Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1901-11-25

I do not wonder that the Japanese
md the Chinese and the Phonicians
30 particularly extoIled husbandry or
that Cinrin:tatCs went from the consul
ship TO the pillow or that Noah was n
farmer before lie became a shipbuilder
or that Elisha was in the field blowing
with twelve yoke of oxen when the
mantle fell on hin or that the Egyp-
tians in Their paganism worshiped the
OK as n tiller of their lands.
To get an appreciation of what the
American pIow has accomplished /
take you into the western wilderness.
Here in the dense forest l find a col
lection of Indian wigwams. With belts
of wampum the men laZily sit on the
skins of deer, moklng their feathered
calumets, or, driven forth by hunger, L
track their moccasins far away as they
make the forest echoes crazy with their
wild halloo or fish in the waters of the
still lake. Now tribes challenge, and
council fires blaze, and warwhoops
ring. and chiefs lift h tomahawks for
battle. After awhile wagons from the
Atlantic coast come to those forests.
BY day trees are felled, and by night
boufres keep off the wolves. Log cab
ms rise, and the great trees begin to
throw their branches in the path of the
conquering white man. Farms are
cleared. Stumps, the monuments of
slain forests, crumble and are burned.
Villages appear, with smiths at the
bellows. masons on the wall, carpen-
tiers on the houSetOp. Churches rise IN
honor of the Great Spirit whom the
- .--z --aurhin STnn
ON the lake convey merchandise to her
wharf and carry east the uncounted
bushels that have come to the market.
Bring hither wreathS Of wheat and
crowns of rye and let the mills n the
machinery of barn and field unite their
voices to celebrate the triumph, for the
wilderness hath retreated and the pillow
hath conquered.
Triumph of H~usbandry.
Within cur time the presidential cab
met has added a sec~retaryship of agrl-
culture. Societies are constantly being
established for the education OF the
pIow. Journals devoted to this depart
ment are circulated through all the
country. Farmers through such cul-
ture have learned the attributes of
SOllS dIlu AOdl1o OoI bA1o 49,
field has its peculiar preferences.
Lands have their choice as to which
product they will bear. Marshy low
lands touched by the pillow rise and
wiring out their wet locks in the trench
es. Islands born down on the coast OF
Peru and Bolivia are transported to
our fields and make our vegetation
leap. Highways by this pillow are
changed from DOGGY sloughs into roads
like the Roman Appian way. Fields
go through blOodless revolutions until
there the farmhouse stands. In sum-
mer honeysuckles Chamber over the
trellises. On one side there stands q
garden, which is only a farm condens-
ed. On the other side there is a stretch
of meadow land with thick grass, and
as the wind breatheS over it it looks
like the deep green ocean waves. There
goes Il brook, tarrying long in its wind
ings, as if lOath to cave the spot where
the reeds sing, and the cattle stand at
monday under the shadow of the
weeping willows. In winter the sled
comes through the cracking snow with
huge logs from the woods, and the
barn floor quakes under b thumplngs
of the fail or the deafening buzz of
the thrashing machine. Horses stand
beneath NOW poles bending under loads
of hay and whinny to the we'll filled
oat bins. Comfort laughs at the wind
rafting the sashes and clicking the
icicles from the caves.
Parts of our country, under industri-
Gus tillage, have become an Eden of
e,,;+f,Inocc i'm -Uhioh rn1iOinn STA n6C
as the tree of life and educational ad-
vantages as the tree of knowledge of
good and evil, not one of them forbid
den. We are ourselves surrounded by
we'll cultured farms. They were work
ed by your fathers, and perhaps your
mothers helped spread the hay in b
field. On their headStOnes are b
names you bear. As, when you were
boys, in the sultry noon you sought for
the harvest field with refreshments for
your fathers and found them taking
their noon spell sound asleep under
the trees. so peacefully now they sleep
in some country churchyard. No more
fatigued. Death has plowed for them
the deep furrow of a grave.
Agricultural Prosperity.
Although most of us have nothing di-
rectly to do with the tillage of the soil,
yet in all our occupations we feel b
effect of successful or blighted indus-
try. We must, in all u occupations,
rejoice over the victories of the pillow
today. The earth was once cursed for
mans sake, and occasionally the soil
revenges itself on US by refusing a
bountiful harvest. l suppose that but
for sin the earth would be producing
wheat and corn and sweet fruits as
naturally as now it produces mI!lein
stalks and Canada thistles. There is
hardly a hiIlock between the forests of
Maine and the lagoonS Of Florida, be-
Au-nnn AZ nonnh- Archn nIS- Of NOH Inr-