The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1877-11-10

thoroughbreds. If you are not able to
buy Attorneys and Durhams, then you
can raise the corn breed. By corn breed
/ mean those cattle that have enough to
eat and are treated with kindness. Every
farmer that will feed his cattle all they can
eat and treat them with kindness, in few
years will have blooded stock on his farm
all blooded stock has been produced
in this way. You can raise good cattle
precisely as you can raise good people
If you wish to raise good boy you must
give him plenty to eat and you must
4 treat him with kindness. In this way, and
in this way only, can good cattle or good
people be produced.
In the old times, when was a farmer,
not tree was set out once in ten years;
not grapevine was planted; and about
the house not flower could be seen.
| When you went to their houses you were
not met by flowers and trees loaded with
fruits, but by yellow dogs that came
bounding over the worm fence like wild
beasts. There is no sense and no profit in
such life. 1t is not living; it is hardly
existing. / ask the farmers of Illinois to
beautify their homes, to surround their
houses with flowers, to make everything
beautiful and attractive. You don't live
up to your privileges. In every farmers
house there should be bathroom. You
have no idea of the civilizing influences
of the bath. When you come from the
field, tired, covered with dust, nothing
can be so refreshing as bath. Keep
clean. l am not one of those who think
in 10 ho
one. Put on clean clothes, take a seat in
the yard under the trees and amidst the
perfumes of flowers, surrounded by your
family, and you will know what it is to
feel like gentleman.
We need more manliness, more real in
dependence. We must take care of our
selves. We must take care of our chill
dren. This we can do by labor. This
we can do and preserve our independ-
ence. We should endeavor to choose
that business or profession the pursuit of
which will give US the most happiness.
We can be happy without being rich,
without being famous. | am not sure
that we can be happy if we are rich and
famous. There is serenity about the
life of farmer and hope of serene
old age that no other business or profess
sion can promise. A professional man
is doomed at last to feel that all his pow
ers are waning. He is doomed to sec
younger and stronger men pass him in
the race of life; and he is doomed to pass
an old age of intellectual mediocrity.
But on the farm ne goes as it were in
partnership with nature; he lives with
&c fri f,,l
strain upon his mind; the nights are filled
with sleep and rest; he watches his flocks
and herds on the green slopes; he hears
the pleasant rain falling upon his corn,
and the trees he planted in youth rustic
above, while he plants others for the
children yet to be.
Our country is filled with unemployed
men, and the great question to-day ask
ing a solution is: What shall be done
with these men, or rather what shall
these men do?" The only answer in my
judgment is, they must cultivate the
soil. Farming must be more desirable.
1t must be elevated in its character, so
that those who work the land will have
an honest pride in their business. They
must educate their children how to cult
vate the soil. They must not be edu-
Gated simply to be ministers or lawyers
or doctors, but they must be educated to
be farmers. 1t must be understood that
education is as necessary to till the soil
as to follow any other business or pro-
fession in the world. We must get rid
of the idea that little education units
one for labor. There are to-day hundreds
of graduates of Harvard and Yale and
other colleges who are agents of sewing
machine companies, solicitors for insur-
ance, clerks, Copyists, in short, perform
ing mental service. They seem to be
willing TO do anything that can be
done in the house or in town, but avoid
farming as they would leprosy Every
young man educated IN this way is simply
ruined. What little good sense he had is
educated out of him. 1t is thousand
times better to have good sense without
education than education without good
sense. Give your sons an education that
will enable them to help themselves, an
education that will be of real use. Let
them lie taught to help themselves; that
it is disgraceful to be an idler, that only
the useful are honorable.
1t is not necessary in this age of the
world for the farmer to rise in the mid
die of the night and begin his work.
This getting up so early in the morning
is relic of barbarism. 1t has made
hundreds of young men curse the bust
ness. There is no need of getting up at
three or four o'clock in the winter morn
ings. The farmer who persists in doing
it and persists in dragging his wife and
children from their beds ought to be
visited by missionary. 1t is time
enough to rise after the sun has set the
example. For what purpose do you get
up? To feed the cattle? Why not feed
them more the night before? 1t is
waste of life In the old times they used
to get up about three o'clock in the
morning and go to work long before the
sun had risen "with healing upon his
wings; and as just punishment they
all had the ague, and they ought to have
it now. The man who cannot get liv-
ing upon Illinois soil without rising be.
fore daylight ought to starve. Eight
hours day are enough for any farmer to
work except in harvest time. When you
rise at four and work till dark, what is
life worth? Of what use are all the i'm.
provements in farming? OF what use is