Kenosha tribune & telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1856-1859, 1859-02-24
rne Farmer aud his Life.

~@AN "a AVA o%0N Ills AJllE.
Some time since, Ralph Waldo En-.
erson delivered an address before 9
county agricultural society 1t does
not read much like the ordinary produc.
lions of that character Hear how the
sage diScourses upon the farmer and
the farmers life
The farmer is person Of remarkable
conditions. His office is precise and
important, and it is Of no use to try to
paint him Ill rose color. You must
take him just SIS he stands. Nothing
IS arbitrary or sentimental in his condi-
ton, and therefore one respects rather
the elements of his office than himself.
He bends TO the order of the seasons
and the weather and the soils, as the
sails Of the ship bend to the wind. He
makes his gains little by little, and by
labor. He ~ slow person, being req
ulated by time and nature, and not BY
city watches. He takes the best of the
seasons, of the plants and Of chemistry.
Nature never hurries, and atom by
atom, little by little, accompliShes her
work.
The lesson one learns in fishing,
yachting, hunting, or in planting, is the
knowledge of nature; patience with
the delays of wind and sun, delays of
the seasons, excess of water and drouth,
patience with the slowness of our feet
and with the littleness Of our strength,
with the largeness Of sea and land
The farmer, or the man with the hoe,
times himself to nature and acquires
that immense patience which belongs
to her. Slow, narrow mamie has to
wait for his food to grow. His rule is
that the earth shall feed him and find
him, and in each he must be q graceful
spender. His spending must be farm
er's spending, and not a merchants.
But though q farmer may be pinched
on one side, he has advantages on the
other. He is permanent; he clings
to his land as the rocks do Here in
this town farms remain in the same fam
lilies now for seven or eight generations,
and the settlers of 1875 have their
names still in town; and the same gen.
eral fact holds good in all the surround
ing towns in the county. This hard
work will always be done by one kind
Of men-not by scheming spectators,
not by professors, not by readers of
Tennyson, but by men of strength and
endurance.
The farmer has great life, and a
great appetite and health, and means
for his end. He has broad lands in
which to place his home. He has wood
to burn great fires. He has plenty of
plain food. His milk at least is not
watered. He has sleep better and
more Of it than men in cities. But the
farmer has grand trusts confded to him
in the great household of nature. The
farmer stands at the door of every fam
lily, and weighs to each their life 1t is
for him to say whether men shall marry
or not. Early marriages and the mum
Der of births are indissolubly connected
with abundance, or as Burke said
"Man breeds at the mouth. "The farmer
is the Board of Quarantine he has not
only the life but 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 intel
lectual, of the cities comes. The CITY
is always recruited from the county,
The men in the cities, who are the cen
tres of energy, the driving wheels in
trade, or politics, or arts, or letters-the
women of beauty and genius-are the
children or grandchildren of farmers,
and are spending the energies which