St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1881-03-04
Good and Poor Farming.
lAlr. ]. E. Woodbury., at Peacham Agriculi
Maafinn 1

sidered specially needful in the 'make-
up" of a boy or young man destined to
be a farmer. If there was a good sup
ply of bone and muscle, if the frame
was stalwart and sinewy and therefore
capable of great endurance, the posses
sor was fully earned and equipped"
for a farmers life. These are all most
excellent requisites for such a calling,
but we are coming to learn that other
qualifications are necessary, and that a
young man who is intellectually strong,
and whose culture and knowledge is
above mere mediOcrity is all the better
| fitted for good farmer, as we are
learning that no employment, avOca-
ton OF business calls for clearer or more
careful investigation, research or fore
thought than is demanded of the farmer
of the present day, if he would attain to
ANYTHING like desired success.
To be a successful farmer one should
have either a natural or acquired liking
! for his vocaton--nOt merely as bust
ness which lie hopes may yield him
comfortable living OF more, cOmpe-
! tency-but as one worth his thoughtful
study and research, whose fields are to
him an open book, to be daily read and
carefully studied, that their capabIli-
ties may be learned and their wants
discovered and met.
In the growing vegetation around us,
what wonderful object lessons are Civ
en-, as blade and leaf and blossom is
unfolding around us. each to some eX
tent alike; and yet, how very dissimi-
lar. But of many of us may it not be
truthfully said that, Having ears we
hear not, and having eyes we see not"
the wonderful things so profusely and
marvelously spread out around us
As educators of our children how
much of good or i'll lies in the surround
ings of home. That man, whatever
may be his vocation, who builds a fine
house for the world to admire, and
then either compels or allows his wife
to shut it all up, as being fit only for
grand company, and not to be opened
except on rare occasions, reserving
scarcely enough of the most unpleasant
portions of it to suffice for the necessary
daily use of his family, makes a great
mistake. The kitchen should be the
pleasantest and most sunny room in the
house, instead of looking out upon IL
landscape void of beauty in summer,
and cold and cherries in winter, as is
the kitchen the sitting room should be
found homelike, with papers, maya
zines and books, and pleasant with
pictures, plants and flowers, with a
cheerful fire in winter, where all the
members of the family-father, mother
and children-may daily assemble in
loving and happy cOmpaniOnship, and
thus make spot nearer to Paradise
than any other this side of Heaven.
How much is even the humblest home
embellished and rendered attractive by
trees, shrubbery and flowers, which at
a small outlay of money and time may
be secured to a greater or less degree,
according to the means or tastes of the
farmer and his family.
Then, brother farmers, foster in your
children a taste and love for the beau
tiful, by encouraging them to thus
adorn your homes, and theirs, as well,
and do not grudge the hour or half
hours time necessary now and then for
this work, but take an interest in the
work yourselves; and rest assured if
you have never tried it before you will
be pleasantly surprised at its effects
upon yourselves and families.
A slovenly, slip-shod, lazy man
should never be farmer, for in such a
vocation there is little that is held out
as reward for the poor service he
would render. As nature cannot be
!, cheated with impunity, bat if we SOW
not, neither shall we reap; or if we SOW
lazily or sparingly we shall reap as lit
! tie as we SOW, hence a farmer of this
class commonly looks with envy upon
his more industrious and prosperous
neighbor, and while grumbling at his
own ''illluck," as he calls it, yearly be-
comes more confirmed in his slOvenly
and slip-shOd ways. Broken down and
dilapidated fences, poorly cultivated
fields, tumble-dOwn sheds land out
buildings cold and cherries barns,
with dwelling house to match, are
some of the signs of farmers of this
class, which he "who runs may read
} His ground is so poorly cultivated that
his corn. as it struggles for life, is OF
the small and yellow kind, while the
: weeds, requiring far less care, make a
! vigorous growth, and thus vieng with
the corn, far outstrip it in the race.
J And this is true in greater or less de-
, gree OF all the crops he raises. His
cattle, as we should expect, are of the
scrub" variety, giving but little prefit
: to their owner or satisfaction to the
: behOlder.
This picture is overdrawn, you may
say, and is true only in rare and excep-
tiOnal cases. Would that it were so
, but as we travel our own state we find
| many combinations of its truthful
: ness.
Another class of farmers whom the
world usually calls good ones, are those
whose sole energies, both mental and
physical, are given to making money,
. and that not for the good which money
: brings to him who obtains it in a laud-
able way, and who uses it for the real
: benefit of himself and others. but for
= his own selfish gratification-as repre-
} senting so many boarded accumulations
; in bonds and mortgages; and who
) cheats and starves his own soul, and
those of his wife aud children in his in
, temperate and selfish greed of gain.
; What sadder sight than to see man
made in the image of God, thus pervert
and dwarf his manhood and debase the
God given powers of his being? Is it
any wonder that the wife of such a man
grows prematurely old and carewOrn
7 and wrlnkled, and gets NJ rest till she
tinds it in the grave Or that his chill
: dren grow up with q distaste for their
I childhood's home (which they leave at
the earliest possible moment), and a
, dislike for farmers life, which to them
; means not only hard mental labor, but
{ absolute unappreciated drudgery.
As good farmers, we should not only
strive by all laudable means to raise
: the best crops, to breed the most valua-
{ BILE stock, OF to make the hest butte r