Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1873-10-17

The branch of industry that has
shared least in this general mental activ-
ity is beyond doubt the agricultural, Un-
der the old method of farming, there was
little necessity or provocation to think.
1t was life and pursuit in which the
hands played the most important part
and the brain was left in the background.
In that old order horticulture, arborcul-
ture, Horticulture, scientific breeding OF
the domestic animals, and these other
branches of agriculture that call for In
genuity and enterprise and result in cul-
ture were nearly unknown. Farming
was only dull routine of planting po-
tatoes 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. There was no recreation, no cul-
ture and almost no reward. The arms
and legs did all the work and got all the
profit, the mind did nothing, and gained
nothing, but rusted in ignoble disuse.
From such life every active-minded
young man naturally shrunk away. 1t
was life in which labor was only kind
of base physical toll. There was no
spring, no elasticity to it. There was no
chance to rise, or grow. The great, wide,
stirring world was only few miles away,
with its splendid opportunities to amass
and achieve. Even its lower grades OF
industries were instructive and expansive.
How could the boy stay on the ancestral
patch, and be content. He could not,
and I claim he had no right to remain.
No industry is worthy a young mans
following, unless it ministers to the high
er and diviner side of his nature. A
pursuit that merely tasks and supports
the body is base, and should be desplsed.
This was one cause why farming was de-
spised. 1t was mere manual toll. In
it he hand was of higher nse than the
head. Muscle was absolutely worth
more than brain. A man with one idea
was as valuable as he whose mind was
quick with suggestion. A fool of Web
ster's size was as good man on the farm
as Webster.
Now l lay it 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 labor worth the
doing is educative and expansive. The
countless industries of the earth make
the earth school, and toilers are only
scholars. The shop and field, the decks
of ships, and even the damp and drip
ping mine, are only different colleges in
that great university where the human
faculties are being trained. Toquicken
thought, to widen the field of investiga-
ton, to substitute the coarser with fin
er culture. to enlarge knowledge that the
heart may be enlarged, to Danish the
curse of poverty, by which mems facul-
ties are cramped and many pushed into
crime, these are the results that make in
dustry eff value to man.
These, | regret to say, were precisely
the results that the old style of farming
in this country did not produce. In il
ambition found no opportunity and en-
lerprise, no encouragement. 1t looked
upon chemistry with contempt, and he
who considered success in breeding any
thing more than mere luck was regarded
as visionary. 1t disregarded entirely
the value of location in its relation tc
markets, and continued to raise potatoe:
and corn and rye at 20 per cent, when
the same soil and labor might have pro
duced early vegetables, fruits and flowers
at 100 per cent profit. Worse than all
it put itself in opposition to improvement,
it hugged its own ignorance as wisdom
and bigotedly resisted the introduction Of
anything new in theory or practice. The
rotation of crops, the relative adaptation
of different manures to different soils, the
substitution of machine for manual la
Dor, the improvement of native stock by
importation of foreign blood-these ant
similar changes it fercely opposed ant
made butt of its anathemas and vul
gar Jokes. While the mechanics of th,
nation were perfecting themselves il
their several trades, and the machinistI
inventing new tools, and the merchants
of the nation betting the globe with theil
ships, and the manufacturers bribing th,
skill of the Old World to our shores
and every other form of industry wa
racing along the path of progress will
its face all aglow with emulation, th,
New England farmer continued to ploC
on in the path which led him every yea
into discomfort and poverty. In this wa,
ambition and enterprise, wealth and cul
ture we're alienated from the soil to which
they should be most warmly attached