Vermont farmer. [volume] (Newport, Orleans County, Vt.) 1870-1877, 1875-06-11
NttmaAt Ratmet
Country vs.. City.

VIII IOAu NhAN NJ mum ~ ~ hAAAohhH NaaN
they live in the country aud are denied the
benefits and advantages Of city life. They
regard the city as a place where everything
that tends TO make life pleasant has been
gathered, regardless Of expense. They ex-
pect when they leave the farm and 60 to the
city las many Of them intend to do as soon
as they are their own masters) that they
will be starting out in life with circumstances
more favoring than they ever would be on
the farm. They can 60 TO the theaters, con-
certs, lectures, &C., when they choose, cdu-
c%ational advantages will be afforded to their
families which they in their youth have been
deprived of, and in many other ways the
prospect looks tempting. The nominally
high price of labor also looks tempting to
the youth who knows nothing Of the thousand
and one ways in which the cost Of living is
made to count up and up, as compared with
the cost in the country.
1t has been wen said that " God made the
country and man made the,town." And as
the work Of nature is ever moro pleasant,
beautiful and enjoyable than the limitations
of art, so the country is infinitely preferable
to the city, in the largo. majority Of instances.
If a young man is willing to work, there is
always plenty for him to do on the farm. A
good, faithful farm hand can command wages
which, after deducting necessary expenses,
will leave a larger margin Of profit than the
city laborer will have with the most rigid
economy. Perhaps the city pay may be
nominally double that on the farm, bat after
deducting from five to seven dollars per
week for board, (none too good at that,) fifty
cents to a dollar for washing, and the high
price charged for. every little knicknack,
there will be little left. 1t may be that the
young man desires a situation as salesman or
bookkeeper; it is very seldom that a situa-
ton is vacant in these capacities, and when
it is, the pay is so meager as to make 1t far
from an object to get the situation, except
from its supposed responsibility"
Then to the man with a family there is
sometimes held out as an inducement to seek
the city the idea that more Of the pleasures
of life are within reach in, than out Of the city.
Is this true2 In the case Of the very rich
who can afford to live in a costly house on
some pleasant, roomy street, and keep their
W team, it may be, but this is beyond the
reach Of the many. Compare the home
amid the c~easeless noise and din of the city,
the bare brick walls on every side, the brack-
ish water of the city, the dust in constant
motion through the air, ceaselessly stirred
by thousands of busy feet, the vitiated atmos-
phere which is in even the most clearly por-
ton Of a city, with the quiet farm house
nestled behind the naples amid the green
hills, the beautiful scenery and the music of
the babbling brooks aud the blithe songs of
the birds, the pure sparkling water fresh
from the spring or well, the sweet, pure air,
Heavens best and purest gift to animate
creation. Compare the precarious income
from almost any employment to be found in
the city, and the prospect of almost at any
time being thrown out of employment by a
strike of the workmen, a structure of the
money market, or the failure of an employer,
while the personal or household expenses
ever run on the same, with the labor Of the
husbandman who has the divine promise that
"seed time and harvest shall not fail" and
whose reward is sure to come in due season +;
his means of subsistence are sure, whether
panics or failures or strikes come or not,
Compare the demoralizing influences to
which the young man or the growing family
of children is exposed in the city, and entic-
ing temptations and crafty allurements to
vice and sin cunningly piled on every hand,
with the pure and elevating influence in the
country. Look on the dark as well as the
light side of city life, and then ask yourself
if to leave the farm for the city will make
you more noble, more honorable, more pure
in heart, more Christlike or more useful tc
yourself and mankind. Young man, pause
and count the cost before you exchange SC
much of joy and peace and purity and use
fulness for a mere chance in a hundred of a
success which, at last, may when attained
prove much less desirable and satisfying
than a partial failure would have been on
the farm.
Certain advantages in the way of educa'
ton of the young are indeed afforded in the
city, but are not nearly if not quite all o.
them also afforded in the country village
We need not 60 out of Vermont for the mos
thorough education.
Remember that the highest amount of en-
joyment in this world is not the result o.
money nor of fame or a public name, but Of
duty done. Each man and woman is ere
ated for a purpose, and given a certain
amount of ability, aud in proportion as they
use hat ability for the good Of mankind
and to make both themselves and other
good and useful, will be the amount Of hap
piness they enjoy in this life. The field TO
both usefulness and happiness is more prom
Using in the country than in the city. TheI
why not stay there?