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{FIFTH “EDITION.
FARM LIFE
- IN AMERICA.
AS IT WAS------AS IT IS------AS IT SHOULD BE.
AN
address
NATIONAL SECULARSOCIETY
COLONEL INGERSOLL,
The Great American Orator and Wit.
PRICE TWOPENCE.
SOLD BY
MORRISH, Bookseller, 18, Narrow Wine-st., Bristol.
FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY, 63, Fleet Street, London;
PROGRESSIVE PUBLISHING COMPANY, 28, Stonecutter-st., London;
TRUELOVE, 256, High Holborn, London;
CATTELL & Co., 84, Fleet Street, London.
The BOOKSTALL, 75, Humberstone Gate, Leicester;
WITTY, Bookseller, Hull.
The BOOKSTALL, Freethought Institute, Southampton ;
S. WATTS, Charles Street, Oxford Street, Manchester;
ALEXANDER ORR, 332, Lawnmarket, Edinburgh;
ROBERT FERGUSON, 82, Ingram Street, Glasgow.
�j
�Stationery Repository
80, PICCADILLY, HANLEY
C
------------ 1
FARM LIFE IN AMERICA.
As it was—as it is—as it should be.
---- o----am not an old and experienced farmer, nor a tiller of the soil, nor
one of the hard-handed sons of labor. I imagine, however, that
I know something about cultivating the soil, and getting happiness
out of the ground.
,
I know enough to know that agriculture is the basis of all wealth,
prosperity, and luxury. I know that in a country where the tillers of
the fields are free, everybody is free and ought to be prosperous. Hap
py is that country where those who cultivate the land own it.
Patriotism is born in the woods and fields—by lakes and streams—by
crags and plains.
The old way of farming was a great mistake. Everything was done
the wrong way. It was all work and waste, weariness and want. They
used to fence 160 acres of land with aoouple of dogs. Everything was
left to the protection of the blessed trinity of chance, accident, and
mistake.
When I was a farmer they used to haul wheat two hundred miles in
waggons and sell it for thirty-five cents a bushel. They would bring
home about three hundred feet of lumber, two bunches of shingles, a
barrel of salt, and a cooking stove that never would draw and never did
bake.
In those blessed days the people lived on corn and bacon. Cooking
was an unknown art. Eating was a necessity, not a pleasure. It was
hard work for the cook to keep on good terms, even with hunger.
We had poor houses. The rain held the roofs in perfect contempt,
and the snow drifted joyfully on the floors and beds. They had no
barns. The horses were kept in pens surrounded with straw. Long
before Spring the sides would be eaten away and nothing but the roofs
would be left. Food is fuel. When the cattle were exposed to all
the blasts of Winter, it took all the corn and oats that could be stuff
ed into them to prevent actual starvation.
In those times most farmers thought the best place for the pig pen
was immediately in front of the house. There is nothing like sociability.
Women were supposed to know the art of making fires without fuel.
The wood pile consisted, as a general thing, of one log upon which an
axe or two had been worn out in vain. There was nothing to kindle a
fire with. Pickets were pulled from the garden fenc§, flap boards taken
from the house, and every stray plank was seized upon as firewood.
Everything was done in the hardest way. Nothing was kept in order.
Z
�Nothing was preserved. The waggons stood in the sun and rain, and
the ploughs rusted in the fields. There was no leisure, no feeling that
the work was done. It was all labor and weariness and vexation of
spirit. The crops were destroyed by wandering herds, or they were put
in too late, or too early, or they were blown down or caught by frost,
or devoured by bugs, or stung by flies, or eaten by worms, or carried
away by birds, or dug up by gropers, or washed away by floods, or dried
up by the sun, or rotted in the stacks, or heated in the crib, or they all
ran to vines, or tops, or straw, smut or cobs. And when in spite of all
these accidents that lie in wait between the plough and the reaper, they
did succeed in raising a good crop and a high price was offered, then
the roads would be impassable. And when the roads got good, then the
prices went down. Everything worked together for evil.
Nearly every farmer’s boy took an oath that he would never 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 book-keepers, doctors, merchants, railroad men, insurance
agents, lawyers, even preachers, anything to avoid the drudgery of the
farm. Nearly every boy acquainted with the three R’s imagined that
he had altogether more education than ought to be wasted in raising
potatoes and corn. They made haste to get into some other business.
