The Portland daily press., 1877-09-12
THE PRESS.
FARM AND HOUSEHOLD.
Does Farming Pay.

The question has often been asked and as
often answered. have been greatly Interested
and sometimes amused by the various answers
given, but as am q Yankee VIII, with your
permission, answer it by asking another; 'Does
living pay?" Or in other words does it pay to
preserve our own lives and the lives of others?
If it does, then farming. pays. If We should
cease to till the soil universal starvation would
follow. The kingsand the peasant are alike
sustained by the farmers toll. The question
then naturally arises, should all men be farm
ers? That all men were not made farmers
needs no demonstration. Many kinds of me-
coanlsms are indispensable requisites for pro.
htaole farming, and the mechanic is as useful
IN MS place as the farmer is in his. The min
lister, the magistrate, the mariner, the lawyer
and the teacher are all useful in the place that
God has assigned them. One prominent reason
why SO many fail in business is because they
areIn the wrong place. If you find young man
whose literary attachments are what they ought
to be to teach town school, nineteen times
outot twenty he aspires to something more than
farmer. The late Elijah Wood of Winthrop
said when conversing with my father upon this
subject that any young man who had taught
lew terms OF town school was good for nothing
to work. My father replied, THAT is mis-
take Major, have son that has taught more
as there is in town." Then said the Major
'He is not human" Now after making a IL
due allowance for the Majors eccentrcity, it
is nevertheless an incontIovertable fact that
!
labor, from the pedagogue to the president of
acolege, and from the pettifogoger to the
chief justice of the Supreme Court.
One prominent reason for this is because so
few men get rich by farming. And the love of
money Is so interviewer with the fibres of the
human heart that it is exceedingly difficult for
an aspiring young man to resist the temptation
to get it. When he sees minister getting from
one thousand to ten thousand dollars year for
preaching. and lawyer getting twice that sum
nro M ha NV che NIL ha-
smear my hands and face with dirt and sweat
for mere pittance, when others get rich in
day? will not do it," And he often chooses
a profession or seeks for an Office that he is I'M
qualified to I'LL and the result, as we all know,
is not unfrequently failure "The love of
money is the root of all evil" No man should
choose profession simply because he can make
money by it. look not every man on bis own
things, but every man also on the things Of
others If it is mans duty to preach and if
he can get but one thousand dollars salary, but
can get ten thousand by practicing law he has
no normal right to be lawyer on that account.
Or If he can make but one thousand while
lawyer but can make ten thousand in the same
time by preaching, this does not give him
right TO preach.
1t was said to Adam, SIN the sweat of thy
face shalt thou eat bread till thou return to the
ground; for out of it vast thou taken; for dust
thou art and unto dust shalt thou return"
All men must work and some of them must
till the soil. There is no escaping the penalty
of Adams transgression. In the sweat of the
face we must all eat our bread. There is no
discharge in this war; and we are all under
moral obligation to work in the place and in
the way that We capin the best way and in the
greatest degreei benefit ourselves and our fellow
men, having no reference in any case what
ever to accommodating money for our labor or in
trade in any other way than paying fair and
Just equivalent for every dollar we receive.
Obtaining money by intrigue and deception is
positively forbidden in the scriptures and terri
bly, Threatened. The extortioner is reckoned
with the adulterer and murderer, and it is DOS.
lively declared "they shall not inherit the
kingdom of Cod There is terrible woe pro-
nounced against men who obtain riches I'M.
justly. go to now ye rich men, weep and
howl for your miseries that shall come npon
you, your richer are corrupt and your garments
are moth eaten. Your gold and your silver is
cankered, and the rust of them shall be wit
ness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it
were fire. You have heaped treasures together
for the last days.
But every man that works in the place and
in the way that God has designed, finds a
pleasure in it. And in no case is this more
plainly seen than in farming. The farmer
who in sincerity of heart offers the prayer of
Agur, "Give me neither poverty nor riches,''
goes forth to his work inhaling the salubrious
morning air in perfect health and buoyant
spirits. 1t in seed time, sows in hope; and
If in harvest he reaps the waving grain and
gathers the golden sheaves rejoicing His
The best of food satiates his appetite His
desert is luscious fruit fresh from the garden
or field. His family and domestics enjoy the
best OF health. Ills wife is like a fruitful
are like live plants about his table," Who can
say the farmer does not have an equal share of
the good things OF this world; and when his
heart is satisfied Herewith, that he is not one
of the hapiest of men? Aad who, in this view
OF the subject, says farming does not pay?-Z.