Litchfield enquirer., 1880-03-18
FARMING.

| MIR. EDITOR If local paper is to be con- sidered as kind of town meeting, we presume 1t is not necessary to apologize at length for appearing so often in your paper in advocacy of the cause that we believe to be of 80 much interest and importance to most of your read. | CTS; for in town meetings it is not always the wisest or most interesting that speak. We wish to note some of the thoughts suggested by your late article entitled Farming" You refer to the longing for the independ- ence aud safe competency of the farmer which those of the professions are said to have. We confess that the fact that so many of our far mers are ''poor or in moderate circumstances, not owning their farms free of debt, many of them being mortgaged, &c., does look as if some one was longing for the independence" and ''safe competency" of the farmer; and that they are too, likely to get them.
 We reckon this sentiment regarding farm- ing often originates very much in this way: Some professional man, we will call him Judge Oracle, having gained about as much honor and wealth as he can reasonably expect becoming wearied by the cares of business and the festivities of city life, concludes to go to the country. So he seeks the ''seclusion that the farmhouse grants ;" and, having settled himself in the best rooms, he is prepared.t to enjoy the beauties of the outside world. So it being his pleasure, he walks out on sum- mer morning, and. elevating his judicial nose, snifs the air and drinks in the sunshine and pronounces them good he goes to the cream- cry, tastes the cream and pronounces it good he goes to the hay field, enjoys the sweet smell of new-mown hay, and pronounces that good. Later as the day gets hotter, he retires to the shade of some convenient tree, and from this cool retreat views the wonderful works of nature, and ,pronounces them very good. At nounced good but now we have a decision from the court, and they must be good, "For he himself hath said it, and tis greatly to their credit, for he's professional man." And who would appeal from this decision? Who would deny that the country is pleasant Probably very few; though there might be many who would object to the egotism of the decision.
 People coming from hot city doubtless ap- preciate these things far more than those living in them all the time, to whom they, in degree cease to be interesting. but they should remember that this is not farming If this class of people who profess to consider farming 80 superior in its advantages, and who claim that farmers are as we'll of, all things considered, as the intellectual classes, is sin- cere, why do they not train their children, to live the lives of farming men and l women? This is a practical test why is it not just one 1? Of course many excuses can be offered. They would perhaps think it beneath the dignity of such as theirs We | believe it to be, or rather that it ought to be, not only one of the most necessary of occupa- 1 tions, but one of the most honorable. On the ! other hand we would honor it by claiming for it that which we believe rightfully belongs to it. The farmer, too, has advantages, such as, l from thelr nature cannot be easily taken away, though they perhaps would be ii it were pos sible for others to appropriate them. That the | reason, however that he should bedenied so nearly all others.
 | The argument regarding the cost to law yer of getting an education is the old excuse l for large professional charges. It ignores the fact that the farmer too, must learn hisbusiness. If two young men with good common school education, but ignorant of the law. and farm- ing, were to commence at the same time in the usual way, one to learn farming, the other to learn law, at the end of two or three years we believe that the lawyer could have his business the most thoroughly learned. True, the farmer, with the effort of learning, might be able to earn little, while the latter would be obliged to pay out. This difference should be counted to hlm only as so much money in- vested in business at the ordinary rate of in- terest, it seems to me.