Those who stayed upon the farm envied those who went away.
A few years ago the times were prosperous, and the young men went
to the cities to enjoy the fortunes that were waiting for them. They
wanted to engage in something that promised quick returns. They
built railways, established banks and insurance companies. They specu
lated in stocks in Wall street, and gathered in grain at Chicago. They
became rich. They lived in palaces. They rode in carriages. They
pitied their poor brothers on the farms, and the poor brothers envied
them.
But time has brought its revenge. The farmers have seen the rail
road president a bankrupt, and the railroads in the hands of a receiver.
They have seen the bank president abscond, and the insurance company
a wrecked and ruined fraud. The only solvent people, as a class, the
only independant people, are the tillers of the soil.
Farming must be made more attractive. The comforts of the town
must be added to the beauty of the fields. The sociability of the city
must be rendered possible in the country.
Farming has been made repulsive. The farmers have been unsociable
and their homes have been lonely. They have been wasteful and care
less. They have not been proud of their business.
In the first place farming ought to be reasonably profitable. The
farmers have not attended to their own interests. They have been
robbed and plundered in a hundred ways.
No farmer can afford to raise corn and oats and hay to sell. He
should sell horses, not oats ; sheep, cattle, and pork, not corn. He
should make every profit possible out of what he produces. So long as
the farmers of Illinois ship their corn and oats, so long will they be
poor,—just so long will their farms be mortgaged to the insurance com
panies and banks of the east,—just so long will they do the work and
others reap the benefit,—just so long will they be poor and the money
�lenders grow rich,—just so long will cunning avarice grasp and hold the
net profits of honest toil. When the farmers of the West ship beef and
pork instead of grain,—when we cease paying tribute to others, ours
will be the most prosperous country in the world.
Another thing—It is just as cheap to raise a good as a poor breed
of cattle. Scrubs will eat just as much as thoroughbreds. If you are
not able to buy Durhams and Alderneys, you can raise the corn breed.
By “ corn breed I mean the cattle that have, for several generations,
had enough to eat, and have been treated with kindness. Every farmer
who will treat his cattle kindly, and feed them all they want, will, in a
few years, have blooded stock on his farm. All blooded stock has been
produced in this way. You can raise good cattle just as you can raise
good people. If you wish to raise a good boy you must give him plenty
to eat, and treat him with kindness. In this way, and in this way only
can good cattle or good people be produced.
Another thing—You must beautify your homes. When I was a
farmer it was not fashionable to set out trees, or to plant vines.
When you visited the farm you were not welcomed with flowers and
greeted by trees loaded with fruit. Yellow dogs came bounding over
the tumbled fence like wild beasts. There is no sense—there is no
profit in such a life. It is not living. The farmers ought to beautify
their homes. There should be trees and grass and running vines.
Everything should be kept in order—gates should be on their hinges,
and about all these should be the pleasant air of thrift. In every house
there should be a bath-room. The bath is a civilizer, a refiner, a beaut
ifies When you come from the fields tired, covered with dust, nothing
is so refreshing. Above all things keep clean. It is not necessary to
be a pig in order to raise one. In the cool of the evening, after a day
in the fields put on clean clothes, take a seat under the trees ’mid the
perfumes of flowers, surrounded by your family, and you will know
what it is to enjoy life like a gentleman.
In no part of the globe will farming pay better than in Illinois. You
are in the best portion of the earth. From the Atlantic to the Pacific
there is no such country as yours. The east is hard and stony; the
soil is stingy. The far west is a desert parched and barren, dreary and
desolate as perdition would be with the fires out. It is better to dig
wheat and corn from the soil than gold. Only a few days ago I was
where they wrench the precious metals from the miserly clutch of the
rocks. When I saw the mountains treeless, shrubless, flowerless, with
out even a spire of grass, it seemed to me that gold had the same effect
upon the country that holds it, as upon the man who lives and labours
only for that. It affects the land as it does the man. It leaves the
heart barren without a flower of kindness—without a blossom of pity.
