The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1917-11-27
The Farmer on His Way to Heaven.

The other day in Vermont an agent
was mulcted in the sum of 81 800 by a
jury in the Washington county court for
false representations in the sale of a
farm. The agent had assured the pur-
chaser that there was "no better land in
Vermont" and that the pasture would
keep forty cows" The purchaser found
that there really was much better land
and that his pasture would keep no.
where near to forty cows. He sued for
damages, and it is to the immortal credit
of Vermont honor that he got them.
For, broadly speaking, every farm in
Vermont--shall we say in New Eng
land us for sale, and the agricultural
population, from which petit juries are
drawn, is all interested in getting as
much for its farms as possible, To lay
down the principle, therefore, that an
agent shall not crack up farm above its
honest merits represents a possible sac
rifice of precious selling opportunity.
1t seems to prove that Vermont puts
commercial honor above pecuniary ad-
vantage. 4F. at
1t certainly takes good deal of moral
force to lead New England farmer, on
petit jury or anywhere else, to re-
nounce the privilege of representing his
farm as the best in the, world-7as pos
sessing the richest soil outside of Col
conda, and as capable of supporting as
many cattle as you can stand up on it.
You may read of the superlative at
fractions of a hundred farms in any pa
per that has q lot of them for sale. Ii
would really seem that there must be
MISREPRESENTATION in some of these adj
vertisemerts, because each one of them
Is the best farm ever heard of--and not
all Of them can be that Each one has
an ynriyalled view. Each unites the
acme of picturesque rural seclusion with
the readiest accessibility to markets,
churches, schools and creameries. Each
has the best living well of purest water
ever known to the throat of thirsting
humans Each one Of them, while |
Astounding in fields and pastures, pos
sesses in the space of hundred acres
or SO, enough heavy timber to pay for
the place in one year, if cut. And so on
through the superlatfve category. All
this. according to the Washington county |
verdict, must be given up, unless it is
strictly true-and it can't be! No long |
er is "caveat emptor" to be the watch.
word in the sale of farms. 1t is now
the seller who must beware lest he com I
pliment his property too highly.
1t must be that the business of farm
ing, the essential morality of which was
so eloquently asserted by Thoreau more
than sixty years ago, has begun to ele-
vate the farmers conscience It was 1
Thoreau's idea that the farmer became
more moral with the process of improv-
ing his place-or something like that.
After having read various books on va
rious subjects for some months" said the
Sage of Walden, 81 take up a report on
FARMS by committee of Middesex hus-
bandmen, and read of the number of
acres of bog that some farmer has re-
deemed, and the number of rods of stone
wall that he has built, and the number
OF tons of hay that he now cuts, or of
bushels of potatoes he raises there, and f
/ feel as if ! had got my foot down, on |,
to the solid and sunny earth, the basis of
all philosophy, and poetry, and religion
even. i have faith that the man who
redeemed some acres of land the past
summer redeemed also some part of his
character. ] shall not expect to find him
ever in the almshouse or the prison. He
is, in fact, so far on his way to heaven.
When he took the farm there was not
grated tree on it, and now he realizes
something handsome from the sale of
fruit. TIese, and the absence of other
facts, are evidence of a certain moral
worth" This must be the explanation (
of the Washington county conscience
with regard to praising too highly the
farm that is for sale. The farms up in
that part of Vermont have redeemed
their consciences along with the hillsides
them have redeemed from stones. and
the bog they have drained and put down 5
to potatoes. They are on their wav to =
heaven without any decline in their Gus
tomary good health.-Bostcn Transcript.