The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1886-10-27
LIFE ON THE FARM.
A Humorous Writer Tells what He
..s .H Knows about It. - ~.

Our bowels melt with mercy
towards these Sudras of the soil,
whom the high and naughty Bra
Minis of commerce and coin "spurn
with the foot as a stranger cur" We
know their sorrows and sufferings;
the trial of temper in stumpy fields;
the vileness Of pIantain the wicked
ness Of weeds; the deceit of cookie;
the "birth-sin'' in wild onion. While
the average citizen can hardly hold
his own against the world, the flesh
and the devil, the unhappy prisoner
Of Gland measure" e"-perch, rod and
rood-is tormented by the Apaches
of the vegetable, mineral and animal
Kingdoms. .... ..
The farmer has our pity. He is
the drudge-the helot of political
economy. Everybody rides him no
body carries him. He is the victim
of hog-cholera, high tariff and fraud
uIent fertilizers. Pastoral poetry
may delude him, for the moment,
into dream of rural bliss, but the
sheriff rudely wakes him to his
wretchedness. .....
He can't strike for increase of
wages or shorter time Of toll. The
mechanic has his guild, fixes his
own pay and hours for work. The
cobbler is ''Knight;" the plowman
a dumb driven OK. The man Of tools
follows his trade often in warm fac
tory and always sheltered from the
weather The. farmer must rise with
the dawn, face the storm, and torsake
the field onl ly with the departing day.
In city or town, superior schools
train the child Of the poorest laborer
for ten months in the year Short
sessions, and frequently Indifferent
instruction, and furnished the coun-
try patron. And indeed the body
can be spared but for a brief period
from the farm. ........ ....- .:..,,
A war tariff in these years Of
peace plumbers, by hundred cum
ming devices, the landowner. The
"robber barons" of monopoly have
him by the throat and their hands
upon his purse. They are more
merciless than the floods that sweep
away his crops. ... ,.............
The earth is treacherous. Weeds
choke the good grain; wire grass
-entraps the innocent timothy sassa
fras ~fourishes in immortal vigor
where wheat pines and perishes.
Let the husbandman set out a vine
or sprout seed Tt must run the
gauntlet of the frost. The mole
hunts for the root to destroy. The
grub gnaws it. \ Caterpillar, cut
worm, borer and countless enemies,
winged or creeping, with tooth or
sting, prey upon It. Mildew, rust
and light fall on it. Potato bug,
turnip beetle, bean weevil, tomato
worm, leaf slug, onion maggot, rose
chatter, cabbage lice, lead an army
of vegetable pests in forays upon
the fruits Of his toll. Every invader
lays eggs by the thousand and
matches new brood, in the run of
single sun, to ravage the rewards Of
rural industry The air is dim with
buzzing vandals and the earth alive
with crawling devourers.
The untaxed cur destroys his
flock. The sly fox and slippery
weazel revel in his hennery. The
hawk by day and the owl by night
capture the survivors Of the gapes,
straddles and cholera. H
II His capital in the farm stock is a
precarious investment. Murrain and
black tongue slay his cows. The
bot-fy is ever intent on fastening
it's deadly egg to the horse. The
scab, the fluke, the rot, ruin the
fold.
The elements battle his hopes.
The Sabeans make incursions upon
him and levy "war tariff" on his
property. Eliphaz, Bildad and
Zophar, with the usual lingual linn
berness of the small statesman,
"darken counsel by words without
knowledge" and rather side with
Satan and the marauding Chalde-
ans #.H 4
The modern Job, sitting amid his
broom m-sedge burrows, with the lar