The Ideal Farmer

Ralph Waldo Emerson, in his essays, thus portrays the glory of the farmer : The glory of the farmer is that, in the división of labor, it is his part to créate. All the trades rest at last on his primitive authority. He stands close to nature ; he obtains from the earth the bread and the meat. The food which was not he causes to be. The first farmer was the first man, and all historie nobility rest on the possession and use of land. Men do not like hard work, but every man has an exceptional respect for tillage, and the feeling that this is the original calling of his race, that he himself is only excusedj from it by some circunistances which made him delégate it for a time to other hands. If be had not some skill which reoommended him to the farmer, some product for which the farmer will give his corn, he must himself return into his due place arnong the planters. And the profession has in all eyes this ancient charm, as standing nearest to God, the First Cause. The beauty of nature, the tranquillity and innocence of the countryman, his independence and his pleasing arts - the oare of bees, of poultry, of sheep, of cows, the dairy, the care of hay, of fruits, of orchards and foresta, and the reaction of these on the workman in giving him stiength and plain dignity, like the face and manners of nature, all man acknowledge. All men keep the farm in reserve as an asylum, where, in case of mischance, to hide the property, or a solitude, if they 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 pleasure ? Poisoned by town life, and town vices, the sufferèrs resolved : [" Well, my children, whom I have injured, shall go back to the land to be recruited and cured by that which should have been my nursery, and now shall be their hospital."