The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1872-12-07
s'Skt Esar,hs.
Farming at Home and Abr0ad-lEarmers'
Ben.

The following paper was read before the
American Institute Farmers Club Of New
York, by DR.. ]. V. G. Smith:
It is an old saw that time is money. 1t
is often rung in our ears while we are
young, with view of intoxicating moral
sentiment, which simply means, in the way
it is generally presented, industry is vir-
tue. To be always profitably employed is
q sensible condition Of civilized life, especi-
ally if there is purpose in view of bet
tering the circumstances Of those less for
tunate than ourselves. We do many things
which neither accomplish one OR the other
through a mistaken estimate of our own
powers. Errors of judgment constitute an
essential difference in men of equally good
intentions, alike ambitions to improve their
own financial status while contemplating
advantages that may accrue to the world
at large. Schemes and enterprises which
promise we'll for those originating them.
while revolutionizing society, rarely prove
as successful as anticipated. That law of
rectitude requiring we should "do as we
wish to be done by" is the only road to
happiness. If we really desire that child
rem may be an honor in their day and gen
Grafton, they must have early examples of
the way they should 60, and what they
may do to secure the appreciation of con-
science and their superiors in age and
wisdom.
Economizing time is a point of immense
Importance among farmers. Therefore,
when outdoor labors are interrupted by
stress of weather. indoor pursuits ought to
be inculcated, of character to interest
boys while waiting for change.
1t is common complaint among farm
ers that their sons manifest dislike to the
business their fathers pursue, fleeing from
home to engage in more congenial pursuits
as soon as they are legally liberated from
the restraints under which too many of
them imagine themselves held. That is
one reason why there are many incompe-
tent cultivators, scarcity of farm labor
ers, and so many young men unsuccessful
admirable farmers, had proper care been
taken to make farming agreeable to them.
A course might be pursued that would
interest them, but too generally it is ali
work, no amusements, limited intellectu-
al culture, and all their aspirations TO.
something they are not permitted to have
or to enjoy are interdicted as useless, a
waste OF time-and time is money. Let
farmers make home attractive, and instead
of lamenting the flight of their boys, they
would be importuned to purchase an ad
joining farm, because of their reluctance
to leave the neighborhood in which they
have been happy from childhood.
Some kind of a workshop should be ap-
pended to every farming establishment
1t may be in loft; in the end OF wood
shed; the corner of a barn-at least some
where. Too generally, such places are
provided with only an anger or two, ham,
mer, dull saw, rusty plane, and such
kind Of instruments, wholly unfit 70,
mending broken rakes, dilapidated carts,
distorted plows, and that catalogue OF
farming apparatus which happens to need
repairing. If the workshop is furnished
with good tools and sharp ones, and made
comfortable in the cold, stormy days oil
Winter, it offers an irresistible charm for
the boys. They will neither complain OF
dull times, nor steal away to idle the day
with worthless companions if they have
mechanical appliances for gratifying al
innate propensity which most young men
have for mechanical contrivances. This
is place, pleasant workshop, where the
industrious farmer resorts for economizine
time. With his own hands he makes and
mends. He saves the time it would re-
quire to 90 a mile or two to a mechanics
shop; and he saves the money, too, which
any such reparations would cost. He has
real enjoyments in such pursuits in the
exercise of his genius in art, humble and
rude as it may be to those who make loft
Ter flights in regions Of imagination.
There is a value in example of inestim-
able Importance, if the object meets the
approval of spectators. Thus, economic
ing an otherwise idly-passed hour, impress
SEES a lesson of the greatest practical ser,
vice to the growing sons, the hired men.
aud even the visiting neighbors, who ough,
to be engaged in the Same manner al
home.
The faculty of imitation is strongly de-
velored in some boys at very early age
1t can be cultivated and stimulated by
proper associations, even when feeble, and
by encouragement. They delight in con
structions. Using tools is one of the un
described scources of happiness which a
future writer on moral sources of pleasure
may descant upon and not be accused o.
cleaning where others have reaped har-
vest. Some of the great inventions in
agricultural contrivances for lesseping the
hardships Of successful tillage, SO that 4
man with one arm, or possibly bere # OF
both legs, can guide reaping or moving
machine just as well as one with all his
members in the full tension of muscular
vigor, were devised by those who in youth
saw how clumsily and how laboriously til
lage processes were conducted. Many
wonderful inventions for facilitating agri
cultural pursuits, by which a simple ma.
chine performs the labor that formerly re-
quired dozen or more hands, were de-
vised by those whose first efforts were
whiting "a shingle. They were not the
offspring of brain reared in luxury
That boy of tho city, who rides to school
in his fathers coach, driven by John in
livery, accompanied by footman to let
down the steps, rarely makes any other
sensation in the world. The strong men
Of the nation, in all departments of hui
man activity-those who excel in their in
tellectual or inventive energy-may gener-
ally be traced to an obscure, if not poor,
home in the country. Farmers boys
should have good tools, and enough of
them. 1t would be money well invested,
since it invariably gratifies an Unborn pro
pensity to make something. Occupation