Daily union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1865-1866, 1866-06-24
THE AMERICAN FARMER.


There is no title in the English language
Of superior dignity to that of the American
farmer 1t is he who supports and sustains
the life of lis people. Without food man
cannot live, and without the precious pro-
ducts Of the soil there can be neither prosper.
ity, nor happiness, nor comfort, nor luxury.
He is the inevitable ultimate resource of
physical existence 20 mankind. From the
fields, the forests, the vineyards, the gar
dens and the meadows, the world derives its
bread and meat, and the tiller of the soil
most literally obeys the primal injunction
God in the decree that man shall eat his
bread in the sweat Of his brow
In many sections Of our country the farm
ers have been despoiled Of their fences, agri-
cultural implements, their stock and their
laborers. Yet our people have worked with
an energy and constancy that promises a full
restoration Of their fortunes. The farmer is
happy in time of peace, whatever may be
the price Of gold or the stagnation of trade
In his gamers and pastures he finds bread
and meat and piilk, and the flowers and the
hives will give him honey. For him Nature
does, directly, more than for any other.
While he sleeps, the dews and the rains de-
scend-the seasons recur and the teeming
soil, in due course, presents him with Plen-
tif1l returns for his toll.
The farmer has no cause. to despond. His
acres will remain in spite Of the tumult and
destruction Of merely temporal improve
ments Industry, guided by intelligent
thought, will restore again thewaste Of wars.
The very word by which we define the sum of
misery and -UdRdalima-wa de-
rived from the events Of a crusade of pillage
and desolation, which converted for hundreds
/ of years, the fairest and best of the then cul-
tivated portions Of the earth into a waste
and wilderness. That same land has again
seen the day of its second birth, and now
furnishes themes for pastoral songs, and
finds its happiest and best people in the per-
sons Of the tiIlers of the soil. Few years
will suffice for us to repair the damages OF
the late war. A few good crops, a reasona-
bic display of industry and frugality, and a
firm reliance on the Divine blessing, and
every honest toiler will realize again the
beatitude of n vine and fg-tree Of his own,
under which there shall be none who can
rightfully modest and make him afraid. II
money is scarce, and there seems to threaten
all sorts of dire calamities, still be patient,
and industrious, frugal, temperate and vir-
| tuous, and the dawn after the darkness will
soon appear Whatever may be the fate OF
others of different vacations, the planter is
secure and should be the last man to de-
spond, or succumb to temporarily adverse
circumstances. We are sure the agricultu-
rists of the South have come generally up to
the highest standard of duty and patriotism.
They have devoted themselves to the resto-
ration of ravaged fields, more than to the
schemes Of politicians, and the general herd
Of time-servers, who seek to fitch their
ism.
We beg leave in this connection to depart
from a heretofore uniformly observed rule
in this column, by announcing the revival
| of the publication of one Of the best Agri-
cultural Journals ever published in Ameri'
ca. "1Hc An,crioan Farmer" Baltimore
Md, and the first paper Of the kind evel
published in this country commenced by
JOHN S. SKINNER in the year 1919, and
universally read and admired in the Middle
and Southern States, for a great many years
In the beginning of 1862, it was suspended
| fc the reason that it was cut off from ia
readers and supporters. The new volume
and series commence with the coming July
In its regeneration, it thus speaks of the
past.
"Sad and dreary times to every humane
heart they have been; ruinous desolating
| deathfu to the best and the bravest-ther,
was no place for the work we had to do
Cur ways are the ways of peace; our coun
sells are for seasons Of quietness; our worl
is the work of Him, who made to grow on
Of the ground every plant that is 'pleasan
to the sight, and good for food whose pleas
ure it is that the earth bring forth her in
crease, and men made after His glorious i'm
age to multiply What had we TO do, then
! when the work of the day was not TO destroy
life only, but to break up all its spring
and sources when fields we're blasted anC
| store-houses and barns were burned, anC
fresides were desolated, and all science
and all knowledge, and all the mental re
sources and physical energies of a great PEG
pie, North and South, were devoted TO thu
one work of devastation and slaughter?
To meet again our ole
friends, we come with the feeling of one VIII,
visits the house Of mourning, when a cIae
death has struck down its best-beloved, or
desolating calamity has struck down it
earthly support. Our first thoughts can b.
those only of sadness and sympathy, like tn
friends Of the stricken old man, who cam,
to bemoan him, and to comfort him over al
the evil that the Lord had brought upol
him. Let us hope that as with him, the lat
ter end may be more blessed than the be
ginning :; that the seven thousand sheep
may ere long be fourteen thousand tn
three thousand camels' six thousacd, anC
the five hundred yoke Of oxen a thousan,
yoke For the young men who are dead
may Others soon grow to fill their places, an,
may the daughters be still like the daughter
Of the old man Of Uz, For in all the lane
no women were found so fair
We trust that the South may come baol
to its former prosperity with the same spiri
and with the speed hoped for by the "Amer
| icdn Farmer
THE PRESIDENT AND THE AMEND
| MENT.
! IT., p-,.;l,rt ~, Er;lov s.pt 4, T,nUras