USA > Indiana > Early Indiana trials: and sketches. Reminiscences > Part 27
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every where, large and beautiful cultivated farms, good houses and barns, fine orehards, and in every neighborhood, convenient schools to educate the rising generation, who are soon to take our places upon the great theater of human action. And here let me say, give your children a good English education, such as may be obtained at the common schools, neglect them not, lay well the foundation. Let no false father's, mother's or teacher's pride, induce you to force them into the higher branches before they can spell well, read well, write well, and understand the principles of arithmetic and the English grammar. Avoid the modern hot-bed system of education, that attempts to plant the top, instead of the root of the tree in the earth, and then your children will be prepared to meet the cares and duties of every-day life.
My long, eventful life, both as a private citizen and a public man, authorizes me to say a word to the young men of the county of Mar- ion. Character to you is every thing-remember that your character does not grow out of your position, employment, profession, or avoea- tion in life ; nor does it attach to you, in this country, from family connections, or independent of your habits and conduct, but it is formed upon the unerring basis of all the elements that make the character of the wise, the virtuous, and the good. If you desire the respect of your fellow-citizens-if you wish a character that will aid you through life-let one who has tried the depths and shoals of pri- vate and public life advise you, as he would his only son, to look well to the formation of your character-be honest in all things, be indus- trious, be open and candid in your intercourse with others-cunning and deception may succeed for a time, but they will fail in the end. Let every act of your life be marked by strict integrity. Never pro- mise what you have not a reasonable probability of performing. Touch not the intoxicating bowl-it is attended through life by no- thing but ruin-it is not necessary for any purpose-I have tested it fully. I am now about sixty-two years of age, and have lived near forty years in Indiana. I have been exposed to the climate and settle- ment of a new country-I have been more subjected to temptations, in high and low life, than most men, and yet I have never been intox- icated in my life; nor in the last forty years have I drunk a drop of spirituous liquor. During the eight years I served in the House of Representatives aud the Senate of the United States, muy habits were the same. I have frequently pledged the President, and Foreign min- isters, in a glass of water, while the wine was sparkling around me. During this long life, I have not been confined to my bed a week, altogether, by sickness, and have never had better health in my life than at present. I look around me for my cotemporaries who indulged
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freely in the intoxicating cup, and find them, with very few excep- tions, in premature graves. Avoid cards, as you would your own de- struction ; the gambler, his character and associations, are avoided by all good men. Guard well your morals. In carly life fix your reli- gious principles upon a safe foundation. If I had but three rules to Jay down for my own son, after a long life of experience and exten- give intercourse with my fellow-men, they would be : 1st. Total ab- stinence from intoxicating liquors. 2d. Never even learn to play cards, and if you have learned, abandon the game at once and forever. 3d. Never he absent from church, when able to attend. These three rules, honestly adhered to, the other elements of a good character will naturally follow.
You have every stimulus to action that could be desired-the soil, the climate, the facilities to convey your products to the best markets, at cheap rates. If these things be true, what is required of you in this age of progress ? When the whole earth is moving forward, when the arts and sciences are astonishing the world by their new developments, when the agricultural interests are marching forward toward that high destiny that awaits them, shall the farmer, the mechanic, the artizan of Marion, fold his arms and say, " it is enough ; let me alone ; I can manage my own affairs in my own way?" I answer for you, no! Then let me say to you, that whatever resolves you may take with you, in your minds, from this annual fair, let the paramount one be, to
FIX YOUR STANDARD HIGH.
For let it be remembered, that a large portion of the failures of men, in the affairs of life, have resulted from fixing the standard too low, and being content with mediocrity, or even less. When the mind is willing to rest in a subordinate position, in whatever man is engaged, it can not stand still ; it must recede, fall back still lower and lower in the scale of enterprise, until the man will finally reach the condition of the sluggard, who cried-
" A little more sleep, a little more slumber ; Wasted half his days, and his hours without number.
" I passed by his garden, and saw the wild briar, The thorn and the thistle grew broader and higher ; The clothes that hang on him are turning to rags, And his money still wastes, till he starves or he begs."
