Farmer

“ Suffice it to say that the farmer without an abundance of fruits in their season is like the lad with empty pockets outside the circus tent: lots of fruit and fun, ready to be enjoyed by those who have made thoughtful provision for the gratification of desires which always come, sooner or later. Every farmer should grow most of the fruits suited to his soil and climate,—enough to eat and to sell and to give to the worthy poor. ”

“ But when business is dull, and health delicate, many a professional man, many a clerk or unsuccessful merchant, concludes to buy a “snug farm,” and retire from the cares of the town or city, to lead the joyous life of a farmer. He has no knowledge of farming; but it requires none! Farming is simple. You rise with the dewy morn; you go forth to your prodigal acres; you rest under the trees bending with fruit; you eat from your bountiful table the food that sprung from your own soil,—and ever so much more romance of the same sort. ”

“ Farm life in its best aspect is a synonym for breadth, generosity, simplicity, cleanliness, abundance of sunlight, fresh air and good food, the beauty of nature, freedom from stiff formality—these are the things which the city dweller envies the farmer. ”

“ THE FARMER AND THE TROLL
There was once a man who owned a little farm, as fine and fruitful as you would care to see. He had always tended it himself, too, driving his own plow in the spring, and taking his two-wheeled cart to market in the fall with a load of apples, potatoes, and carrots.
All of a sudden, though, things began to go badly with the farmer. His milk curdled in the dairy and his horse kicked the traces on market day, spilling the load and laming herself into the bargain. The eggs were addled, and weeds choked and overran his garden, faster than he could pull them out. ”

“ My typical farmer, with his shock of untrimmed hair and beard, his stooping shoulders, his shambling, plow-following gait, his great cow-hide boots, his coarse, soiled, slouchy, ill-fitting blouse and overalls, his grimy hands, his ill-at-ease, uncultured manners, and his born-tired expression of countenance, I cannot find. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Your farm is small, yet your father drew from it a fortune; and I believe a good farmer might do the same thing a second time. But you are not very learned in agricultural matters. I will remain with you a while—at least until your health is re-established—and be your teacher. When you find yourself competent to the management of the farm I will bid you farewell, assured that you will lead a happier life than you ever knew before. ”

“ The very farmer who tells you that he never opened a book which treats of Agriculture, and never wants to see one, will ask his neighbor how to grow or cure tobacco, or hops, or sorgho, or any crop with which he is yet unacquainted, when the chances are a hundred to one that this particular neighbor cannot advise him so well as the volume which embodies the experience of a thousand cultivators of this very plant instead of barely one. ”

“ The poor broken-backed farmer has fallen upon the day of small things—the winged, creeping, crawling, and ever-devouring small things of six legs and more or less wings and unlimited stomach; those that delve in the ground and worm their way into roots, or climb up the branches and eat the leaves, or which strike the fruit and spot and blight it. ”

“ As the farmer casts into the ground the finest ears of his grain, the time will come when we too shall hold nothing back, but shall eagerly convert more than we now possess into means and powers, when we shall be willing to sow the sun and the moon for seeds. ”

“ Then the farmer would come in himself, hat in hand, and his eyes would light up at the sight of the visitor, and there would be more pleasant homely talk of cattle and crops, and the harvest and the plans for the autumn sowing, and the state of fairs and markets. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Pray’—turning to Lord Martindale—‘can you tell me which is the best shop to go to for agricultural implements?’
Speed the plough! Farming is a happy sedative for English noblemen of the nineteenth century, thought Theodora, as she heard them discussing subsoil and rocks, and thought of the poet turned high farmer, and forgetting even love and embarrassment! ”

“ There are thousands of bushels of ashes lying not far from his farm about an old soap and candle factory with which he might have dressed his whole farm.
A farmer gets a splendid crop of corn or grain from off a grass or clover lay. Does he take the hint? Does he adopt the system which shall allow him every year just such a sward to put his grain on? ”

“ June 13.—A few days ago I heard a good farmer—one who enjoys farming and has done well at it—say that there are three times when a field looks good.
"The first time is in the spring when you have finished putting in the grain and have run the slip-furrows and have done all you can to make sure of a good crop. The second time is when the crop is all in the shock in good shape, and the third time is when the stubble is bare and you have your harvest safe in the barn." ”

“ But we know, darling, that if a farmer went over a huge field, simply scattering grain, perhaps on ground even unploughed, and then went home, quite sure that all would go right, that he had only to go on for ever sowing and a harvest would certainly rise, he would hardly be likely to garner a crop.... ”

“ To him it is the field in which he labors, and the crops he gathers from it are as diversified in character, and as important for satisfying the demands of the world, as those which the farmer raises. ”

“ Instruction of the British farmer begins with the fortification of his will by confidence. When [Pg 224] you ask him to plough up grass land, to revise the rotation of his crops, to grow wheat, to use new brands of corn, to plough with tractors, and to co-operate, you are asking a man deeply and deservedly cynical about your intentions and your knowledge. He has seen wheat fail all his life, he has seen grass succeed. ”

