Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14.djvu/35

1864.] Essex County, Sir, is to keep the farmers jest as they are. Greek 'n' Latin a'n't state-prison offences, but they're sure death to pork 'n' potaters. Minute you edicate the farmers they'll be as uneasy as a toad under a harrow. What kind of a hand would Doctor Hall or Squire Smith make, to come an' take a farm alongside o' me?"

This is the way our bold yeoman puts it. Planting himself on the indisputable facts of his pork and potatoes, he regards one who stands upon any other ground as a dreamer and a visionary. He forgets that pork and potatoes are not the only facts in the world. The earth itself is a larger fact than anything that springs from it. It is the inalienable inheritance, the sole support of man. Mother and nurse, from the cradle to the grave, there comes no hour when he can withdraw from her nourishing bosom. But, by our farmers' showing, it is but a harsh and niggardly step-mother, opening the fountains of life only under enforcement. Is this reasonable? Is it reasonable to suppose that the one calling which is essential to life, the one calling on which every other depends, should be the Canaan accursed, servant of servants to its brethren? Is it reasonable to suppose that God gave us this beautiful round world, source of all our wealth, almoner of every comfort, possessor and dispenser of all grace and loveliness, yet with such poison in her veins that they alone are safe who deal with her at a remove,—she withers the hand that touches her? The ancients believed better things than these. They reverenced the Mighty Mother, and fabled a giant's strength to him who craved a blessing by the laying-on of hands. We know that a curse was pronounced upon the earth, but why farmers should be so forward to monopolize the curse it is difficult to conceive. It is generally supposed that all the descendants of Adam are equally implicated. It is not the farmer alone, but the minister and the mechanic as well, who is to eat bread in the sweat of his face. One product of the earth was no more accursed than another. Wheat and barley and corn are no more under a ban than gold and iron and timber, which all come from the same bountiful bosom; but while artificers in gold and iron magnify their office and wax fat, the farmer depreciates his, and according to his own showing is clothed upon with leanness.

Surely these things ought not so to be. Looking at this earth as the divinely prepared dwelling-place of man, and looking at man as divinely appointed to dress and keep it, to replenish and subdue it, we should naturally suppose that there would be an obvious and preëminent adaptation of the one to the other. We should naturally suppose that the primary, the fundamental occupation of the race would be one which should not only keep body and soul together, but should be especially and exactly fitted to develop and strengthen all the powers called into exercise, and should also be most likely to call into exercise a great variety of powers to the fashioning of a healthy and beautiful symmetry. Looking still further at the secondary occupations, we find our views confirmed. The shoemaker must bend over his lapstone, and he becomes stooping and hollow-chested. The blacksmith twists the sinews of his arms to strength, but at the expense of his other members. The watchmaker trains his eyes to microscopic vision, but his muscles are small and his skin colorless. A very large majority of the secondary callings remove men from the open air, often from the sunshine, and generally train one or a few faculties at the expense of the others. The artisan carries skill to perfection, the genius towers into sublimity, but the man suffers. Not so the farmer. His life is not only many-, but all-sided. His ever-changing employment gives him every variety of motion and posture. Not a muscle but is pressed into service. His work lies chiefly out-of-doors. The freedom of earth and sky are his. Every power of his mind may be brought into play. He is surrounded by mysteries