Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14.djvu/32

22 its fallen fortunes are indicative of what yours shall be,—if Arcadia blooms only in its gorgeous bosom, and will turn into an Arabia Petræa at the first touch of your spade,—better for you a pitcher of roughest Delft on board of deal than all this pomp and circumstance of lies.

Reports of societies are not generally "as interesting as a novel." Nevertheless, if one will consult the Report of the Commission of Agriculture for 1862, he will find, among fascinating columns of figures, bold disquisitions on the midge, a mirage of grapes, pears, and peaches, and uncomfortable-looking "thoroughbred" cattle, an essay, by Dr. W. W. Hall of New York city, which may assist him in forming his plans. It is not necessarily destructive of the most charming theories, but it is very definite and damnatory as to facts. Among other unromantic and disagreeable things, it asserts—and proves its assertions by still more disagreeable, because incontrovertible statistics,—that, for all the sylvan delights of lawn and bower, and the exquisite sensation of eating your own hams, the largest class of patients in insane asylums comes from the "jolly boys" and their wives and daughters; but better watch a grass-blade struggling up under the curb-stone of the sidewalk than view the fairest landscape in the world from behind a grated window. We learn also, that, in spite of his ample larder, his freedom from envy and carking care, the farmer does not live so long as the pale clergyman whose white hands he looks upon with only not contempt; but how sweet soever may be the scent of clover and buttercup, he little heeds their fragrance who lies beneath them. We are told that a very large part of our farming population have no breadth of view; that they cannot enter into a conversation beyond a few comments on the weather, the crops, the markets, and the neighborhood-news. The freshness, the beauty, the music and motion, that breathe and stir around them, can gain no foothold in the unvarying routine of their lives; but in vain do the heavens spread out their glory, and in vain the earth unfolds her loveliness, if

To these skeletons is added, perhaps, the causal and certainly the most common skeleton of all: in this rustic paradise, this home of all the graces and comforts, the grim spectre Debt stalks to and fro, eating out the farmer's substance, and giving him in return anxiety, makeshifts, irascibility, and despair. Three homes out of four, according to this writer's estimate, suffer from the ravages of debt.

This is a general, perhaps a national view. We may come a little nearer home, and find that a closer examination only confirms the conclusions arrived at by the broader survey. Thoreau, who "has travelled a great deal in Concord," and whose keen eyes took note there for forty years, says,—"When I consider my neighbors, the farmers of Concord, I find that for the most part they have been toiling twenty, thirty, or forty years, that they may become the real owners of their farms, which commonly they have inherited with incumbrances, or else bought with hired money,  but commonly they have not paid for them yet. It is true, the incumbrances sometimes outweigh the value of the farm, so that the farm itself becomes one great incumbrance, and still a man is found to inherit it, being well acquainted with it, as he says. On applying to the assessors, I am surprised to learn that they cannot at once name a dozen in the town who own their farms free and clear. If you would know the history of these homesteads, inquire at the bank where they are mortgaged. The man who has actually paid for his farm with labor on it is so rare that every neighbor can point to him. I doubt if there are three such men in Concord. What has been said of the merchants,—that a very large majority, even ninety-seven in a hundred, are sure to fail,—is equally true of the farmers Yet the Middlesex Cattle-Show goes off here with éclat annually, as if