The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1872-05-24
The Loneliness Of farming Life in America

The Loneliness of Farming Life in America
An American traveller in the Old World
notices, among the multitude of things that
are new to his eye, the gathering of agri-
cultural populations into villages. He has
been accustomed in his own country to see
them distributed upon the farms they cul-
tivate. The isolated farm-life, so universal
here, either does not exist at all III the
greater part of continental Europe, or it
exists as comparatively modern institu-
ton. The old populations, of all callmgs
and professions, clustered together for self
defense, and built walls around themselves.
Out from these walls, for miles around,
went the tillers of the soil in the morning,
and back into the gates they thronged at
night. Cottages were clustered around
feudal castles, and grew into towns and so
Europe for many centuries was cultivated
mainly by people who lived in villages and
cities, many OF which were walled, and all
of which possessed appointments of de-
Tense. The early settlers in our own coun-
try took the same means to defend them
selves from the trcacherous Indian. The
towns Of Hadley, Hatfield, Northiield. and
Deerfield, on the Connecticut river, are no.
table examples of this kind of building
and to this day they remain villages of ag-
riculturists. That this is the way in which
farmers ought to live we have no question,
and we wish to say q few words about 1t.
There is some reason for the general dis
position of American men and women to
shun agricultural pursuits which the OBJ
servers and philosophers have been slow to
find. We see young men pushing every
where into trade, into mechanical pursuits,
into the learned professions, into insigniii-
cant clerkships, into salaried positions OF
every sort that will take them into towns
and support and hold them there. We
find it impossible to drive poor people from
the cities with the threat of starvation, or
to coax them with the promise of better
pay and cheaper fare. There they stay,
and starye, and sicken, and sink. Young
women resort to the shops and factories
rather than take service in farmers houses,
where they are received as members of the
family and when they marry, they seek
an alliance, when practicable, with me-
chanics and tradesmen who live in villages
and large towns. The daughters of the
farmer fly the farm at the first opportun'
ity. The towns grow larger all the time
and, in New England at least, the farms
are becoming wider and longer, and the
farming population are diminished in mum
Der, and, in some localities, degraded II
quality and character.
1t all comes to this, that isolated life has
very little significance to social being
The social life of the village and the city
has intense fascination to the lonely dwell
ers on the farm, or to great multitude o
them. Especially is this the case with thu
young. The youth of both sexes wh'
have seen nothing of the world have al
overwhelming desire to meet life and to b
among the multitude. They feel their life
to be narrow in its opportunities and its re
wards, and the pulsations Of the great SO
cial heart that comes to them in rushin
trains and passing steamers and daily news
papers, damp with the dews Of a hundred
brows, thrill them with longings for tn
places where the Rhythmic tbrob is felt an
heard. They are not to be blamed 70
this. 1t is the most natural thing IN tn
world If all of life were labor-if tn
great object of life were the scraping ,tc
gether Of few dollars, more or less-why
isolation without diversion would be econt
my and profit but so long as the object
life is life, and the best and purest and hal
piest that can come Of it, all needless ISL
lation is crime against the soul, in that