The farmer in Illinois has the best soil—the greatest return for the
least labor more leisure—more time for enjoyment than any other
farmer in the world. His hard work ©eases with autumn. He has the
long winter in which to become acquainted with his family—with his
neighbours in which to read and keep abreast with the advanced
thought of his day. He has the time and means for self culture. He
has more time than the mechanic, the merchant, or the professional
man. If the farmer is not well informed it is his own fault« Books
�*
«re cheap, and every farmer can have enough to give him the outline
of every science, and an idea of all that has-been accomplished by man.
In many respects the farmer has the advantage of the mechanic.
In our time we have plenty of mechanics but no tradesmen. In the
«ub-division of labor we have a thousand men working upon different
parts of the same thing, each taught in one particular branch, and in
only one. We have, say, in a shoe factory, hundreds of men, but not
one shoemaker. It takes them all, assisted by a great- number of ma
chines, to make a shoe. Each does a particular part, and not one of them
knows the entire trade. The result is that when the factory shuts these
men are out of employment. Out of employment means out of bread—
out of bread means famine and horror. The mechanic of to-day has but
little independence. His prosperity often depends on the good will of
one man. He is liable to be discharged for a look, for a word. He
lays by but little for his declining years. He is, at the best, the slave
of capital.
It is a thousand times better to be a whole farmer than part of a
mechanic. It is better to till the ground and work for yourself than to
be hired by corporations. Every man should endeavour to' belong to
himself.
About seven hundred years ago, Kheyam, a Persian, said: “ Why
should a man who possesses a piece of bread securing life for two days
and who has a cup of water—why should such a man be commanded
by another, and why should such a man serve another ? ”
Young men should not be satisfied with a salary. Do not mortgage
the possibilities of your future. Have the courage to take life as it
comes, feast or famine. Think of hunting a gold mine for a dollar a
day, and think of finding one for another man. How would you feel
than.
We are lacking in true courage, when for fear of the future, we take
the crusts and scraps and niggardly salaries of the present. Man needs
more manliness, more real independence. We must take care of our
selves, this we can do by labor, and in this way we can preserve our
independence. We should try and choose that business or profession
the pursuit of which gives us the most happiness. Happiness is wealth.
We can be happy without being rich—without holding office—without
being famous. I am not sure that we can be happy with wealth—with
office—with fame.
There is a quiet about the life of a farmer, and the hope of a serene
old age, that no other business or profession can promise. A profess
ional man is doomed sometimes to feel that his powers are waning.
He is doomed to see younger and stronger men pass him in the race of
life. He looks forward to an old age of intellectual mediocrity. He
will be the last where once he was the first. But the farmer goes, as
it were, into partnership with nature—he lives with trees and flowers—
he breathes the sweet air of the fields. There is no constant and
frightful strain upon his mind. His nights are filled with sleep and rest.
He watches his flocks and herds as they feed upon the green and sunny
slopes. He hears the pleasant rain falling upon the waving corn, and
the trees he planted in his youth rustle above him as he plants others
for the children yet to be,
�1
Our country is filled with the idle and unemployed, and the great
question asking for an answer is : what shall be done with these men ?
what must these men do ? To this there is but one answer : They
must cultivate the soil. Farming must be rendered more attractive.
Those who work the land must have an honest pride in their business.
They must educate their children to cultivate the soil. They must
make farming easier so that their children will not hate it—so that they
will not hate it themselves. The boys must not be taught that tilling
the ground is a curse and almost a disgrace. They must not suppose
that education is thrown away upon them unless they become ministers)
merchants, doctors, lawyers, or statesmen. It must be understood that
education can be used to advantage on a farm. We must get rid of the
idea that a little learning unfits one for work. There is no real con
flict between Latin and labor. There are hundreds of graduates of
Yale and Harvard and other colleges, who are agents for sewing
machines, solicitors’ clerks, copyists, m short, performing a hundred
varieties of menial service. They seem willing to do anything that is
not regarded as work—anything that can be done in a town, in the
house, in an office, but they avoid farming as they would leprosy.
Nearly every young man educated in this way is simply ruined. Such
. an education ought to be called ignorance. It is a thousand times bet
ter to have common sense without education, than education without
the sense. Boys and girls should be educated to help themselves. They
should be taught that it is disgraceful to be idle and dishonorable to be
useless.