If you are a mechanic, an artizan, a farmer, a stock-raiser, a florist, a botanist, a horticulturalist, a professional man, fix your standard high. Make yourself thoroughly acquainted with your business, or profession, read the practical works of good authors, and work to them,
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aided by your daily experience, with a determination, on your part, that none shall excel you in the line of your profession, occupation, or business, and you must ultimately succeed. Your character will become known and appreciated by a discriminating public; but if you are contented to stand on the common platform with others who have no ambition to excel, you must expect to live like them from hand to mouth, pass through the world unnoticed and unknown, and sink to your graves without a sympathizing tear, or even a stone to mark your earthly resting-place.
If you are a farmer, fix your standard high, make yourself acquainted with the best works on agriculture, on the character and quality of soils, on the best system of fertilizing, on the kinds of grain to he cul- tivated on different soils, on the time for changing the crops and rest- ing the grounds, on the kinds of manure and their appropriate uses, of the grasses and their adaptation to different soils, on the different implements of husbandry and their uses, of the preparation of the ground for the seed, of the quantity of seeds, and the kinds to he used ; upon the most profitable stock to be raised on the farm, upon the best manner of protecting your stock from the weather, the time and manner of selecting your seed for the ensuing season ; of choosing your breeding stock, of their kinds; and here let me say, that while it is highly important to select from the best breeds of stock, it is quite as much so to examine your stock carefully, and take out the best for your breeders, from time to time ; by pursuing this course, you will soon find yourselves in possession of greatly improved stock, at little cost. These remarks apply to the horse, the jack, the jennet, the hog, the sheep, and even to domestic fowls. Be not deceived by names or pedigree; look for yourselves. If the animal be a horse, look at his color, size, bone, form, eyes, action ; if these are right, you may risk him. So with the jack, the jennet. If the animal be a hog, examine him closely; if he has the three cardinal points, you may take him. He must have length of body to weigh well, a strong bone to carry his weight when fat, and stand near the ground to fat at any age. And here let me say, that there is one characteristic about the hog that should be observed : he will not bear the reduction of his fced; you may keep him as a stock hog, but whenever the process of fattening commences, it should be continued, with all he will eat, until killing time, whether he is fatted in the corn-field or in the pen. If the animal be a sheep, examine him for yourself; look to his size, length of body, length and quality of wool, and if these are what you desire, look no further, if the price suits.
So with your cattle, especially your milch cows, so essential to every
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farmer. Select the calves of your best milkers to be raised, and continue the process from year to year. I have no doubt but that much benefit to our farmers and stock-raisers will result from the importation of foreign improved stock, of the different breeds; but while I say this, let me warn our farmers against running into extravagant and ruinous prices for such animals, but rather select the finest of the crosses from year to year, and the result will prove itself. I well remember when three Spanish Merino bucks, of the short, fine wool breed, were sold at New York, from ship board, for $1,500 each, under a heavy competition. My father, who was a fair Pennsylvania farmer, instead of running after the excitement about what time, adopted the practice of selecting his best, lengthy, long, fine wooled lambs for his stock, and turning over the inferior ones to the butchers; and the result was, that his flock rose in size, and quality, and quantity of wool, and mutton, in a few years, so as to be required for breeders, at high prices, by the surrounding neighbor- hood. Let our farmers try it-it will cost nothing-keeping in mind that the expense is no more to keep a good animal than a poor one, and much at last depends upon feed and care. It is an axiom, that the miller's hog is always of a good breed.
1 A word as to the care of the farm. Very much of the value of a farm depends upon the care you take of it. And here, again, I would say, fix your standard high. Let no other farmer excel you. Make yours a pattern farm. See that you have good fences; it is much easier to keep your stoek out of your grain fields by good fenees, before they become breachy, than it is to drive them out as your crop is being destroyed, and protect your fields against them afterward. Farm no more ground in corn than you can tend well, and put the rest in small grain and grass. If you want to provide against drouth, plow deep. If you fear a wet season, plow deep. If your corn ground is flat and naturally wet, plow and plant in ridges, until you can drain it, but be careful not to plow when the ground is too wet. If you wish to be considered a neat, pattern farmer, plow straight. The beauty of the corn-field is the straight rows, at equal distances, and the success of the crop depends upon its cultivation. Plow and cultivate thoroughly and timely. Keep the rows free from weeds and grass, for if ever you let the corn be overshadowed, so as to turn the stalks yellow, the crop is ruined. And my observation is, that a farmer who has not pride or ambition enough to keep good fences, elean out his fence rows, trim and sprout his orchard, plow his grounds deep, lay off his corn-fields in straight rows, keep his barn in repair, his gates and bars in order, glass in his windows, care for
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his stock in winter, and salt it well in summer, plant shade trees in his dooryard, and educate his children, is in great danger of falling below the standard of a pattern farmer.
