The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1871-11-18
FARM IND HOUSEHOLD.
What l Know About Farming.
BY GAIL HAMILTON.

an assertion which cannot prove. lSpoke
of the attraction of city life to country
folk, and contrasted the erect figure and
elastic step of the lad who went to the city
and made his fortune, with his premature
ly bald, bent, rheumatic comrades who
fought it out on the farm; and down comes
Mr.. Greeley upon me with regiment of
unoles, aunts, and grandfathers, all far
mers, all straight, smooth, hairy, and hun
dreds of years old, and marshals them "in
opposition to my naked assertion.
And cannot answer back. 1t is all very
we'll to bring on your bright-eyed, heavy
haired ancestry to compute and confound
your foes, but think of the she bears that
would come out of the woods to tear me in
pieces should go around among my kim
folk and acquaintance and say to one and
another eco up, thou bald-head. Go up
thou bald-head and shew thyself to Horace
Greeley, in proof of my veracity.' No, my
"naked assertion :" must still stand I'M
clothed upon, for I cannot afford to pay
the price of a wardrobe. Yet did draw
from life, not upon imagination. My paint
ing was a portrait, and no fancy sketch
My generalization may have been wrong,
but my observation was right-unless, in
deed, l am called on to prove it in court
of law, in which case l shall not only deny
that never made it
And no more than can prove my own
statements, can l disprove Mr.. Greeley's;
but can do the next best thing, and show
that they do not amount to anything. |
admit that his family are all as tall, and
hale, and old, as he represents, though |
have seen none of them. But | seen him.
Now, he says he is the {, bald est and the
| ''bent' est of the whole crowd, thinks he
works harder at sixty, than his farming
| friends did at thirty, with all his hard city
work and city care, he has a face like the
! full moon for roundness, and fairness, and
placidity, and his voice is the voice of tran
quillity, and his step is the step of abstrac-
| ton, undisturbed by hurry. When, there
| fore, he arrays his farming friends against
my farming facts, simply set his city face
against his city facts, and if that is not
victory, it is at least a dead lock We
| are just where we were when we started,
| for the Greeleys are all handsome together,
| and ruled out of court.
What Iknow about farming is that as it
| exists before my eyes. 1t is hard work and
| wearing work, and uncertain work-or
| rather uncertain wages. In the long run
| suppose man is as sure of getting live
| ing off farm as anywhere else, but he is
tolerably sure of not getting much more
| than living. In that sense. indeed, farm
| ing is certain work. Mr.. Greeley's own
| figures show this. If farmers are healthy,
| happy, and wise, of course it is immater-
| ial whether they are worth two thousand
| or two millions of dollars, but as things 60,
| the prospect of working hard for ninety
four years, and never have more than two
thousand dollars to show for it, is any
thing but an enchanting one. Mr.. Greeley
may sing idyls all his life, but his good,
calm face. his exalted position, and the ru
| mors of the fortune he has gained and saw
ed, and lost, will overpower his idyls, and
lure young life to the city with stronger
attraction than all the bright eyes and ring
ing voices, and slender purses of his high
land clan can counterfeit. 1t is no matter
how many fail. We do not see the failures
and we walk by sight We hear nothing
of the journals that die in their infancy,
We know only how VIGOROUSLY the Tri-
try paupers perishing in the city aims
house. We only see Horace Greeley call
ing no man master. We do not go up from
the country farms to be the ninety-nine
failures but the one success.
Of the fortunes of farming, compared
with those of other occupations, l am not
competent to speak. Indeed, the only way
in which l see how a person can ever be-
come rich, is by writing. There, you do
what you like, what you would rather do
than not what you would do any way, and
are paid ten times what it is worth, even
when cheated. You please yourself on
high wages. But to accumulate fortune
by making half cent profit on a pound Of
sugar, or yard of cloth, or a bushel of
potatoes, is rolling the stone of Sisphus.
And farming seems to have the steadiest
run Of unsteadiness. Wheat is up, and
your crop is down with a tornado. Next
year you have magnificent harvest but
so have your neighbors, and the price is
! nowhere. This year your whole farm rails
es three apples Last year the trees were
| loaded, and the market would not pay for
| transportation. The cranberries flourished
| like green-bay tree, but an early frost
nipped them in the green. The peaches
| and grapes promised well, and hail-storm
destroys the whole years growth. Hay is
| fifty dollars ton, but the drought has
| starved your fields. The marshes at last
| were fruitful but sudden north-easter
carried your hay-stacks out to sea.
But when Mr.. Greeley asks I" whether
| our loving Father and Friend has so Or
dered His creation that obedience to His
| commands make us early wrinkled. " and
so forth, say at once, No. But he has SO
ordered it that if we don't know how to
obey them wisely, we suffer just as much
! as if we refuse to obey them willingly. |
will not say that he has ordered us to till
the ground, but He has so arranged mat
| tiers that the one thing indispensable is to
till the ground. Therefore l firmly be-
lieve that farming must one day be profit
| able. 1t is indeed becoming SO. But in
| Of cosac II &c not 7 do not
deny that ignorance or thriftleness may be
the cause. l only say that farming is n
| work which requires so much more brains,
| science, skill, than many other occupations,
that ignorance is more fatal. think it re-
quires more shrewdness and sagacity, to be a
successful farmer than it does to be a sncr
| cessful shoemaker or tailor, and that the
| reason why farmers work harder than their
peers in trades, is not because they are less
| intelligent, but because their work is more
exacting. The Boy who is not bright
| enough to make new discoveries or inven-
tions in farming, may be bright enough to
| tend corner grocery, and too bright to be
| mere routine farmer. But if the corner
| grocery will tire Of him, and he is too
| proud or too laze to come back to the farm,
| don't let him 60 begging to MIR. Greeley and
| say l sent him. l scorn him | scorn any
one VINO Will WHINE Fdtnef Ildn WOTk.
never saw farming made easy or particu-
larly lucrative either to man or woman;
and neither stake nor scaffold shall force
me to say that l would not rather be sit
ting in my own library, writing for Wood s
Household Magazine, at hundred dollars a
word, than digging potatoes at dollar a
bushel, or churning butter at fifty cents a
pound. But if Mr.. Wood rejects my papers,
and refuse to dig or to churn, but join
"the never-ending procession of the multi
tude who crawl Oh the knees of their spir-
its, begging Mr.. Greeley to give them some
thing to do-why let him hand over page
of his own manuscript to each one to deci-
! pher, and see how quick the procession
will dispense - Woods Household Magazine.
FARMERS HELPING Each OTHER SAVE.
There is Farmers Club at Evanston,
ILL.,, which has an agent who contracts di-
rectly with manufacturers for such imple-
ments and tools as the members need, and
who also advises and assists in marketing
grain and produce. One of the members
of this Club asserts that more has been
| saved in this way in single season than it
will cost to belong to the Club a lifetime.
! He adds: =" 1t seems strange that farmers