I say again, if you want more men and women on the farms, some
thing must be done to make farm life pleasant. One great difficulty is
that the farm is lonely. People write about the pleasures of solitude,
but they are found only in books. He who lives long alone becomes
insane A hermit is a madman. Without friends and wife and child,
there is nothing left worth living for. The unsocial are the enemies of
joy. They are filled with egotism and envy, with vanity and hatred.
People who live much alone become narrow and suspicious. They are
apt to be the property of one idea. They begin to think there is no
use in anything. They look upon the happiness of others as a kind of
folly. They hate joyous folks, because, way down in their hearts they
envy them.
In our country, farm life is too lonely. The farms are large and
neighbours are too far apart. In these days when the roads are filled
with “ tramps,” the wives and children need protection. When the
farmer leaves home and goes to some distant field to work, a shadow
of fear is upon his breast, and a like shadow rests upon all at home.
In the early settlement of our country the pioneer was forced to take
his family, his axe, his dog and his gun, and go into the far wide forest
and build his cabin miles and miles from any neighbour. He saw the
smoke from his hearth go up ¡alone in all the wide and lonely sky.
But this necessity has passed away, and now, instead of living so far
apart upon the lonely farf^Pyou should live in villages. With
the improved machinery which you have—with your generous soil—
with your markets and means of transport you can now afford to live
together,
�8
It is not necessary in this age of the world for the farmer to rise in
the middle of the night and begin his work. This getting up so early
in the morning is a relic of barbarism. It has made hundreds and
thousands of young men curse the business. There is no need of getting
up at three or four o’clock in the winter morning. The farmer who per
sists in doing it and persists in dragging his wife and children iron their
beds, ought to be visited by a missionary. It is time enough to rise
after the sun has set the example. For what purpose do you get up ?
To feed the cattle? Why not feed them more the night before? It is
a waste of life. In the old times they used to get up about three in the
morning and go to work long before the sun had risen “with healing upon
his wings,” and as a just punishment they all had the ague; and they
ought to have it now. The man who cannot get a living upon Illinois
soil without rising before daylight ought to starve. Eight hours a day
is enough for any farmer to work except in harvest time. When you
rise at four and work till dark what is life worth. Of what use is all
the machinery unless it tends to give the farmer a little more leisure ?
What is harvesting now compared with what it was in the old time ?
Think of the days of reaping, of cradling, of raking and binding and
mowing. Think of threshing with the flail, and winnowing with the
wind! and now think of the reapers and mowers, the binders and thresh
ing machines, the ploughs and cultivators, upon which the farmer rides
protected from the sun. If, with all these advantages, you cannot get
a living without rising in the middle of the night, go into some other
business. You should not rob your families of sleep. Sleep is the best
medicine in the world. It is the best doctor on the earth. There is no
such thing as health without plenty of sleep. Sleep until you aro
thoroughly rested and restored. When you work, work; and when you
get through, take a good, long, and refreshing rest.
You should live in villages so that you can have the benefits of social
life. You can have a reading room—you can take the best papers and
magazines—you can have plenty of books, and each one can have the
benefit of them all. Some of the young men and women can cultivate
music. You can have social gatherings—you can learn from each other
—you can discuss all topics of interest, and in this way you can make
farming a delightful business. You must keep up with the age. The
way to make farming respectable is for farmers to become intelligent.
They must live intelligent and happy lives. They must know some
thing of what is going on in the world. They must not be satisfied with
knowing something of the affairs of a neighbourhood and nothing about
the rest of the earth. The business must be made attractive, and it
never can be until the farmer has prosperity, intelligence, and leisure.
Another thing—I am a believer in fashion. It is the duty of every
woman to make herself as beautiful and attractive as she possibly can.
“ Handsome is as handsome does,” but she is much handsomer if well
dressed. Every man should look his very best. I am a believer in
good clothes The time never ought to come in this country when you
can tell a farmer’s wife or daughter simply by the garments she wears.