The labor-saving implements of husbandry, the invention of late years, with their improvements, have revolutionized the process of · cultivating the earth, in which three-fourths of the civilized world are now engaged, and have enabled the farmer to dispense with much of the manual labor that would be otherwise required. While in England, France and Germany, farming operations have been brought to much higher perfection than in this country, still, when we see where we now stand, and then look to many parts of the Old World, we have no cause to despair of ultimate success. I recently read a very interesting work, entitled " Observations in the East," by John P. Durbin, D. D. His description of the state of agriculture in the valley of the Nile, in Egypt, places us on high grounds in the com- parison. He notices the manner of breaking up the ground there, which, if done here, would ereate some amusement among our far- mers. The Doctor says : " The plow, which is too rude to be described, is commonly drawn by a camel and an ugly buffalo, yoked by a pole about nine feet long, the euds of which lie on their necks; one man guides the wooden stick, which seems to scratch the ground, while another drives and guides the team." And this in the ancient valley of the Nile, at this day.
I have remarked upon the selection of stock. The same idea applies to the grains and seeds for your fields and gardens ; the seed corn should be selected in the fields, from the best kinds, adapted to the climate, from the most vigorous stalks, taking the largest, early ripe ears, with not less than two ears on a stalk, and before planting taking off the small grains at the end of the ear. By this process, if continued, you will bring your corn crop to a high state of perfec- tion. The same remarks apply to the potato, the tomato, the beet, the parsnip, the radish, the melon, the pumpkin, the squash, and indeed generally to the garden ; and still in a more extended degree to the orchard. Let the best fruit, adapted to the different seasons of the year, of its kind, be selected for your orchards, and reproduced by budding or grafting; it requires no more ground, nor greater expense, to have an orchard of the choice, fine, cultivated fruit, than it does to have one of the poorest seedlings-this every farmer knows, but every farmer does not practice upon his knowledge. It may be difficult to select the best fruit for our elimate, in all cases ; still we have some knowledge on this subject, and as it is a matter of opinion, I give my preferences without intending to dispute the taste of others.
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Apple Orchard .- 1. Yellow Sweet June ; 2. Bough ; 3. Townsend ; 4. Rambo ; 5. Golden Russet ; 6. Holland Pippin ; 7. Yellow Bell- flower ; 8. Baldwin ; 9. Prior Red ; 10. Spitzenburgh ; 11. Romanite ; 12. Smith's Cider; 13. Newton Pippin; 14. Wine Sap; 15. Red Winter Pearmain; 16. Jennetain; 17. Vandeveer Pippin. An orchard that contains these several varieties will amply reward the farmer, if the grounds shall be kept loose, and the trees well sprouted and trimmed.
Pears .- The variety of this fruit is not so great as the apple. I place the choice kinds in the following order : 1. the Sockel ; 2. the Bartlet ; 3. the Feaster ; 4. the Sugar ; 5. the Butter ; 6. the Catharine. There are other fine varieties, that will do well in this climate, that may be selected from printed catalogues.
Peaches .- The crop of this delicious fruit, owing to our severe winters and late frosts, has become very precarious. Still, I hope our farmers will not despair, and abandon the cultivation. I would suggest that fresh trees be planted each spring; bud them with the choice varieties, so that you may have a progressive orchard to meet the fruit seasons, as, perhaps, the only means of keeping up our peach orchards.
Plums .- I fear that the Curculio has disposed of our best kinds, and left us to cultivate a small damson ; and when it fails, to look to the wild varieties of the red and yellow, of our native thickets.
Cherries .- Whether it is owing to our climate, or to a want of care in the cultivation, that we see so very few fine cherries in our market, I am unable to say. The Eastern May Duke, Ox Heart, Red Heart, Black Heart, Carnation and other choice varieties, are unknown to our markets; while the Sour Morella engrosses the stalls. Why is this ? Let our fruiterers answer, as it is their business to look to it.
The Papaw .- Can this fine fruit, of our river and creek bottoms be cultivated, so as to improve its size and quality, is a question that ought to be answered hereafter by others.
