The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1877-11-03
Stick to the Farm.

Stick to the Farm.
THE tendency of young men reared in
agricultural pursuits to seek some other
vocation with the hope of lettering their
condition has been growing alarmingly
during the last fifteen years, and the
bitter fruits of the error are gathered to-
day by the enforced idleness and conse-
quent suffering of thousands who have
mistaken their calling. 1t was a natural
error for young farmers to commit when
ease and luxury seemed to be within the
reach of all as the diseased prosperity of
inflated values and reckless speculation
reached the humblest homes. There
was no class that escaped the poisonous
atmosphere that paralyzed frugal indus
try and excited dazzling hopes which
never can be realized in any condition of
society. The Flooding ways of the hus-
bandman grew irksome to the once con-
tented youth, and idleness, profigacy
and often dissipation insensibly asserted
their mastery. Then the sudden and I'M
expected gains of the farmer helped
along in the work of demoralizing the
sober industry that alone can give the
wealth of worldly goods hand in hand
with the unspeakable wealth of content
ment. His lands were apparently
doubled in value; his bountiful crops
commanded fabulous prices in the mar
kets, and luxury sowed tares in the
fields of economy and thrift. The young
farmer must have his filly for the saddle
and his carriage and trappings for theroad
When possessed, the love of display
bred idleness; idleness became the parent
of unrest, and unrest studied for some
vocation that promised sudden riches or
political honors and their attendant luxu
ries. The country grew tame and unin
teresting-dull, monotonous and unpala-
table. ltwas pillow and SOW and reap and
thresh from year to year; it was work in
all seasons, and wealth came slowly
while in the towns and cities fortunes
seemed to be made as if by magic, and
the poor of yesterday reveled in wealth
to-day. Thousands and tens of thousands
of once industrious young men were thus
insensibly lured from their farms and the
contented and re9uited industry of their
fathers to venture in the breakers of
speculation or to dream the dream of
wealth and luxury in the cities. In the
tide of speculation when money was un-
valued, because easily possessed, many
of those who were thus misled seemed
to prosper; but even then the vast pre-
pGnderance had to accept failure and
sorrow as the fruition of their dreams.
But now, when the stern realities of the
n lcIn Of oil h,,s
back to the true standard of values con-
fronts them, and distress is felt and
bankruptcy is crushing through all Cir
Giles, the most unfortunate of all is the
ill-starred agriculturist who has wan
dered from his friendly and generous
fields to feast IN the husks of disappoint-
ment.
Young men are tempted from their
farms by the few instances of conspicu.
their own ranks to battle with the world.
They are forgetful, however, that only
the fortunate are noted, while the hun
dreds who fall by the wayside and strew
the paths of the successful thickly with
shattered idols and withered hopes are
not among those who are heralded to the
world. AS rule, not one in score of
those who leave agricultural and mechan-
ical pursuits for the supposed easier life
of commerce or speculation escapes dis
appointment or utter failure, and the
few who can claim to have fulfilled their
dreams sigh for the content and SUBJ
stantial prosperity of the uncomely
homes they have deserted in the way
ward ambition of youth. To-day there
is actual and almost universal distress in
every channel of industry and trade out
side of the tillers of the soil. They have
their lessons also; they have been taught
that simulated wealth is not prosperity;
that the riches which come with inflated
prices perish as speedily as they come,
and that the oldtime frugality and
steady labor is the only true fountain of
the wealth that defes the mutations of
trade, the revulsions of values and gnaw-
ing of broken peace. The world has no
escape from the immutable law of God
that man shall labor, and all appear
ances of exceptions to the mandate of
the Great Law-giver are but mockeries.
The idler is a curse to himself and to his
fellows wherever he is to be found, and
the most successful in life would appall
the day laborer with the truthful story of
the ceaseless labor that is the price of
his achievement. Let none be deluded
with the dream that there are paths to
wealth and happiness which do not lie
through the rugged way of toll, and the
labor that gives plenty and peace as its
reward is not to be discarded for the
tickle fortune that leads the unwary into
the bitterest disappointment. Stick to
the farm; it is the generous friend of in
dustry, and its harvests ever follow seed
time amidst all the commissions and dis
asters of speculation and trade.-PhiJa-
delphtG Times. ...-. .-.
HAVE you ever met the school-teacher
whom you threatened, when boy, to