I say to every girl and woman, no matter what the material of your
dress may be, no matter how cheap and coarse it is, cut it and make it
ip the fashion. I believe in jewellery. Some people look upon it as
�barbarie, but in my judgment, wearing jewellery is the first evidence the
barbarian gives of a wish to be civilized. To adorn ourselves seems to
be a part of our nature, and the desire seems to be everywhere, and in
everything. . I have sometimes thought that the desire for beauty covers
the earth with flowers. It is this desire that paints the wings of the
moths, tints the chamber of the shell, and gives the bird its plumage and
its song. Oh, daughters and wives, if you would be loved, adorn youryourselves—if you would be adored, be beautiful.
There is another fault common with the farmers of our country—they
want too much land. You cannot, at present, when taxes are high,
afford to own land that you do not cultivate. S ell it and let others
make farms and homes. In this way what you keep will be enhanced
in value. Farmers ought to own the land they cultivate, and cultivate
what they own. Renters can hardly be called farmers. There can be
no such thing in the highest sense as a home unless you own it. There
must be an incentive to plant trees, to beautify the grounds, to preserve
and improve. It elevates a man to own a home. It gives a certain
independence, a force of character that is obtained in no other way.
A man without a home feels like a passenger. There is in such a man
a little of the vagrant. Home makes patriots. He who has sat by his
own fireside with wife and children will defend it. When he hears the
word country pronounced he thinks of his home.
Few men have been patriotic enough to shoulder a musket in defence
of a boarding house.
The prosperity and glory of our country depend upon the number of
our people who are the owners of homes. Around the fireside cluster
the private and the public virtues of our race. Raise your sons to be
independant through labour—to pursue some business for themselves
and upon their own account—to be self reliant—to act upon their own
responsibility and to take the consequences like men. Teach them above
all things to be good true and tender husbands—winners of love and
builders of homes.
A great many farmers seem to think they are the only laborers in the
world. This is a very foolish thing. Farmers cannot get along without
the mechanic. You are not independant of the man of genius. Your
prosperity depends upon the inventor. The world advances by the assis
tance of all laborers; and all labour is under obligation to the inven
tions of genius. The inventor does as much for agriculture as he who
tills the soil. All laboring men should be brothers. You are in part
nership with the mechanics who make your reapers and your plough.
The laboring people should unite and should protect themselves against
all idlers. You can divide mankind into two classes, the laborers and
the idlers, the supporters and the supported, the honest and the dishonest.
Every man is dishonest if he lives upon the unpaid labor of others, no
matter if he occupies a throne. All laborers should be brothers. And
I want every farmer to consider every man who labors either with hand
or brain as his brother. Until genius and labor formed a partnership
there was no such thing as prosperity among men. Every agricultural
implement, has elevated the work of the farmer, and his vocation grows
grander with every invention. In the olden time the agriculturalist was
ignorant ; he knew nothing of machinery, he was the slave of super
�10
stition. He was always trying to appease some imaginary power by
fasting and prayer. He supposed that some being actuated by malice,
sent the untimely frost, or swept away with the wild wind his rough
abode. To him the seasons were mysterious. The thunder told him
of an enraged god —the barren fields of the vengeance of heaven. The
tiller of the soil lived in perpetual and abject fear. He knew nothing
of mechanics, nothing of order, nothing of law, nothing of cause and
effect. He was a superstitious savage. He invented prayers instead of
ploughs, creeds instead of reapers. He was unable to devote all his
time to the gods, so he hired others to assist him, and for their influ
ence with the gentlemen supposed to control the weather, he gave one
tenth of all he could produce.
The farmer has been elevated through science and he should not
forget the debt he owes to the mechanic, to the inventor, to the thinker.
He should remember that all laborers belong to the same grand family
-—that they are the real kings and queens, the only true nobility.
Another idea entertained by many farmers is that.they are oppressed
in some way by every other kind of business, especially by railroads.
The railroads are your friends. They are your partners. They can
prosper only where the country through which they run prosper. We
must have railroads. What can we do without them ? When we had
no railroads, we drew as I said before, our grain two hundred miles to
market.
In those days farmers did not stop at hotels. They slept under
their wagons—took with them their food—fried their own bacon, made
their coffee, and eat their meals in snow and rain. Those were the
days they received ten cents a bushel for corn—when they sold four
bushels of potatoes for a quarter dollar—thirty three dozen eggs for a
dollar, and a hundred pounds of pork for a dollar and a half.
What has made the difference ?
