THE DIGNITY OF THE FARMER'S LIFE.

Southland Times, Issue 1218, 4 March 1870, Page 3

THE DIGNITY OF THE FARMER'S LIFE.

There is a higher dignity than that of poetry or painting that attaches to the farmer's profession ; a dignity which should make him walk as erect and look the blue heavens as proudly in the face as any man who treads the earth. No industry to which human hands were ever set since the first pair were made is deserving of higher estimation than his. Tor, of all the toilers of the earth, he stands in the closest co-partnership with Divine Providence in its realm of nature. See now the conditions of this co-partnership, the capital which each invests in one summer's crop. Here, for example, is a cultivated farm of one hundred acres of land. The Creator might have made that land bear stout crops of wheat and com all of itself, without man's help ; but He did not, and would not. He condescended^ admit man to a partnership with Him. in variegating the verdure of those acres, in covering them with waving grain- and yellow harvests. He would not let nature produce any crops for human sustenance without the eb-wortibg of human sinews. The wheel of the seasons mighty turn on for ever scattering rain, dew, light, and heat, and every germinating influence ; but, unless it was belted on to man's industry, it would not turn out a sheaf or a loaf of bread. But see what comes of the connexion when a pair or two of hands and hoping hearts join their activities to the revolutions of that wheel. How generously nature divides with man the honour and joy of the crop How she works with all the sublime and minute economies of the seasons in this partnership of toil! The very shape of the earth's orbit, and all its million-miled many stages round the sun, as well as the fine dew-distillery of the evening's sky, are brought to bear upon the production of the fields. See how the light and heat are graduated to the growth of these acres of Indian corn. See the temperature that nurses it into the blade, then into the stalk, then into the silken Betting of the ear. See what purple curtains are hung around the horizon, what drying, jocund, fall winds blow ; what a ruddy faced hue glows upon the ripening ears, reddening them to Indian summer tints, as they peer from the white lace drapery that enfolded them ? Look at that sight, and never more let a murmur of discontent stir your lips when you talk of merchants, manufacturers, or joint-stock companies, or any other occupation or profession whatever. Jointstock companies, indeed ! What company of that sort ever formed on earth can compare with the joint-stock company that carries on the smallest farm ? What a firm of active partners have we here ! What a diversity of capital is invested in the enterprise! What sympathy and co-working. Where falls one drop from the moistened brow of the farmer, there falls a thousand of germinating dews from heaven ; and the combination touches tKe life of every plant and blade with a new vitality and verdure. — Elihu Burritt.