The Rutland daily globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1873-09-12

mosphere of American life has been warm
with provocations to think, and the very
roots of our population have felt the stirring,
of a new sap and thrilled in the miro and
mould of their destiny.
The branch OF industry that has shared
least in this gen eral mental activity is he
yond doubt the agricultural. Under the
old method of farming there was little ne
cessity or provocation TO think. 1t was n
life and pursuit in which the hands played
the most important part and the brain was
I left in the background. In that old order
| horticulture, arbor culture, Horticulture,
/ scientific breeding of the domestic animals,
and those other branches of agriculture
that call for ingenuity and enterprise and
result in culture were nearly unknown.
| Farming was only dull routine of plant
/ ing potatoes and corn, hOeing and haying,
and reaping and gathering the crops in the
autumn. This, with the hauling of the
winters wood and repairing fences com
posed the annual round. Now in all this
the brain played no part. The hands did
it all, and were able to do tall. There was
no recreation, no culture and almost no re-
ward. The arm and legs did all the work
and got all the profit. The mind did moth
ing and gained nothing, but rusted in ig-
noble disease.
From such life every active-minded
Young man naturally broke away. 1t was
life in which labor was only a kind of
base physical toll. There was no spring.
no elasticity to it. There was no chance
to rise, or grow The great, wide, stir
ring. progressive world was only few
miles away, with its splendid opportunities
to amnss and achieve. Even its lower
grades of industries were instructive and
-, l.. al
cestral patch and be content He could
not and claim he had no right to remain.
No industry is worthy young's following,
unless it ministers to the higher and diviner
side of his nature. A pursuit that merely
tasks the body and supports the body is
base, and should be despiscd. This was
one cause why farming was despised by the,
youth of the land. 1t was mere manual
toll In it the hand was of higher use than
the head. Muscle was absolutely worth
more than brain. y man with one idea
was rs valuable as he whose mind was
quick with suggestion. A fool of Wcbstcr's
size was rs good man on the farm as
Webster.
Now. | lay ii down as law that all
forms of human industry are graded in
value TO the individual and society as they
are or are not connected with mans higher
faculties. All la or worth the doing is ed
ucative and expansive. The countless in
dustricS Of the earth make the earth u
school, and toilcrs are only scholars. The
shop and field the decks of ships, and even
the damp and dripping mine, are only diff
ferent colleges in that great university
where the human faculties are being train
cd. To quicken thought. to widen the
field of investigation, to substitute the
I'll 81.
knowledge that the heart may be enlarged,
to Danish the curse of poverty, by which
mems faculties are crampcd, and many
pushed into crime. these are the results
that make industry OF value to man.
These, | regret to say, were precisely
the results that the old style of farming in
this country did not produce. In it ambi-
ton found no opportunity, and enterprises
no encouragement. 1t looked upon chem
stry with contempt, and he who considered
success in breeding anything more than the
result of mere luck was regarded as Wis
ionary 1t dsregardcd entirely the value
of location in its relation to markets. and
continued to raise potatoes and corn and
rye at twenty per cent. loss when the same
soil and labor might have produced early
vegetables, fruits and flowers at one hun
dred per cent. profit. Worse than all, it
put itself in opposition to Improvement. 1t
Rugged its own Ignorance as wisdom, and
bigotedly resisted the Introduction of any
thing new in theory or practice The ro-
tation Of crops, the relative adoption of
different manurcs to different soils, the sub
sttuton OF machine Tor manual laOOr, the
improvement of native stock by lmporta-
ton of foreign blood-thcsc and similar
changes it ticrccly opposed and made the
butt of its anathcmas and vulgar Jokes
While the mechanics OF the nation were
pcrtecting thcms Ives in their several trades
and the machnists invcnting new to Is
and the merchants of the nation betting the
globe with their ships, and the manufactu-
rers brbing the skill of the Old World to
our shores, and every other form of indus
try was racing along the path of progress
with its face all aglow with emulation, the
New England farmer continued to plod on
in the path which led him year by year into
deeper discomfort and poverty. In this
way ambition and enterprise, wealth and
culture were alicnated from the soil to
which they should be most warmly attach
ed, and in the cultivation of which whatever
is best in mans mind and heart can find
and should find its highest exercise and
most enduring pleasure.
If you should tell me the picture is too
darkly drawn and somberly shaded, and
point me to this audience and these grounds
swarming AS they do with the finest animal
vegetable and instrumental results of Yer
mont thought as disproving the picture,
| reply first that here are grouped the
achievements not of the old but of the new
order of agriculture, which has won recog-
milton and support not by help of the as
sistance but in spite of the opposition of
the average farmer rs he existed twenty
years ago; and secondly | should ask you
to look beyond these grounds to the coun-
try itself-nOt at the farmers that are here,
but at the farmers who are not here-and
see il my words are not true. This is II
Vermont fair, but Vermont is not
here. She is represented here to-day by
the few, not the mary; by the intelligent
and prosperous and enterprising, not by the
average farmer Here and there one has
come, but on either side and all around him
scores have not come. He will be benefit
cd but these will get no impulse, no knowl-
edge, no ambition from this days gathering
They have neither contributed to nor will
they be benefited by the entertainment.
Proceed further, and ask why are they not
here? The answer is this lack of desire.
The result of ignorance, has held some;
poverty, having for its parent the same
cause, others; the absence of anything
worthy of exhibition far more. Looking at
these grounds to-day one might think that
Vermont is full of progressive agri-
cultursts, and her acres but so many gar
dcns; but if you will look over the heads
Of this audience and beyond these grounds
where the mass of the people actually live,
you will see that ignorance and poverty and
lack of ambition are embodied on all sides.
In houses implanted and gardens grown to
weeds in fences neglected and orchards
unronewcd; in stunted stock and impoyer-
ished acres; in undtchcd meadows and I'M
gathered harvest; in all these signs you
will behold proof that the knowledge of
Vermont agriculture is but superficial,
which prompts me to say that the average
farmer has been, and is to-day, stupidity