The railroads came to your doors and they brought with them the
markets of the world. They brought New York, and Liverpool and
London into Illinois, and the state has been clothed with prosperity as
with a mantle. It is the interest of the farmer to protect every great
interest in the state. You should feel proud that Illinois has more
railways than any other state in this union. Her main tracks and side
tracks would furnish iron enough to belt the globe. In Illinois there
are ten thousand miles of railways. In these iron highways more than
three hundred million dollars have been invested—a sum equal to ten
times the original cost of all the land in the state! To make war upon
the railroads is a short sighted and suicidal policy. If we wish to pros
per we must act together, and we must see to it that every form of
labor is protected.
There has been a long depression in all business. The farmers have
suffered least of all. Your land is just as rich and productive as ever.
Prices have been reasonable. The towns and cities have suffered.
Stocks and bonds have shrunk from par to worthless paper. Princes
have become paupers; and bankers, merchants, and millionaires have
passed into bankruptcy. The period of depression is passing away and
we are entering into better times.
A great many people say that a scarcity of money is our only difli-
�11
culty. In my opinion we have money enough, but we lack conficUn^e
in each other and in the future.
There has been so much dishonesty, and so many failures that the
people are afraid to trust anybody. There is plenty of money, but there
seems to be a scarcity of business. If you were to go to the owner of a
ferry, and, upon seeing his boat lying high and dry on the shore should
say, “There is a superabundance of ferry boat”, he would probably
reply. “No, but there is a scarcity of water”. So with us there is not a
scarcity of money, but there is a scarcity of business. And this scarcity
springs from lack of confidence in one another. So many presidents of
savings banks, even those belonging to the Young Men’s Christian
Association, run off with the funds; so ma^fe^ilroad and insurance
companies are in the hands of the receivers ; there is so much bankruptcy
on every hand, that all capital is held in the nervous clutch of fear.
Slowly but surely we are coming back to honest methods in business.
Confidence will return, and then enterprise will unlock the safe and
money will again circulate as of yore ; the dollars will leave their hiding
place, and everyone will be seeking investment.
The farmers should vote for such men as are able and willing to guard
and advance the interest of labor. We should know better than to
vote for men who deliberately put a tariff on Canada lumber. People
who live on the prairies ought to vote for cheap lumber. We should
protect ourselves. We ought to have intelligence enough to know what
we want and how to get it. The real laboring men can succeed if they
are united. By laboring men I do not mean only the farmers. I mean
all who contribute in some way to the general welfare. They should
forget prejudices and party names, and remember only the best interests
of the people.
Where industry creates, and justice protects, prosperity dwells.
Let me tell you something more about Illinois. We have fifty six
thousand square miles of land—nearly thirty six million acres. Upon
these plains we can raise enough to support twenty million people.
Beneath these prairies were hidden millions of ages ago, by that old
miser the sun, thirty six thousand square miles of coal. The aggregate
thickness of these veins is at least fifteen feet. Think of a column of coal
one mile square and one hundred miles high! All this came from the sun.
What a sunbeam such a column would be 1 Think of the engines and
machines this coal will run and turn and whirl! Think of all this force,
willed and left to us by the dead morning of the world ! Think of the
firesides of the future around which will sit the fathers, mothers and
children of the years to be 1 Think of the sweet and happy faces, the
loving and tender eyes that will glow and gleam in the sacred light
of all these flames !
We have the best country in the world, and Illinois is the best state
in that country. Is there any reason that our farmers should not be
prosperous and happy men! They have every advantage and within
their reach are all the comforts and conveniences of life.
Do not get the land fever and think you must buy all that joins you
Get out of debt as soon as you possibly can. A mortgage casts a
shadow on the sunniest field. There is no business under the sun that
can pay ten per cent.
�12
One dollar loaned for one hundred years at six per cent., with the
interest collected yearly and added to the principal, will amount to
three hundred and forty dollars. At eight per cent, it amounts to two
thousand two hundred and three dollars. . At twelve per cent, it amounts
to eighty four thousand and seventy five dollars, or more than four
thousand times as much.
One dollar at compound interest, at twenty four per cent, for one
hundred years, would produce a sum equal to our national debt.
Interest eats night and day, and the more it eats the hungrier it grows.
