Buchanan County bulletin. [volume] (Independence, Iowa) 1869-1891, 1876-12-08
ESSAY
ESSAY.
Read at the Madison Township Fair,
September Goth, 1870.

ESSAY.
read at the Madison Township Fair,
September Goth, 1870.
BY A. BUSH.
am happy to-day in again meet
ng these friends with whom l have
lived and toiledin former days. To-
,ether we have labored and endured
he hardships and privations of pio-
neers in the settlement of a new
Most of us began here with very
limited means; were compelled to
labor under great disadvantages,
with inadequate and imperfect i'm
Elements of husbandry,w without mar
kets, with sparse settlements, with
out schoolhouses or meeting houses,
mills, post offices or stores,
or money to buy with.
We have witnessed the gradual
steady change from this day of small
things to its present development,
with a degree OF pride and satisfac-
ton, and no doubt it begets in us a
zeal and courage to breast every ad-
versity in the future. We see al
ready, instead Of the pioneer cabin
and the straw stable, goodly hablta-
tons, barns and other building, con-
venient and cozy.
Instead of the expanse of prairie,
with only natures adornment, we see
cultivated fields, growing crops, the
herds of cattle and other domestic
animals, the dairy factories, the tidy
school buildings and churches, the
stores and mechanical shops, the
growing and thriving towns and
cities, with facilities for higher edu-
cation, and all the conveniences and
Of eastern states after a
settlement of one or even two hund.
red years.
Our soil may not be the very best,
our crops may not come up to our
our finances may not
be exactly satisfactory, but there is
one source of encouragement; while
our neighbors have suffered drouth
and flood and famine, and the locust
has devastated whole districts time
after time, until ruin and even starry
alton stares them in the face, we have
never failed Of such reurns for our
investment and our labors as to place
us above want, and have something
for the market.
There is a degree Of certainty
connected with our enterprises, that
other parts do not seem to enjoy.
Now as we have come together to
make this first experiment of neigh
borhood fair,perhaps few questions
might be considered with profit, with
reference to the lettering of our
condition as a class; see if we can
devise means to make our calling
more enjoyable; seek the elevation
of the laboring class in social life
and in the scale of being; how to
compel the acknowledgment of our
rights in society; how to become
more contented and happy; how to
increase our faith in our ealing and
overcome the feeling of unrest and
to change and go to the
villages and cities; learn of each
other something of farm economy,
so as to make our labors more profit
able and satisfactory,and at all events
to have good enjoyable time and
go home with fresh courage to re-
new our labors in shop and farm.
These gatherings are just what we
need in our isolation necessitated by
by our occupation; we need not only
the rest, but the recreation and ell
couragement we receive by this ex-
hibition, this stimulation to better
course of farming and the raising of
better stock and horses.
There is this advantage over the
more centralized shows; while you
may not be able to present so large
an amount or even of so high a
grade, as at the county fairs, it is at
home; it is your own; the competi-
ton is among your familiar friends,
and you are more interested in the
why's and wherefores and in the ex-
cellence of articles, than you could
be among strangers.
There are questions of encourage
ment that might be dwclt upon prof.
itably.
1t is a significant fact that there
are less failures in agricultural en-
Payments or pursuits than in any
other, not even tenth part as many
as in mercantile business, and it is a
fact thatagriculturels the foundation,
the corner stone of every and all
business relations; the prosperity or
of other business follows
in the wake of the farmer as regu-
larly and surely as the tides of tho
sea-
1t is the most independent avoca-
ton in the whole list, from the very
fact of it's being the source of every
other success; it is not SO dependent
upon the emergencies of the shifting
incident to other callings
az every other husiness is mon This