A writer in _Scribner's Magazine_ asserts that the farmer, having the
most sane and natural occupation, ought to find life pleasant.
He alone, strictly speaking, has a home. How can a man take root and
thrive without land? He writes his history upon his field.
How many ties, how many resources, he has; his friendships with his
cattle, his team, his dog, his trees, the satisfaction in his growing
crops, in his improved fields; his intimacy with nature, with bird and
beast, and with the quickening elemental forces; his co-operations with
the cloud, the sun, the seasons, heat, wind, rain, frost.
Nothing will take the various social distempers which the city and
artificial life breed, out of a man like farming, like direct and loving
contact with the soil. It draws out the poison. It humbles him. Teaches
him patience and reverence, and restores the proper tone to his system.
Cling to the farm, make much of it, put yourself into it, bestow your
heart and your brain upon it, so that it shall savor of you and radiate
your virtue after your day's work is done.
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