The farmer in debt, lying awake at night, can, if he listens, hear it
gnaw, but if he owes nothing he can hear his corn grow. Get out of
debt as soon as you possibly can. You have supported idle avarice long
enough.
Above all let every farmer treat his wife and children with infinite
kindness. Give your sons and daughters every advantage within your
power. In the air of kindness they will grow about you like flowers.
They will fill your homes with sunshine and all your years with joy.
Don’t try to rule by force. A blow from a parent leaves a scar upon
the soul. I should feel ashamed to die surrounded by children I had
whipped. Think of feeling upon your dying lips the kiss of the child
you had struck.
See to it that your wife has every convenience. Make her life worth
living. Never allow her to become a servant. Wives, weary and worn,
mothers, wrinkled and bent before their time, fill homes with grief and
shame. If you are not able to hire help for your wives, help them your
selves. See that they have the best utensils to work with. Women
cannot create things by magic. Have plenty of wood and coal—Good
cellars and plenty in them. Have cisterns so that you can have plenty
of ram water for washing. Do not rely on a barrel and a board. When
the rain comes the board will be lost or the hoops will be off the barrel.
Farmers should live like princes. Eat the best things you raise and
sell the rest. Have good things to cook and good things to cook with.
Of all people in our country you should live the best. Throw your
miserable little stoves out of the window. Get ranges and have them
so built that your wife need not burn her face off to get you a break
fast. Do not make her cook in a kitchen hot as the orthodox perdition.
The beef, not the cook, should be roasted. It is just as easy to have
things convenient and right as to have them any other way.
Cooking is one of the fine arts. Give your wives and daughters
things to cook, and things to cook with, and they will soon become most
excellent cooks. Good evoking is the basis of civilization. The man
whose arteries and veins are filled with rich blood made of good and
well cooked food, has pluck, courage endurance, and noble impulses.
The inventor of a good soup did more for his race than the makers of
any creed. The doctrines of total depravity and endless punishment were
born of bad cooking and dyspepsia. Remember that your wife should
have the things to cook with.
In the good old days there would be eleven children in the family
and only one skillett. Everything was broken, or cracked, or loaned,
or lost.
There ought to be a law making it a crime punishable with imprison-
�IS
ment, to fry beefsteak. Broil it; it is just as easy, and when broiled
it is delicious. Fried beefsteak is not fit for a wild^beast. You can
broil even on a stove. For broiling, coal, even soft coal, is better than
wood.
There is no reason why farmers should not have fresh meat all the
year round. There is certainly no sense in stuffing yourself full of salt
meat every morning, and making a well or cistern of your stomach
for the rest of the day. Every farmer should have an ice house. Upon
or near every farm is some stream from which plenty of ice can be
obtained, and the long summer day made delightful. Dr. Draper, one
of the world’s greatest scientists, says that ice water is healthy, and has
done away with many of the low forms of fever in great cities. Ice has
become one of the necessities of civilized life, and without it there is
very little comfort. Make your homes pleasant. Have your houses
warm and comfortable for the winter. Do not build a story and a half
house. The half story is simply an oven in which, during the summer,
you will bake every night, and feel in the morning as though only the
rind of yourself was left.
Decorate your rooms, even if you do so with cheap engravings. The
cheapest are far better than none. Have books—have papers, and read
them. You have more leisure than the dwellers in cities. Beautify
your grounds with plants and flowers and vines. Have good gardens,
remember that everything of beauty tends to the elevation of man.
Every little morning glory, whose purple bosom is thrille'd with the
amorous kisses of the sun, tends to put a blossom in your heart. Do
not judge of the value of everything by the market reports. Every
flower about a house certifies to the refinement of somebody. Every
vine climbing and blossoming, tells of love and joy.
Make your houses comfortable. Do not huddle together in a little
room round a red hot stove with every window fastened down. Do
not live in this poisoned atmosphere, and then, when one of your child
ren dies, put a notice in the papers commencing with “ Whereas, it has
pleased divine Providence----- .” Have plenty of air, and plenty of
warmth. Comfort is health. Do not imagine anything is unhealthy
simply because it is pleasant. That is an old and foolish idea.
