Western Reserve chronicle. [volume] (Warren, Ohio) 1855-1921, 1871-10-25
{ From Woods Household 3Iagazinefor oct
FARMING AND MANHOOD.
BY HORACE GREELEY.


Reading Gail HamiltOnis article on
Rustic Simplicity" impels me to ask
whether or loving Father and Friend
has so ordered His creation that obedi-
ence to His commands makes US "eaF-
/ ly wrinkled, bent, bald, rheumatic
/ give US the 'hard, shrunk, shriveled
/ look, ~ DEGREES us to "beQueath to our
children diminished stature and en-
| feebled frames" Gail Hamilton saws
such is the fate Of 1.-THE actual, hard
working farmer" which most men
are and must be. My father was OF
this class, as my only brother is
so We're both my grandfathers, and
their ancestors, so far as j can trace
them. My paternal grandfather rais-
ed nine sons and four daughters, and
never was worth g, 600 in any one of
his "a years. My father was an unu-
sually hard worker, always farmer,
never worth g, 900, generally worth
from 0 up to $500; he died Sc years old,
and i've of his seven children survive,
from 80 to 49 years old. THE two ear
lest died in infancy.) My uncle John
born two years after my father, has
been farmer all his life; he is now 81
years old, but erect and vigorous; his
eye bright, and his voice as full and
ringing as most mems at so. He is
the last of the thirteen children of my
grandfather one only died of con-
sumption at thirty-thTee years Of age,
leaving six children, of whom fYe are
still with US the rest Of my fathers
brothers and sisters lived to be from
20 to so years old except one who died
at 30; and he was not an habituai
woFker. All the rest were farmers or
farmers wives-nOne of them oyer
rich; most of them quite poor; yet not
one of them all was prematureiy
''wrinkled, bent and BALD" not one
of them beqEeatbed to his children
land all of them had childrenl "di-
minished stature, renfeebled frames.n
Here is a large family of poor, and
generally hard working farmers, the
descendants of a race of just such, who
have lived by tilling the hard, rocky
soil of New Hampshire since the
year 1910. submit the facts in oppo-
sition to Gaips naked assertion. I
happen to be the only one Ofthe crowd
who might be called "bald." I was
more "bent" at 40 than my father or
his father at 20; and I am the only one
who earned his livelihood otherwise
than by farming.
But is farming hard work ?
To some, I think il Is. The very
poor have to take in this, as in other
pursuits, the toughest and hardest
tasks. TIE clear land of heavy timber,
or stone, or stumps, is hard work; and
IN farming, as in other pursuits, he
who cannot make his head available, G.
must do the more with his hands.-r
The negroes of Jamaica, accustomed
to tote" everything on their heads,
being supplied by their masters with
wheel-baTrows, lifted these with their
contents to the altitude of their thick
skulls and walked off with them. I
should not wonder If this made some
of them appear 'bent, Tor even bald;;'
possibly "rheumatien also, IfsO, they
suffered not from their addition to
tillGge, but from their lack of inteili-
genee-of brains.
My rural home is in a township set
tied by Quakers, and still mainly peo-
pied by them. Nearly all are farmers;
some poor, others in very comfortable
circumstances. / am confident they
do not average four fair days work
per week, and that not one among
the hundred or so is "wrinkled, ~
"bent" or "bald, /" by reason OF exees-
sive labor. doubt that there are five
men among them who work or work
ed so hard at so as do at go. Yet all
live comfortably, and most of than
are adding to their worldly storH-
Again:
When 1 was a farmers boy, lie
average of farm-work was harder, that
is it required more muscular exertion,
than il now does. Moving and reap
ing severely taxed the physical ener-
gies of the stOutest; and they were the
chief business of the two hottest
months of each year. Now, horses
NOV and reap, men simply guide
them. Hoeing corn, potatoes, etc.,
drew the sweat out of me profusely;
now, cultivation is mainly horse
work. In the West, a farmer rides in
his sulky, tilling his vast expanse Of
corn. l saw, last May, negro lads OF
"A years running thirty-hoTse engines
on the rich, ailuvial plantations of the
lower Mississippi, not merely plowing
but tilling crops of growing cane a
foot high. Negroes, lately slaves,
guiding the plOws and cultivatOrs,
which did far better as well as cheaper
work than horsepower ever did. /
have not doubt that nine-tenths of
the cultivation of the great valley will
be impelled by steam within the next
twenty years. In other words, steam
will do the work, directed by human
intelligence. And so fast as labor be-
comes Intelligent, will drudgery eea 5.
Biddy and Dinah will not use a wash
frnnr NuFh oh
their educated mistress will not work
without one. And so in other depart
ments. And now as to the city man
of rural birth, who islands erect, y
"walks elastic" is at peace with him
self and the world.
There are such, undOubtedly.-
Those who have achieved and sue
eeeded can afford it. But what pro-
portion do they bear to those who
have rushed into cities and failed.
have been here forty years, neither
thOughtless nor unObservant; and, in
my judgment, more eOuntry-bOrn
men have died here in prisons, hospi-
tails and alms-hOuses, in these forty
years, than have achieved even a
modest competence. And day after
day my soul sickens at the never
ending procession OF the multitude
who crawl on the knees of their spirits
to those who have achieved position
and means, with the Leggar's petition
"Please give me something to do" I
never knew man or woman to grOvel
for work while was farmers boy
in the country. lam sure Gail Ham
iIton did not mean to make my life
more care-fraught and sad than il
need be, by compelling me to say No
to more and yet more Of these abject
petitioners; yet that she has sdCne.