The Ideal Farmer

Ralph Valdo Emerson, in ono of his essay?, thus portrays the glory of a farmer: "The glory of thn farmer is that, in the divieon of labor, it his part to créate. All the trades rest at last on his primitivo authority. Se stands close t o nat uie ; lie ebtains trom the earth the bread and the meat. The i'ood which was not, ho causes to be. The ürat iarmor -svas ■thefirstman, and all istoric nobility rebt on possessiou and use of land. Men do not like bard work, but every man has un exceptional re-peet for tillage, and the feeling that this is the original calling of bib race, that he hittiSelf 13 only excused from it by some eircuinstances which mado h'ni delégate for a time to other hands. If ha had not somo skill whicli rccommcndeJ bim to the farmer, sotóe product fot which the farmer will rive him oorn, he must himself return into his duo place aniong the planters. And the profession has in all pyes this anciont charm, as standing nearest to God, the First Cause. Then the beauty of nature, the tranquiiity and innocence of the countryinan, his independenoe, and his pleasing arts - the cares of bees, of poultry, of sheep, of cowp, the dairy, tho care of hay, of fruits, of orchards and forests, and the reaction of these on tho workman in giving him a strength and plain üiginty, Hke the face and manners of nature, all men aeknowledge. All men keep tho farm in resprve as anasylum, where, in case of mischance, to hide the property„ or a solitude, if thoy do not succeed in society. And who knows how many glances of remorse are turned this way from the bankrupts of trade, from mortified pleaders in courts and senates, or from the victims of idleness and pièasurÊ? by town lifo and town vices, tho suft'erer resolves : 'Well, my children, whoin I havo injured, shall go back to the land, to be recruited and cured by that which should have been my nuxseryj and now shall bo their hospital.' "