There is no reason why farmers should not be the kindest and most
cultivated of men. There is nothing in ploughing the fields to make
men cross, cruel, and crabbed. To look upon the sunny slopes covered
with daisies does not tend to make men unjust. Whoever labors for
the happiness of those he loves, elevates himself, no matter whether he
works in the dark and dreary shops, or in HlNberfumed fields. To work
for others is, in reality, the only way in which a man can work for him
self. Selfishness is ignorance. Speculators cannot make unless some
body loses. In the realms of speculation, every success has at least
one victim. The harvest reaped by farmers benefits all and injurs none.
For him to succeed it is not necessary that some one should fail. The
same is true of all producers—all laborers.
I can imagine no condition that carries with it such a promise of joy
as that of the farmer in the early winter. He has his cellar filled—he
has made every preparation for the days of snow and stom—he looks
forward to three months of ease and rest ■ to three montlfe ®f fireside
�f4
content; three months with wife and children; three months of long
delightful evenings; three months of home; three months of solid com
fort.
When the life of the farmer is such as I have described, the cities
and towns will not be filled with want—the streets will not be crowded
with wrecked rogues, broken bankers, and bankrupt speculators. The
fields will be tilled, and country villages, almost hidden by trees and
vines and flowers, filled with industrious and happy people will nestle in
every vale and gleam like gems on every plain.
The idea must be done away with that there is something intellectual
ly degrading in cultivating the soil. Nothing can be nobler than to be
useful. Idleness should not be respectable.
If farmers will cultivate well, and without waste; if they will so
build that their houses will be warm in winter and cool in summer; if
they will plant trees and beautify their homes ; if they will occupy their
leisure in reading, in thinking, in improving their minds, and in devising
ways and means to make their business profitable and pleasant; if they
will live nearer together and cultivate sociability ; if they will come to
gether often ; if they will have reading rooms and cultivate music ; if
they will have bath rooms, ice houses and good gardens; if their wives
can have an easy time; if their sons and daughters can have an oppor
tunity to keep in line with the thoughts and discoveries of the world ; if
the nights can be taken for sleep and the evenings for enjoyment: every
body will be in love with the fields. Happiness should be object of life,
and if life on the farm can be made really happy, the children will grow
up in love with the meadows, the streams, the woods, and the old home.
Around the farm will cling and cluster the happy memories of the de
lightful years.
Remember I pray you, that you are in partnership with all labor—
that you should join hands with all the sons and daughters of toil, and
that all who work belong to the same noble family.
For my part I envy the man who has lived on the same broad acres
from his boyhood, who cultivates the fields where in youth he played,
and lives where his father lived and died.
I can imagine no sweeter way to end one’s life than in the quiet of
the country, out of the mad race for money, place and power—far from
the demands of business—out of the dusty highway where fools struggle
and strive for the hollow praise of other fools.
Surrounded by pleasant fields and faithful friends, by those I have
loved, I hope to end my days. And this I hope may be the lot of all
who hear my voice.
I hope that you, in the country, in houses covered with vines and
clothed with flowers, looking from the open window upon rustling fields
of corn and wlj®at, over which will run the sunshine and the shadow,
surrounded by those whose lives you have filled with joy, will pass away
serenely as the autumn dies.
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Victorian Blogging
Description
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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Farm life in America--as it was--as it is--as it should be
Description
An account of the resource
Edition: 5th ed.
Place of publication: Bristol
Collation: 14 p. : ill. (port.) ; 21 cm.
Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Sold by: Morrish (Bristol); Freethought Publishing Company (London), Progressive Publishing Company (London); Truelove (London); Cattell & Co. (London); The Bookstall (75 Humberstone Gate, Leicester); Witty (Hull); The Bookstall, Freethought Institute (Southampton); S. Watts (Manchester); Alexander Orr (Edinburgh); Robert Ferguson (Glasgow). No. 21b in Stein checklist. Portrait of Ingersoll on front cover. Publisher's list (W.H. Morrish) inside and on back cover: includes the People's popular library of Ingersoll's works.
Creator
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Ingersoll, Robert Green [1833-1899]
Publisher
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W.H. Morrish
Date
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[n.d.]
Identifier
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N346
Subject
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Agriculture
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (Farm life in America--as it was--as it is--as it should be), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Agriculture-United States
NSS