Farmer's son

“ But a farmer rarely gives a boy the use of a half-acre of land, on which he may raise corn or cabbages or roots for himself, though knowing that the boy could plant and cultivate it if he were allowed a chance, and that such a privilege would be likely to develop his energies, and show of what stuff he was made. ”

“ Dad erected a shelter over him, made of boughs, to keep the sun off. Two or three times a day he cut green stuff for him—which the cows ate. He humped water to him which he sullenly refused to drink; and did all in his power to persuade Farmer to get up and go on with the ploughing. I don't know if Dad knew anything of mesmerism, but he used to stand for long intervals dumbly staring the old horse full in the eyes till in a commanding voice he would bid him "Get up!" But Farmer lacked the patriotism of the "Curse You! ”

“ The great elements with which he deals cannot leave him unaffected, or unconscious of his ministry; but their influence somewhat resembles that which the same Nature has on the child,—of subduing and silencing him. We see the farmer with pleasure and respect, when we think what powers and utilities are so meekly worn. He knows every secret of labor: he changes the face of the landscape. Put him on a new planet, and he would know where to begin; yet there is no arrogance in his bearing, but a perfect gentleness. The farmer stands well on the world. ”

“ Thus while each farmer keeps his own Maiden, as the embodiment of the young and fruitful spirit of the corn, he passes on the Old Wife as soon as he can to a neighbour, and so the old lady may make the round of all the farms in the district before she finds a place in which to lay her venerable head. The farmer with whom she finally takes up her abode is of course the one who has been the last of all the countryside to finish reaping his crops, and thus the distinction of entertaining her is rather an invidious one. ”

“ Nearly every farmer's boy took an oath that he never would cultivate the soil. The moment they arrived at the age of twenty-one they left the desolate and dreary farms and rushed to the towns and cities. They wanted to be bookkeepers, doctors, merchants, railroad men, insurance agents, lawyers, even preachers, anything to avoid the drudgery of the farm. Nearly every boy acquainted with the three R's—reading, writing, and arithmetic—imagined that he had altogether more education than ought to be wasted in raising potatoes and corn. ”

“ The farm hand of today is no longer the potential equal of his employer, and all the old show of social equality is rapidly disappearing; only in the backwoods sections can it yet be found, and there the farm hand is usually the son of a neighboring farmer and therefore carries the status of his father. ”

“ But when autumn came the farmer said: "We must have a herd boy. The hired man cannot sit out in the meadow all day when there is so much work still to be done, and yet we cannot leave the cows out in the pasture all alone." ”

“ THE LITTLE FARMER
HERE was a certain village where lived many rich farmers and only one poor one, whom they called the Little Farmer. He had not even a cow, and still less had he money to buy one; and he and his wife greatly wished for such a thing. One day he said to her,
"Listen, I have a good idea; it is that your godfather the joiner shall make us a calf of wood and paint it brown, so as to look just like any other; and then in time perhaps it will grow big and become a cow." ”

“ Knowing that I have become a farmer, he lingers whenever he finds me at home, to hear the news of potatoes and crops. He dreams of them, asleep and awake, and he has saved nearly enough to buy his farm, beside raising a family of little children. ”

“ The mere fact that farming is practically the only remaining industry conducted on a family basis—which seems likely to continue—and that all members of the family have more or less of a share in the conduct and success of the farm, creates a family bond which does not ordinarily exist where the business or employment of the father and of other members of the family is dissociated from the home. ”

“ The farmers were astonished and cried,
"Little Farmer, whence come you? how did you get out of the water?"
"Oh, easily," answered he, "I sank and sank until I came to the bottom; then I broke through the cask and came out of it, and there were beautiful meadows and plenty of sheep feeding, so I brought away this flock with me."
Then said the farmers, "Are there any left?"
"Oh yes," answered the Little Farmer, "more than you can possibly need."
Then the farmers agreed that they would go and fetch some sheep also, each man a flock for himself; and the bailiff said, "Me first." ”

“ It is doubtful if he had any greater ambition than to become a good farmer, as good as was his father before him, and like him, attain to a competency. He was already fairly well to do the year he became of age, for his father, after providing generously for the other children, had bequeathed to him and his brother David the homestead, house and farm attached. ”

“ My money is 'most gone, and I need a little to keep me going, though I don't require much to live on."
"Then why don't you stay here?" asked the farmer. "I need a man to help me with the cultivating. I can't pay much—no farmer can these times—but I'll do the best I can. If I had a man to help with the cultivating I could stir the dirt up around the crops, and it wouldn't matter quite so much about the rain. Did you ever work on a farm?"
"Once, when I was a young lad. But if my corn keeps on hurting the way it does, I know we'll have rain." ”

“ They think that to scratch over many acres of land, guiltless of manure or help of any kind, with a yoke of oxen and then to have all the family from the oldest to the youngest turn out and plant the corn by hand, disturbing it as little as possible by work until it is ready to harvest, is to be a farmer, and they are satisfied. ”

“ There is no subject of more vital importance to the farmer than that of the best method of maintaining the fertility of the soil. The very evident decrease in the fertility of those soils which have been under cultivation for a number of years, combined with the increased competition and the advanced price of labor, have convinced the intelligent farmer that the agriculture of the future must be based upon more rational practices than those which have been followed in the past. ”

“ I asked.
“There’s four of them—children of a farmer near Ploumar here. . . . The parents are dead now,” he added, after a while. “The grandmother lives on the farm. In the daytime they knock about on this road, and they come home at dusk along with the cattle. . . . It’s a good farm.” ”

