him. He has no enc my
All are loud in his praise. Every wise Stat
has favored him, and the best men have he'll
him highest Cato said, when it was SAT-
that such Il man was good husbandman,
was looked upon as the very highest compl
ment.
Of all the rewards given by the Roman
to great public benefactOrs, the most valuet
and the rarest bestowed was the crown 0
Grass, given only by the acclamation of tn
army for the preservation for the whole army
by the faith of one man. Since the depend
cnce, not of the whole army, but of the who'll
State rests on the tiller of the ground wh
grows the grass, the crown should be NOR,
rightfully awarded to the farmer. Let u
then look at the condition of the farmer, o
the man with the hoe, at his strength anl
weakness, at his aids and servants, at hi
greater and lesser means, and his share i!
the greater future which opens before th'
people of this country
u
construct and to create. Let others borrow
and initiate, travel and exchange, and make
fortunes by speed and deXterity in selling
something which they never made but the
whole rests at last upon his primitive activi
ty. He stands close to nature; obtains from
the earth bread; the food which was not hi
has caused to be- And this necessity anC
duty gives the farm its dignity. All men fee
this to be their natural employment. The
first farmer was the first man, and all nObii
ty rests on the possession and use of tht
land.
Men do not like hard work very well bu
every man has an exceptional respect iOr til
lage and feeling that this is the original cal
ling of his race that he himself is only eX
cused from it by some circumstances which
may direct it for time to other hands. L
he had not some small skill which recon-
mendS him to the farmer, some product
which the farmer will give him corn for, hl
must himself return to his due place among
the planters of corn. The profession has its
ancient charm of standing close to God. He
who gives. Then think the piety, the tran
guilty, the innocence of the countryman, his
Independence and all the pleasing arts belong
ing TO him, the care of beast, of poultry, O
sheep, Of fruits, of trees, and its reaction on
the workman, in giving him strength and
plain dignity, like the face and manners o.
nature, all men are sensible.
All of us keep the farm in reserve as IN
asylum where to hide their poverty and then
solitude, if they do not succeed in society,"
Who knows how many remOrseful giances
are turned thus away from the competitions
tilying cunning of the Courts and the Scnatcs
After the man has been degraded so that he
has no longer the vigor 10 attempt active Ia
bor on the soil, yet when be has been poison
en- by town life and drugged by cooks, and
every meal Is a force pump 10 exhaust By
Stimulur the poor remainder OF his strength
he resolves "Well, my children, whom
have injured, shall go back to the land to be
recruited and cured by that which should
have been my nursery and shall u0w be then
hospital"
The farmer is a person of remarkable con-
ditions. Ills Office is precise and important
and it is Of no use to try to paint him in rose
color. You must take him just as he stands
Nothing is arbitrary or sentimental in his con
dition, and therefore one respects rather tn,
elements of his office than himself lie bend:
to the order of the seasons and the weather
and the soils, as the sails of the ship bend tC
the wind. lie makes his grains little, and by
hard labor. lie is slow person, being regu
lated by time and nature, and not by cit,
watches. He takes the best of the seasons
of the plants, and Of chemistry. Nature nev
er hurries, and atom, by atom, little by little
accomplishes his work
The lesson one learns in fishing, yachting
hunting, or in planting, is the knowledge q
nature; patience with the delays of mind ant
sun, delays of the seasons, excess of waite
and drouth, patience with the slOwness of OIL
feet and with the littlcncss of our strength
with the largencss Of sea and land. TIL
farmer, OF the man with the hoe, times him
self to nature and acquires that immense pa
tience which belongs to her. Slow, mar
row-man to wait for his food to grow. Lii
rule is that the earth shall feed him and fin
him, and in each he must be a graceful splcr
dor His spending must be a farmers spend
ing and not a merchants.
But though farmer may be pinched o
one side, he has advantages on the other
He is permanent; he clings to his land as tn
rocks do. Here in this town farms renal
in the same families now for seven or cigl
generations, and the settlers in 1885 hay
their names still in town; and the same gel
eral fact holds good in all the surroundin
towns in the county. This hard work wi
always be done by one kind of men; not b
professors, nor by readers of Tennyson, br
by men of strength and endurance.
The farmer has a great life, and gre;
appetite and health, and means for his enc
He has broad land in which to place his hom
He has wood to burn great. He has plent
of food. His milk at least is watercd. Il
has sleep, better and more of it than men
cities. But the farmer has grand trusts COZ
fided to him in the great household of III
ture.
The farmer stands at the door of ever
family and weig ghs to each their life. 1t
for him to say whether men shall marry
not Early marriages and the number
births are indissolubly connected with abu
dance, or as Burke said-''Man breeds
the mouth" The farmer is the Board
Quarantine. He has not only the life b1
lhe health of others in his keeping. He
the capital of health as his farm is the capi
al of wealth. And it is from him and his il
fluences that the worth and power, moral ar
intellectual, of the cities comes. The city
| dlNayS TeCTulteu IOIn Tic country.
The men in the cities who are the cente
Of energy, the driving wheels in trade or po
tics, of arts of letters the women of beau
and genius, are the children and grand-chil
rem Of farmers, and are spending the energi
which their hard, silent life accumulated
frosty farrow, in poverty, in darkness, and
necessity in the Summer S heat and Winter
cold. Then he has universal factory.
He who digs and builds well and max
stone foundation, he who plants grove
trees by the roadside, who plants an orcha
and builds durable house, or even puts
stone seat by the way side, makes the lal
lovely and desirable, and makes a 1ortu
which he cannot carry with him, but viii
is useful to his country and mankind 10
afterward. The man that works at hol
moves society throughout the world
fit be true that not by the first OF pol
cal parties, but upon external laws of poli'
al economy, slaves are driven out of Miss'
ri, out of Texas, out of the Middle States
Kentucky, then the true Abolitionist Is
farmer Of Massachusetts,, who, needless
IS laws and Constitutions, stands all day IN
mi