Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1871-12-28
Union AND AMERICAN
FARM AND GARDEN.
LABOR IDENTIFICATION.

sand frugal, industrious, enterprising and
intelligent farmers, who will look to diver
siication of crops, and will strike hard, con-
slant and regular blows with the AK and
with the hoe, and not be ashamed to be
seen doing so. This is the kind of farming
that induces thrift, drives on the wheels of
progress, beauties the land and exchanges
the deformities occasioned by Incidence for
the comforts of industry. We have too
many thousand-acre farms, owned by men
who either have not the intellect or the in
clination to manage them-farms growing
up in broomsedge and briars, with rotting
fences and decaying houses, with gaping
gullies growing in size and depth-farms
managed and controlled by the ignorant
freedmen, whose hi CHEST ambition is TO have
money enough to run him through Christ
mas, and time enough to indulge in religious
excitements.
Such management denotes poor economy
among our landholders. Better by far for
themselves and the State to give to some
industrious working men large portion Of
their estate. To keep it idle and unpro-
ductive is to impoverish himself and to be
disadvantage TO the State.
II each one of these thousand-acre farms
SO managed, were divided into ten farms
well worked, supervised and controlled BY
the owners themselves, the State would
ho-,,,d F,rxro IA NTH ,au- l;fa pau bOnac
and new energy. All the muscle and mind,
and heart and will would then be brought
out with the most powerful and telling eff
feet. To reap the greatest effect from work
there must be the greatest incentive held
out for work. And there is much in race.
The brave Scandinavian who from time i'm
memorial has wrestled with the inclemen-
cies of climate and the sterility of soil, is
better prepared by custom, by inheritance
and by physical and mental qualities to
practice abstemious habits and economy,
better prepared to forego the enjoyments Of
society than the more effeminate Latin race.
Our preference then for farm work would
first of all be for the Swede, whose purity
OF morals and frugality of life soon make
him good citizen. Wherever they have
been well tried on farm, they have given
satisfaction. The next to be preferred for
farm labor is she Scotchman. A Scotchman,
though little intractable at times, and dis
posed to have his occasional "bouts," is a
farmer by nature and by absorption. "The
land of brown heath and shaggy wood" has
been ''meet nurse" for agricultural thought,
and the common people of that country have
more practical skill, combined with scientific
knowledge, about farming than any other
people on earth. Though the climate is for
the most part unfavorable to agriculture,
yet that branch of industry has attained a
. high pitch Of excellence not surpassed in
any country on the globe. The
truth is, necessity made the Scotchman
a good farmer. Though but threefourths
as large as Tennessee, and situated
In bleak and -inhospitable climate, with
sterile ranges of mountains occupying more
than half the country, yet notwithstand-
ing this, the yield of wheat in Scotland is
nearly 100000 of bushels greater than in
Tennessee. 1t raises 100000 bushels
more Of barley, 80, 100000 more bushels of
oats, nearly as MANY bushels of oats as our
State raised in corn twenty years ago. 1t
raises twice as many beans and peas, eight
times as many sheep, twice as many cattle,
four times as many potatoes, and all this
without half as much land in cultivation.
Ali members of the family work in Scot
land, from the toddling boy WHO asserts po-
tatoes 70 the bouncing lass who goes to the
harvest field singing looming through the
rye.' The Teuton with his national love
of s.the mist, the storm and the forest +"
comes next. The German is economical,
more SO than the Scotchman, but he is not
so well skilled in scientific agriculture. He
is conyivial and social by nature, fond of
displays and gaming. The stern Presby-
teriarism Of the Scotchman makes him
gloomy, hardeGs his will and eompels his
observance of the seventh day.
II is to Linn day Of worship
and Of self-Genial. To the German, it is
one Of rest aud refreshment. A colony of
Germans have more enjoyment, work more