American citizen. [volume] (Butler, Butler County, Pa.) 1863-1872, 1864-09-28
Che, farmer's department,
GInrYing in the Goad,

tiiC tNAo iOi u tpii$ htiuii hiittNA+ -
say in the July number of the Atia@-
tic Monthly, evidently from the pen
of Donald G. Mitchell, author Of Ny
Farm Of Edgewood, who, himself a
farmer, is we'll qualified to write on
the subject. There are many things
in the essay that are not compliment
airy, but they will nevertheless be
read with interest, and are worthy of
thoughtful consideration.
1t appears from an essay in the
Report of the Commissioner of Agri-
culture for 1862, written by DIR. W.
w. Hall, that notwithstanding the
sylvan delights of lawn and bower,
and the exquisite delights of eating
your own hams, the largest class of
patients in Insane Asylums come
from the Jolly boys and their wives
and daughters. We learn also that
in spite of his ample larder, his free
dom from envy and carking care, the
farmer does not live so long as the
pale clergyman whose white hands
he looks upon with only not contempt.
x Three homes out of four.
according to his writer's estimate,
suffer from the ravages Of debt. If
you do not trust the testimony of
books, but will turn to living men,
you will scarcely fare better. One
man, whose recrcations have been ru-
raj, but his business civic, conducts
you through his groves and summer
houses, his stone barns and his lat
ticc cottages, but tcmpers your en-
thusiasm with the remark, that this
fancy farming is sowing ninepences
to reap sixpcnces. Relinquishing
fancy farms, you go to the practical
man swinging his scythc in his hay
field, his shirt sleeves rolled up above
his clbows,and his. .towsers tucked in
to his boots. He shows you the face
walls and the compost heap, the drains
and the resultant hay-cocks, with
measurable pride, but tells you at the
same time that every dallar he has
earned on that farm has cost him
nine shillings. This will never do.
A third farmer has inherited his
farm, not only without incumbrance,
but with money at interest. Under
his hands it wakes fat and flourish
ing, and sends to market every year
its twelve or fifteen hundred dollars
worth of produce. But you over
hear its owner telling his neighbor
that "it's Gains business, this far
ming make any man cross enough
to kill his brother ~ You find this
farmer racked with rheumatism,
though in the prime of ,life-bent
with the weight of years before his
time. He has lost his health just as
he has improved his farm, by work
ing early and late througe sun and
rain. x Everywhere you
fnd one song with variations. Far
mers and farmers wives are not in
love with their calling. The "smart-
est" of the children do not remain
at home to take charge of the farm,
unless impelled by sense of duty to
their aged parents, or lured by some
promise ofextraordinary recOmpense,
Everywhere the farmer finds farming
to be "a slave life, ga dogs life, -
delve all your days, and nothin' to
show fort" " hard scrapin to make
both ends meet, 1t is so mwield-
ly mode of applying means to ends
that, if you must believe him, every
quart of milk costs him six cents,
with the labor thrown in, while you
pay the milkman but five cents at
your own door; every dozen eggs
which he gathers from his own barn
he gathers at the rate of twenty
five cents a dozen, while you are pay
ing only twenty-five. And even
when both ends do meet, and rot on
ly meet, but lap over, you can scarce
ly find hearty cheerfulness and sun
shine, a liberal praise and unfeigned
ardor, cotagious delight in the soil
"Jolly boys in purple blouses may
drive plows around pitcher. but they
are rarely met withon the hillsides of
New England. If we may credit
DIR. Hall, they are quite as rarely
seen on the rich, rolling lands toword
the sunset.
Is this state of things inevitable
Farmers have very general belief
that it is. They not only plod on in
the old way themselves, but they
have no faith in the possible open
ing-up of any other way. Their sole
hope of bettering their conditions
lies in abandoning it altogether. If
one is superior to the other, if an on
ly son concentrates upon himself all
the parental affection, they do not
plan for him brilliant career in their
own line they do not look to him
to obtain distinction by some great
agricultural achievement, of discovery
of new laws or new combination of
old laws /; all their love and hopes
find expression in the determination
" not to bring him up to farming.
They "don' mean that he shall ever
have to work" Hard work and