Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1872-09-25
"what I Know About Farming"


crossed the Connecticut on the ice, in the win
ter Of ls2O.2l, seeking opportunity to earn
my bread by helping to till the soil OF Vermont,
this state contained some 225, 600 inhabitants
or 1OO0 600 less than her present number. Bul
the intervening ball-century has witnessed
signal multiplication and growth Of her cities
and villages, her quarrying aud her manuiac-
lures, so that it is probable that those who
live by agriculture in this state are hardly
more numerous, and may even be fewer, il
1872 than they were in 1921. The area Of
her cultivation is doubtless larger and her an.
nual harvests more bounteous, while these
command far better prices in 1872 than in
1921 but very much work formerly done in
the field has been practically transferred to
the workshop and the factory the moving
machine and the hoTsc-rake shortening as well
as tightening the husbaudman's toll 10 the
meadows, but trebling the cost Of the imple.
mcnts by means Of which he fills his barns
that is, transferring labor from summer to
wintor--from the FIELDS to the shop--from the
quiet, sow.moving, rural township to the
busting village. And yet the fact remains
that agriculture is not advancing in this State
that, when compared with other industries,
it,seems to be retrograding. Absolutely, its
rewards are greater than my early boyhood
relatively, they are accounted far less. OF the
more intellectual, capable, aspiring youth of
your state, Iappreheud that but small pro-
portion choose aud follow the farmers voca.
cation and judge that this proportion is
still diminishing | cannot be mistaken in my
assumption that no more than a moderate per-
- 10 Nor,,opN hove fa-1aef fovapaozt
in school or seminary are expecting and aspir.
ing to be farmers, even when agriculture il,
or was, their fathers vocation; and Of this
minority, the larger number purposes to pur-
sue that calling elsewhere than upon the hills
or in the valleys Of their navive state.
Far be it from me to deprecate, since did
not resist, the constant, silent irrepressiblC
Impulse which has led and is leading so many
Of the sons and daughters Of Vermont to seeE
employment and homes elsewhere than upoI
her soil. II was best neither for them io
our country, nor for mankind, that all to whom
this state has given birth should have clunI
obstinatey, persistently like barnacles, to tn
spot where they first began to be. | have beei
widely misrepresented as urging every one L
Ego West, when give such counsel only t
those who cannot find satisfactory work an,
adequate bread in the East. If you have o
can secure all you need where you are ad
wise you not to 4" 90 West nor go anywhere
but remain where you are; for pioneer lif
is rugged and toilsome at best, involving year
Of prevalent hardship and privation. 1t i
hard for men, it often proves too hard for wo
men, to find themselves suddenly transferred
from a snug, warm cot, costly nestled anon
these hills, with the school-house, church
store, mills, etc, within easy reach, to a rud
cabin Of logs or rough boards, located on
bleak western prairie, where everything seem
10 the unfamiliar eye coarse, ungenial, repul
sive. Time softens the harsh outline, reveal
ing beauties and advantages which replace, i
greater or less degree, those which were re
linquished by removal but when every miti
cation, every offset has been fairly consider
ed, the wrench given TO the affections of ever
the humblest New-Englander by migration t.
the West is great and perious ordeal SC
that inconsistencies has killed many loving
wife and mother who bravey consented, for
her children's sake, to be torn up by the roots
and transplanted to Illinois or Iowa, whose
attractions, great as they are, could never
the green hills amid which her childhood wa
Graded. | do believe in going West but
cannot recommend it to any who have passeC
the meridian of their days; and | deem it,
undeniable privations more lightly regarded
more easily borne, by young couples just set.
ting out TO traverse arm-in-arm alik the
fowery and the thorny by-ways of life than
by almost any others.
| have not ment to deny that the last half.
century has witnessed progress in the agrieul
ture of this state and | do not cite the fact
that whereas formerly she grew her wnbread
grain and somewhat more, she now buys tn,
greater part of it, as discreditable If she car
make her bread cheaper by grazing than b,
plowing-by selling wool and butter than by
growing wheat and rye-so be it. But wher
recall to mind the intermnable procession
ofwagons laden with wheat of your north
western counties that used to pass on thei
way to market at Troy or Albany, down tn
turnpike in Westhaven beside which | wa
cutting brush and burning logs fifty year
ago, and consider that the very fields on whic
that wheat grew luxurianty would now yiel
but half a crop, and that precariously | hall
and ask whether that can be good farming
which disqualifes land for producing the yer
staff Of life.
But " the insect"--the weevil, nudge, @
hy-I hear it said, has stopped the growth
wheat in New England. l do not admit tn
apology. ] regard the alleged cause of fai
ure as itself an effect Of bad husbandry.
may not be able--nay, | am not able-to trac
the evil to its ultimate source; bat find
clew to that source in fact related to IN
from his personal observation by the late Go,
William f. Packer Of Pennsylvania. Said he
81 am familiar with the narrow valley Of on
oil the pretty tributaries OF the Susquehanni
up the middle Of which highway ran 70
forty years, with narrow field in cultivation
on either side AT length the road was throw
up, and the entire width of the valley road
way included, became one field, which wa
sown to wheat. AT harvest-tme, there wa
good, sound grain for the full width of th
roadway, while the strip on either side wa
mere straw and ehaff--the grain having bee
devoured or destroyed by an insect" 1t wa
something lacking in the soil which weakene
the plant and invited the rayages of the in
sect.
1t is quite currently assumed ia our dal
that our youth shun agriculture because the
hate work This assumption is one of thos,
partial, imperfect truths which have the effec
of falsehood. Our boys do not choose to lift
and tug, and strain, when the ends Of suct
exertion can be attained without such expen
diture Of vital force-who ever did? As W,
come to think and reflect more, we learn tc
moderate our physical exerton and be spar
ing Of our muscular force. The untaught
unthlnking slave raises his wheel-barrow /,
the top Of his head and carries il there tn,
school-taught freeman prefers to trundle i
before him along the ground. The hay-croJ
of to-day is saved with less than half the tai
on human muscle freely paid by our grand
fathers. Admit that our boys do not choos
to bend their back-bones into hoops and indu
rate their muscles into whip.cord if they cal
achieve comfortable livelihood otherwise,
see nothing in this to provoke inyectiye OF iusti
fly reproach. An intellectual age and peopl
naturally prefer to substitute animal or me
chanical powers for that of human snew.