“ If at times the rain is very late in coming, often whole farms are ruined because the crops wither, or the cattle die, for want of water.
3. The Farmer and his Family
We said that a farm always belongs to one man, called the farmer. This man lives with his wife and children in a brick or stone house in the middle of his land. Sometimes, when his children grow up, the sons marry and bring their wives to live in the father's house, while the daughters go away to live with their husbands on other farms. The girls who do not marry still live at home with their father and mother. ”

“ Yet what is the position of the mother in the New England farmer's home? The farmer is careful of every animal he possesses. The farm-yard and the stall are replenished with young, by creatures for months dismissed from labor, or handled with intelligent care while carrying their burden; because the farmer knows that only in this way can he secure improvement, and sound, symmetrical development, to the stock of his farm. ”

“ As much of the pasture-land as could be sown with wheat, rye, and barley, was brought into cultivation again, and the sheep still further reduced in number, by being transferred to the villagers, as they could buy them with their labour. Several farms had been let on the old rental to the old tenants or their sons—Miles stipulating that the old people should be provided for by the young farmer, if the hard life of the woods had made them incapable of work for themselves. ”

“ All the farmers in this neighbourhood have finished their harvest; and my uncle took me again to Farmer Moreland’s, that I might see the whole of the process. The stacks, I see, are placed on stands, supported by stone pillars, with a projecting cap of flag-stone, so that the corn has a free passage of air underneath, and is out of the reach of rats.
Farmer Moreland is one of the most comfortable farmers in this part of the country; and, being an old, experienced man, and very much respected, he seems to be considered at the head of the yeomanry. ”

“ A Farmer being on the point of death, wished to insure from his sons the same attention to his farm as he had himself given it. He called them to his bedside, and said, "My sons, there is a great treasure hidden in one of my vineyards." ”

“ This new agent came now and he came to every farmer in that hamlet, and the mother waited at her own door, the grain heaped on the threshing-floor and waiting, and the agent came.
He was a townsman, head to foot, a tall, smooth man, his gown gray silk and leathern shoes on his feet, and he had a large smooth hand he put often to his shaven lip, and when he moved a scent of some sort came from him. The mother hung back when he came and when he called, “Where is the farmer?” the woman waited and let the old mother pipe forth, “My son he works in the city now, and there be only we upon the land.” ”

“ To properly care for his family he should plant all of it; but, except in the case of wheat, if he were to plant it all, one-half to three-fourths of the crop would be wasted through lack of necessary cultivation. His horse is like himself, an overworked animal. In any section of the country the farmer is regarded safe who owns a pair of good horses. ”

“ They could hardly wait for their mother to get home.
"Oh, mother!" they called out as soon as they saw her; "do take us away from this field. The farmer has sent for Mr. White to cut this wheat to-morrow."
"If that is so," said the mother, "you need have no fear. If he waits for his neighbor to do his work, his wheat will not be cut." ”

“ If her brothers do not give her corn, oil and milk according to her share, then her field and garden shall be given to a farmer whom she chooses and the farmer shall support her. She shall have the usufruct of field and garden and all that her father gave her so long as she lives, but she cannot sell or assign it to others. ”

“ Plow the turf off of any scurvy lot or road-side, and pile it into the barn-yard; nay, dig a hundred loads of pure clay, and place it there, if you can get it at a small expense, and your average soil is gravelly or sandy. The farmer who is unable or reluctant to buy commercial fertilizers should apply his whole force every Autumn to replenishing his barn-yard with that material which he can obtain most easily which the trampling of his cattle may readily convert into manure. A month is too little, two months would not be too much, to devote to this good work. ”

“ There were none, so Uncle Ben led his young visitors to inspect the farms.
“Mr. Ta’mage, we’se gotta street cleanin’ squad, an’ a police force, an’ a health board wid nusses, an’ to say nuttin’ of dem firemen, but we hain’t got no head farmers in camp to show helpers all de time, what we wants to know,” ventured a voice from the crowd that followed at Uncle Ben’s heels.
“That’s so! Farmer Jones is master here, but he can’t be at everyone’s beck and call. We’ll have to plan a farmer club tomorrow, and I will send down books and pamphlets for all to read or study.” ”

“ Is your Uncle Salters a farmer?"
"Farmer!" shouted Dan. "There ain't water enough 'tween here an' Hatt'rus to wash the furrer-mold off'n his boots. He's jest everlastin' farmer. Why, Harve, I've seen thet man hitch up a bucket, long towards sundown, an' set twiddlin' the spigot to the scuttle-butt same's ef 'twas a cow's bag. He's thet much farmer. Well, Penn an' he they ran the farm—up Exeter way 'twur. Uncle Salters he sold it this spring to a jay from Boston as wanted to build a summer-haouse, an' he got a heap for it. ”

“ All over the United States boys are banding together to raise better corn, better cotton, better chickens, better fruit. North, west, east, and south, thousands of boys are raising corn. They test their seed, prepare the soil, plant, cultivate, and harvest the crop, weigh it, take it to the exhibition where they compare it with other boys' crops, and see for themselves who has the best yield. One boy, a member of the Winnebago County Farmer Boys' Experiment Club took first prize of fifteen dollars in gold for the best [453] ten ears of corn. ”

“ Next day, however, the owner came again, and finding the sun still hotter and the corn more ripe, and nothing done, "There is not a moment to be lost," said he; "we cannot depend upon our neighbours: we must call in our relations;" and, turning to his son, "Go call your uncles and cousins, and see that they begin to-morrow." In still greater fear, the young ones repeated to their mother the farmer's words. ”

“ Speaking in a very general way, only about one-half the land on these farms is in cultivated crops, while only 40% of the income may be from the products which cause the farm to be thus classified. The young farmer will do well to have these figures in mind when he starts out in life, for while they are not to be followed literally, they give him a measuring stick with which to compare his operations. ”