Clearfield Republican. [volume] (Clearfield, Pa.) 1851-1937, 1860-11-14
November.

IT'S easy to resign toilsom place,
But not to manage leisure with grace;
Absence Of occupation is not rest,
mind quite vacant is mind distressed
Tho veteran steed his task excused at length
In kind compassion Of his failing strength
And turned into the park or mead to Craze,
Exempt from future service all his days,
There feels pleasure perfect in its kind
Ranges at liberty and snutfs the wind
But when his lord would quit the busy road,
To taste joy like that he had bestowed,
lie proves less happy than his favored brute,
life of ease difficult pursuit.'-CowP
The only period of rest in the circle of
the farmers year is now at hand period
of enjoyment, but also one of peril. The
business of cultivation-the appropriate
occupation Of the husbandman is done.
He has passed through the pressing cares
OF seed time and tillage, the Joys of the
early and latter harvests, and has wel>
coined the last of his crops 10 the barn
and the granary. His store-houses are
full, and the f1ocks and herds now live
upon the accumulated provisions OF the
summer. The last Of the flowers has
'aded, and the frosts have turned field
ard forest to a russet brown The leaves
that pu: on such gorgeous coloring in
October, are now either changed to -
sombre hue, or fallen, leaving the forest
bare and desolate. The skies have lost
the roseate hue of summer, and begin to
look chill and wintry. The weather is
iitiul, and every sunny day is succeeded
by cloud and storm.
In the olden time farmers accomplished
very little after the potatoes and turnips
were gathered, and the cider was made.
until the opening of the Spring. At
home, the cider barrel had its potent
temptations, and abroad, the village tav-
ern and grocery held out their allurements
to drinking and dissipation. The country
was new, tho soil fertile, and the farmer
did not feel the necessity Of those i'm
provements which prepare the way for
successful cultivation. Draining had hard
ly been heard of, and the muck mines had
not been opened. He fed his cattle, pre-
pared his fuel for the winter fire, marketed
his crops, and the rest of his time ran to
waste. At this season he visited his
} friends, enjoyed their hospitaities, and
too often contracted their drinking habits
} and prepared the way for debauchery and
ruin. 1t was the most perilous period oi
the year, because he had not learned how
to improve its leisure.
We are so constituted that we cannot
enjoy idleness. This may satisfy the toll
| worn brute, as he quits the yoke or the
: cart, and regales himself in fat pastures
, lie knows nothing better than the gra.iti
cation of his appetite for food But man
cannot be satisfied while the best part q
him, that which constitutes his manhood
, 1,ac Tho IL ,,,,,rt
tion of some kind, and the release from the
more pressing cares of cultivation at this
season, should only induce higher activ,
ity of the mind.
1t is indeed we'll to employ portion oi
this leisure in visiting friends and rela
tives, and in keeping alive the sympathies
and associations of earlier years Some
. are so situated in their business, that this
is the only time when they can return TO
the old homestead to look again upon the
familiar scenes of childhood, and to
receive words of blessing from father and
mother. These social reunions at the
annual Thanksgiving, are worth all they
cost, and more. tt ere is reviying in
fluence in going back again to the old
hearth-stone of childhood's home; the old
wei, and its oaken bucket, the ancestral
trees gathering new glory with their in
creasing years, the garden, the orchard
the fields. the forests where our eyes first
opened upon the world. The farmer Is
made better citizen and a better man by
thus cultivating his social nature, and
keeping alive the ties that bind him to his
kindred.
These annual visits are also profitable
for his business, as they afford opportuni
ties for observation. Farming is nc
, longer stereotyred business. One can
hardly visit the most limited and obscure
rural district without seeing abundant
evidence that the leaven of new ideas is al
work. The tillers Of tho soil are getting
out Of the old tracks Of the fathers, and
are beginning to use mind in theiY hus-
bandry, The barn is no more nero dc.
pository of the harvests of the field. 1t is
q mandatory of fertilizers, the one thing
needful in profitable tillage 1t is the
great hinge on which everything in the
operations of the year turns. Barns are
now profitable study, to learn hcw
practical farmers contrye to shelter all
, their cattle, and to make the most Of then
manure. The pillow has become tool
|, constructed upon scientific principles
turning the furrow with the least expen'
diture Of strength, and making it broad
or narrow. deep or shallow, and laying the
, slice fat, or at a sharp angle with the sur
face of the field, at the will of the plow'
/ man. Tools have become prime neces
sity of economical cultivation, and The
) strength of the OK and the horse is mor'
and more taking the place of human
sinews. No man. can observe the different
, methods of farmers in their business