The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1877-10-19
A CHATTER ON FARMING.

AS near as can crawl up to the fact
in the case, Adam was the first farmer
have given the subject a large pile OF
thought, but cannot find any reliable
person who wants to give bonds that he
can name man who tried TO earn dol
lar at farming before Adam struck in.
/ consider that Adam, 1 forgot his
other name, started in ON his career un-
der very favorable auspices. Adam had
his garden all planted, and the things
put up before he rented it. All he had
to do was just to go right in and occupy.
He had no competition. He could
put any price he pleased on his garden
truck, and not lie awake nights and wor-
ry because somebody might undersell
him. He could charge 20 cents box
for his strawberries, and if his customers
didn't like it he could tip his hat over
his ear and intimate that if they didn't
like his berries at that price they could
refresh their stomachs on dried apples.
He had to take DO ones advice as to
how he should plant his stuff, or when
he should hoe it. If he wanted to plant
his dried pumpkins in the same hill with
his baked beans he did not have to read
an agricultural paper to see what some
editor who never saw a farm had to say
about it. His postoffice box was not
filed with circulars, advertising fertihz-
ers and patent dressings for salad and
mixed pickles.
All Adam. if you were here now, and
had to take all the advice that the farmer
of to-day does, you would wish yoursef
back in the Garden of Eden putting III
your winter rye.
Then Adam had splendid wife. 1t
is not Every man that can get such
woman. l know there is good deal OF
fault found with Eve, but she certainly
was the best woman in the world when
Adam married her, and l shall stand up
for her as long as 1 have legs. Eve
didn't have any great amount OF clothes.
She didn't worry herself what she should
wear to church, or have to run and fix
herself up when she had callers.
/ take it that the Eden farm was run
on the military plan. At any rate, Adam
had a commissary connected with the
farm, for We read that the serpent was
sutler than any beast of the field, and
the account shows that he got a mort
gage on the farm, and foreclosed on
Adam before he had taken off his first
crop. Suffers have changed but little
since the creation.
But the farmers of to-day are different
creatures. They are really the only USE
full class of people we have. Were it
not for the farmer, you and / would go
to bed hungry before Saturday night;
but if 1 were put under hydraulic cot
compress and all the farming qualities
squeezed out of me, there would not be
- Of uta ,.1
seed. / would sooner be cut up into rail-
road spikes, and driven into oak ties,
than farm it, so little do / love the pur-
suit. If it were left to me to earn my
living by farming, don't think l could
raise sausage enough to keep me from
starving.
Ihonor the farmer, do the truthful
ness of George Washington, but should
have lied the old man right out of his
boots about that cherry tree, if had
been George. 1 freely confess that 1
don't like farming any better than L do
castor oil. There is more hard work to
the acre in farming than in any occupa-
ton know of, if we except the dentist.
There is heap Of hard work to the
acher in that business, though the work
is chiefly to the acher rather than to the
dentist.
The farmer has an Unborn idea that
the sun will not rise unless he gets up
and personally superintends the job.
When / was a small boy L was told by
my good mother that the sun rose every
morning and-I always believed her. 1
never got up to see, for l always felt as
if it would look as if 1 doubted her
word.
After the farmer is up he must cut up
some green wood for his wife to build
the fire with. A farmers wife who had
kindlings and dry wood furnished her
would consider that she had good
grounds for divorce. While the break
fast is being cooked the farmer HES to
the barn to take care of and feed his
cattle. Anybody who has ever taken
hold of a pitchfork handle when
the thermometer was below zero never
will outlive the remembrance of it.
There may be things colder, but l never
touched them. took hold of white oak
pitchfork handle over twenty years ago
and have never had the full use of my
hand since.
After completing the chamber-work
in the barn, the next thing is to water
the stock. Watering stock on Wall
street and watering it on farm are two
different things. Pumping up water
through leaky pump, when it seems as
if the first drop came from the center of
the earth is more cheerful to read of than
to do. Perhaps it is not pump but an
icy well-pole that you are called upon to
embrace, and, as it slips through your
fingers and the cold drops of water splash
up your shirt sleeve, you begin to won
der whether you will be called upon to
draw water from a deep well with an
icy pole in the other land beyond the
skies.
1t is during the winter that the farmer
throws aside the drudgery and hard work
of the farm, and engages in the sport of
emitting and hauling out cord. wood. Next