Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1872-09-27
The Leisure Hour.
r.uPROJ.ED F.fR.uI.vG.


CULTURAL FAIR OF vEEMNoT, ST. JOHNS
BURY, SEPT. II, 1872, ny HORACE GREE
LEY.
When I, a child OF scarcely ten years,
first crossed the Connecticut on the ice, in
the winter of ls2021, seeking opportunity
TO earn my bread by helping 10 till the soil
of Vermont, this State contained some 225,-
900 Inhabitants, or 1000 less than her
present number. But the intervening half
century has witnessed signal multiplica-
tion and growth Of her cities and villages,
her quarrying and her manufactures, so
that it is probable that those who live by
agriculture in this State are hardly more
numerous, and may even be fewer, in 1872
than they were in 1921. The area of her
cultivation is doubtless larger and her an
nual harvest 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 now
ing machine and the horse rake shorten
ing as well as tightening the husbandman's
toll in his meadows, but trebling the cost
of the implements by means of which he
fills his barns-that is, transferring labor
from summer to winter-from the field TO
the shop-from the quiet, slow-moving, ru-
raj township to the bustling village. And
yet the fact remains that agriculture is not
advan cling in this State-that, when COM
pared with other industries, it seems TO be
retrograding. Absolutely, its rewards are
greater than in my early boyhood; rela-
lively they are far less. OF the more intel
lectual, capable, aspiring youth Of your
State, apprehend that but small propor-
tion choose and follow the farmers voca-
tion; and judge that this proportion is
still diminishing. I cannot be mistaken in
my assumption that no more Than mod
crate per centage of the Vermont boys to-
day foremost in school or seminary are ex-
pecting and aspiring to be farmers, even
when agriculture is, or was their fathers
vocation; and of this minority, the larger
number purpose to pursue that calling else
where than upon the hills or in the valleys
of their native State.
Far be it from me to deprec since
did not resist, the constant, silent, ire
pressiblo impulse which has led and is
leading so many of the sons and daughters
OF Vermont to seek employment and homes
elsewhere than upon her soil. 1t was best
neither for them, for our county, nor for
mank ind, that all to whom this State has
| given birth should have clung obstinate!y,
| persistenuy, like barnacles, to the spot
where they first began to be. have been
widely: as urging every one
to "go West" when l give such counsel
only to those who cannot find satisfactory
work and adequate bread in the East. If
| you have or can secure all you need where
you are, advise you not to Ego West"
nor go anywhere, but TO remain where you
are; for pioneer life is rugged and toilsome
at best, involving years of prevalent hard
hip and privation. II is hard for men, ii
often proves TOO hard for women, to find
themselves transferred from a snug. warm
cot, costly nestled among these hills, with
the sc hool house, church, store, mills, etc.,
within easy reach, TO a rude cabin of logs
or rough boards, located on bleak West
ern prairie, whore everything seems to the
unfamiliar eye coarse, ungenial, repulsive.
Time softens the harsh outline, revealing
beauties and advantages which replace, in
greater or less degree, those which were re-
linquished by removal; but, when every
mitigation, every offset, has been fairly
considered, the wrench given TO the aiiec-
| tions of even the humblest New England
er by migration TO the West is great and
perilous ordeal so that home sickness has
killed many a loving wife and mother who
bravely consented, for her children's sake,
to be torn up by the roots and transpanted
to Illinois or Iowa, whose attractions, great
as they are, could never wean her from
her fervent, absorbing love of the green
hills amid which her childhood was era
died. / do bell ieve in going West but /
cannot recommend II to any who have pass-
ed the meridian of their days; and deem
Its undeniable privations more lightly re-
garded, more easily borne, by young coup
les Just setting out to traverse arm-in-arm
alike the fiowery and the thorny byways of
life, than by almost any other.
have not meant to deny that the last
half-contury has witnessed progress in the
agriculture Of this State and do not cite
the fact that, whereas she formerly grew
her own bread grain and somewhat more
she now buys the greater part Of 1t, as dis.
creditable. If she can make her bread
cheaper by grazing than by plowing--by
selling wool and butter than by growing
wheat and rye-so be it. But when re-
call to mind the intermnable procession OF
wagons laden with the wheat Of your north
western counties th at used TO pass on their