Vermont farmer. [volume] (Newport, Orleans County, Vt.) 1870-1877, 1873-01-10
INTELLIGENCE OF FARMERS.

There are many who assume that because
Il man is farmer he knows nothing Of
the outside world, that he is mere drudge
Of spades and ploughs, of muck and barn
yard manure and that his associates are
merely the men who labor on his farm, and
the ideas he gathers are rough, crude, and
anything but logical; further, that his FAM
lily are boys with the agility Of goat and
the awkwardness of a mule: the girls with
the physical constitution OF an elephant, but
knowing little else than butter and eggs
This may have been true thirty years ago,
but no ideas are more utterly false at the
present day. There is not a more refined
and educated class Of people in the country
to-day than the farmers. The people of the
city skim over the newspapers, glance at
news items, and hurry to the work of making
money. The farmer takes his paper quietly
and reads from the first column on the first
page TO the very end Of the advertisements.
lie reads to get new ideas; the city man
reads to get new food for excitement. The
daily newspaper is made up OF rapid para
graphs of murder. suicide. robbery, and this
or that which may influence the rise or fall
of stocks or goods; the weekly should be
made up Of calm digest of the whole area
Of news, solid information and such matter
as would instruct as well as entertain. The
first is fer the city, the last is !or the coun.
try hence it is natural that the farmer
should form Il more correct idea Of the general
status of affairs than can be derived from any
city man. We cannot see that the farmers
life is one of such loneliness; it rests with
himself to make it SO, Or to have around him
at least compauionship Of friendly books
and papers. Yet We find our venerable
friend of the Eceniag Post lamenting that
the farmers life is so desoate, and rather re-
fectng upon their general intelligence.
At the Milk Producers Convention one
of the best speeches we ever heard was made
! by farmer who was born, bred, aud still
worked en- New England farm. That
man was a reader and thinker and it is
utterly impossible for any man to be good
speaker without in his solitariness at some
time finding expression to his thoughts, He
reads, and gets language; he thinks, and
gets ideas. II we class farming as trade
it is not possible to go through the list of
trades aud find any more polished Or refined
if cOssed as a profession, it is equally inn
possible to go through that list and find any
one wherein there is more accurate and
practical knowledge Of moral, social, and
political questions we may find many more
theoretical, but none of more actual value.
Then, again, in their families. The same
causes which have led to the improve
ment of the males have in even greater
degree advanced the female portion of the
farming community, because by the inherent
finer instincts of her nature she is more
quickly attached to or attracted by those
things which are calculated to refine and
elevate morally aud intellectually. And
their labor on the farm is of that finer char
acter which is in unison with their nature
aud which gives them usually more leisure
for the culture of the aesthetic tastes.
Hence we cannot conceive how any one
should attempt to lower the profession of a
farmer, or to speak Of him as ignorant or
needing social attrition to smooth off the
roughness OF the farm Ii the farmer is
ignorant at this day it's his own fault, and We
venture to say that the world over, there is
not more intelligent and intellectual class
of any community than may be found among
the working, reading farmers of this cOuu-
try.-Nep York World