Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1859-01-22
EPIGRAM.
WARM RECEPTION.
M | s c Z L L A N Y.
THOUGHTS AT THE PLOW.

We were thinking, the other day, Of the dig
nifty of the intelligent and industrious farmer
as painter and poet. But there is a higher
dignity than all that which attaches to his pro-
fesson and if he only appreciate it as he ought,
the sense of it should make him walk as erect,
and look the blue heavens in the face as proud
ly, as any man that walks the earth. Not that
any man should be proud, positively, or take
on airs on account of his occupation or posi-
ton, do we say this, or anything more than to
convey the idea that no industry to which hui
man hands were ever set, since the first pair
were made, is deserving of higher estimation
than that of the farmer. For of all the toilers
on this earthly ball. he stands in the closest CO.
partnership with Divine Providence, in its
realm of nature. The connection of all other
occupations is more remote than we mean by
the term secondary. To put this relationship
in commercial phraseology, the farmer is the
importer; the manufacturer, the .jObber; and
and the merchant the retailer, in the great
dealings with Nature or Providence, in the ma
terial world. That is a weak figure, too. That
will not do. Our pillow made balk there, and
we must go back and turn up the idea better
than all that. 1t was the fault of the soil, not
of the share Importer will never do in the
world as n comparison whereby to measure the
precedence of the farmer in the matter of hui
man relationships to Providence Importer
has mercenary sound and meanings he is one
who buys with more money, in the cheapest
market the fruits of others industry, and sells
them in the dearest, at a large profit. We
take back that figure. and apologize to the
farmer for putting it on his position. For lack
of a better term. then. we may call him the
senior earthly partner of Providence in the
governmental department of Nature. See
now the conditions of copartnership the capt.
tai which each invests in one summers CROP
There are one hundred acres of land thirty
plowable, thirty pasturage, twenty meadow, and
twenty woodland. The Creator might have
made that land bear stout crops of wheat, rye
corn, and potatoes, all of itself, without mans
help but he didn't and wouldn't; he conde-
scended to admit man to a partnership, in va
riegating the Verdurc Of those acres in cover
ing them with waving grain and yellow harvests
He would not let Nature work to the produc-
ton of any crops for human suStenance with
out the co-working of human sinews. The
wheel Of the seasons might turn forever, scat
tering rain and dews, light and heat, and every
terminating influence; but unless it was belted
on to mans industry, it would not turn out a
sheaf of wheat or loaf of bread. But see what
comes of the connection when pair or two of
hands and hoping hearts join their activities to
the revolutions of that wheel! How generous
ly Nature divides with man the honor and Joy
of the crop How she works with all the sub
lime and minute economies of the seasons in
this partnership of toll! The very shape of
the earth's orbit, and all its million-miled march
stages around the sun, as well the fine dew
distillcry of the evening sky, are brought to
bear upon the productions of those fields See
how the light and heat are graduated to the
growth of that fvc-acrc lat of corn; see the
temperature that nurses it into the blade, then