Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1858-10-28
Emerson on Agriculture,

Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered ali address
at fair in Massachusetts few weeks since
from which we take the following interesting
condensed report;
The subject of the Address may be stated
thus: The condition Of the farmer--his
strength and weakness, and his share iu the
great future which opens before the people Of
this country. In remarking upon it he said
that all nobility rests on Agriculture. Men
do not like hard work, but they respect tillage.
IF man has not some skill that he can sell
to the farmer for corn, he must in the end
take his place among the planters of corn II
men do not succeed in society they retire to
the'farm,
The farmer is person of remarkable con-
ditions. You cannot paint him in rose color
you must take him as he is. He bends to
the seasons as the ship sails to the wind. He
represents continuous hard labor, year in and
year out-accumulates by small gains. If
he is pinched on one side, he has advantages
on the other. He is permanent and stable.
This hard work will always be done by one
kind of men-not be spectators, by readers
of Tenayson He has good things-his milk
is unwatered. He has great trusts confded
to him. He stands at the door Of the eating
room, and weighs each lnan his loaf He
says whether men may marry or not. He
sustains the city. The women of beauty are
children and grandchildren of farmers The
man who works at home, as general rule
helps the world more than he who goes abroad,
in charity.
Who are the farmers servants? Not the
Irish' (God help him, but geology-the sea-
sons, the rains, the SHOWS, the old primitive
time-making peat bogs before the farmer was
born, gravitation, heat and electricity. Ma
ture ties up her estate like cautious testator
never expanding it on one generation. The
rocks say that patient walters are no losers.
The coal which we burn is only so much light
and heat taken in from the sunshine hun
dred thousand years ago. We have not yet
learned that the rocks have come from the
winds Nature turns her capital all of the
time. 1t is almost impossible to push the
line of thought up into the higher gencraliza
tion,' but these great HELP ers are found for
'AAS 'tsAiiiSi' ~ ihuo w acknowledged Jual
these servants are sometimes too sharp for
the farmers
But the farmer is conservative. He is no
innoyator He will not use hoe till he has
seen one, and then he will no more use his
hands. Nature has great secrets which she
imparts to no man. He feeds his plants on
old bones, as dead dogs, but the luscious peach
never will whisper as to where it obtained its
blush. Another secret is just out The Sc
..lectmen of Concord every five years, peram-
buate the town and take valuation ofall its
acres, but of late we have found second
Concord underneath this old Concord. We
are getting at it by subsoiling. We have a
second Massachusetts beneath the old Com
monwealth which We shall get at by the
drain, tile and subsoil pillow.
The orator hire spoke at length of English
social life, and congratulated the farmers be.
fore him for being set Gown in so good place,
also that they were born in such good time
when the pillow has taken the place of the
sharpened stick. Henceforth if thing i,
desirable, it is possible: and henceforh il IA
thing is desirable for one to do it is for all