“ And yet the farmer does not stand upon the same footing with the forester and the miner in the market of credit. He is the servant of the seasons. Nature determines how long he must wait for his crops, and will not be hurried in her processes. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Cattle, corn, pastures, vines, to make hearts glad,
Earth’s gifts to Man, her glory, and her pride.
A changed scene ours; no longer Nature heaps
The barns with sheaves; well, if the farmer keeps,
After cost of labour and grain he sowed,
A balance from the harvest that he reaps.
His land in ancient days required no toil,
Except to clear the corn from off the soil;
Much less, an armoury of tools, with beeves,
And a train of hirelings to drudge and moil.
Some aged ploughman will be heard complain,
That “labour as he may, how small the gain! ”

“ All those who own farms here are educated; they study agriculture, and gradually work their way to wealth and happiness. A farmer here is loved in the same manner as a banker or king on earth, only more. ”

“ The farmer therefore raises, stores and sells the abundance of the grain which he well knows how to gain from his fields; and, relinquishing the vain attempt to make clothes or hardware, ornamental furniture and articles of household utility or elegance, nay even ploughs and harrows,—the instruments of his industry,—purchases them with his superfluity. ”

“ The practice and the art of the farmer is one thing, I say; that of the shepherd another; the farmer's object being that what ever may be produced by cultivating the land should yield a profit; that of the shepherd to make his profit from the increase of his flock ”

“ But the Farmer, who expects to make Profit of his Land from what he sows or plants in it, finds not only Herbæ inutiles, but also noxiæ, unprofitable and hurtful Weeds; which come like Muscæ, or uninvited Guests, that always hurt, and often spoil his Crop, by devouring what he has, by his Labour in Dunging and Tilling, provided for its Sustenance. ”

“ The farmer is thus brought face to face with some of the most difficult and intricate problems with which the human race has to grapple. It is this fact that makes 7 farming, in some ways, the most uncertain as well as the most fascinating occupation known to man. ”

“ The farmer turned to his wife. "Yes, they will. Everywhere a farmer is the same. He works the land. He reads the papers. He votes. He listens to the radio. He watches the television. Mostly, he works the land. ”

“ Then, again, a farmer must grow a great variety of crops, and maintain all sorts of animals useful in husbandry, in order to make the most of every thing that is produced; for soil of different qualities produces different crops, and these crops feed different flocks and herds; and they must all change and change about continually. ”

“ I can well remember a striking illustration of this in the person of an old farmer, who lived about three miles off, and at whose house we—that is, the whole family—passed what seemed to me a very happy day among the haystacks or harvest-fields once or twice a year. The old man was proud of his farm, and of everything connected with it. ”

“ And, finally, I call attention with pride to the fact that in my department of the magazine the farmer will always find full market reports, and also complete instructions about farming, even from the grafting of the seed to the harrowing of the matured crop. I shall throw a pathos into the subject of Agriculture that will surprise and delight the world. ”

“ 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. ”

“ At the next step we find ourselves in the little community, of which the owner of this farm constitutes a portion; and here we find the farmer exchanging his wheat with one neighbour for a day's labour—the use of his wagon and his horse for other days of labour—his potatoes with a third for the shoeing of his horse, and with a fourth for the shoeing of himself and his children, or the making of his coat. ”

“ Unknown.
570 MAN AND THE FARM. It is a common complaint that the farm and farm life are not appreciated by our people. We long for the more elegant pursuits, or the ways and fashions, of the town. But the farmer has the most sane and natural occupation, and ought to find it sweeter, if less highly seasoned, than any other. He alone, strictly speaking, has a home. ”

“ A good farmer takes care of his implements of husbandry. Instead of leaving them scattered all over the farm, they are carefully gathered together, properly cleaned and greased to defend them from rust, and put in a safe place until they are wanted. ”

“ It is an opinion far too prevalent among those engaged in the more active occupations of our people,—fortified indeed in such opinion, by the too frequent example of the farmer himself—that everything connected with agriculture and agricultural life is of a rustic and uncouth character ”

“ Thus, if a run of bad luck may soon bring a farmer’s noble to ninepence and transform him into a métayer, still more easy is the descent from the farmer à mi-fruits to the condition of farm servant or agricultural labourer. ”

“ THIS is only farming in a common sense fashion, or rather, using your own sense and reason when putting in crops, studying the soil, its capabilities, properties and suitability for certain crops. When a practical farmer buys land for farming purposes he first examines it thoroughly, drains it if necessary, and manures the impoverished portions. ”

“ In some one of the first sentences of this paper I alluded to the influence of good and profitable farming in improving the condition and standing of the farmer, as a man among men. This, after all, is the crowning objective point, or should be, of all those who make the most of the opportunities the great mass neglect. ”

“ The only answer is that anything that adds to the attractiveness of the farm is worthy of cultivation. Happily a farmer who protects the birds secures a double return—increased profit from his crop and increased pleasure of living. ”

“ He owns more than a score of horses, cows, and mules and swine in large numbers, and is considered a prosperous farmer. In college the son of this farmer has studied chemistry, botany, zoölogy, surveying, and political economy. In my conversation I asked this young man how many acres his father cultivated in cotton and how many in corn. With a far-off gaze up into the heavens he answered that he did not know. When I asked him the classification of the soils on his father's farm, he did not know. ”