A word as to your beasts of burden ; " muzzle not the ox that tread- eth out the corn." Keep your work animals well, and properly pro- tected from the winter weather at night, and they will repay you in extra services. Such are always ready for the road or the draft. And here let me remark, from my experience on my father's farm, when but a youth, that if you expect true draft animals, never overload them. The ox or the horse, should never learn that he can not draw any thing he is hitched to. The secret of balky animals, lies in their hav- ing heen at some time, loaded beyond their strength. Treat your work animals kindly, and they will feel and repay your care. Many I fear,
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are too much in the habit of underrating the sagacity of their dumb beasts. They are capable, if not of loving and hating like human beings, certainly of something of a very kindred character. I owned a riding-horse once, that I attached to my person so closely, that he would never leave me when we were from home, if he could possibly help it ; and on one occasion, the carriage in which my wife and myself were riding, broke down before, throwing us upon his heels. I spoke to him kindly, calling him by name; he turned his head, looked directly at us, and quietly kept his place until we got out and released him-and yet, he was a horse of high mettle.
May I be excused for referring to a matter that I deem sufficiently important to be noticed in this address. I allude to the kind of houses to insure health to the family. In our climate, with our luxuriant vegetable growth, the earth upon which our houses are necessarily built, becomes damp, and emits a miasma, producing our intermittent fevers, so distressing to our people. My suggestion is, that whether your house be large or small, high or low, of one or more stories, built of brick, frame or logs, raise the basement at least four feet from the ground; and give a free, open circulation of air beneath, by windows, to be closed in cold weather. While such houses may not prove an infal- lible remedy against the climate, and causes referred to, I am satisfied that they will alleviate the present distress in the fall season of the year.
I should do injustice to the object of my address, were I to omit a word to the women, who are taking so much interest in the success of this association, and who form the life of our families, and give char- acter to the domestic household. Much, very much of the success of the farmer, depends upon the domestic qualities of his wife, to cheer him on through life, and make his home the center of his and her happiness. This is especially true in a country like ours, where the joint labor and care of the sexes seem to be required, to insure suc- cess and happiness to the family circle. When a stranger enters the dwelling of our farmers, his eye at once embraces the order of the room ; he sees whether it looks clean, and the furniture in its proper place and well dusted; and should he be invited to a meal with the family, as of course he will be if it is meal-time, although he may not expect any thing extra, he will look for such table comforts as the farm and the garden may yield, without extra cost, to be served up in a plain, neat and clean manner. He has a right to expect good, sweet, well-worked butter, and milk, the safely cared for and kept fruits of the garden and the orchard, with the more substantial products of the barn-yard and the fields. No class of our citizens can live so well, at so little expense, as the Indiana farmer ; and none can be so entirely
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independent of supplies from others, for the table. I do not wish to be understood that the mere fact that the farmer's wife is provided with milch cows, is sufficient to expect at her hands, good, sweet, well worked butter, such as commands the highest price in market. She must be provided also with sufficient help; with a good milk-house, where the milk and cream can be kept cool, and where solid butte and good cheese ean be made. I am satisfied that much of the info- rior butter and cheese that reach our markets, is owing to the fact that a proper milk-house has not been provided. There is no sufficient excuse for uot having a good milk-house at the residence of each far- mer. Every family must have cool drinking-water ; if they have a natural spring, there is the seat of the milk-house ; if a well is used, supply the milk troughs from the pump, but be sure to have a good eold place to keep your milk and butter, so as to keep them cool and sweet.
THE GARDEN .- Among our farmers, where horticulture is not much looked to, and where the labors of the field are exclusively in the charge of the men, the garden is usually attached to the house affairs and left to the women. I am not speaking of those large gardens · that are cultivated near our large cities, by men, to supply the market ; would that we had many more of them around Indianapolis. I refer to the ordinary farmer's garden. In Europe, the splendid gardens are in charge of salaried officers, well versed in scientific horticulture; indeed, trained from youth to the science, as a profession. The chief gardener of oue of these splendid resorts for the grandees of the land receives a much higher salary than our Governor, and has under him a large corps of inferior officers and laborers. The whole vegetable and floral kingdom, in all their varieties, from every part of the earth, are spread before the eye in all their luxuriant perfection. We may have such gardens in this country when our citizens shall become as wealthy as the millionaires of Europe. This we shall not see in our day.
The object of our farmers should be to make the garden tributary to the family comforts in the first place, and profitable as to the sur- plus. I would not introduce into the gardens of our farmers the green- house, but let it find its appropriate location near our large cities, to furnish to the votaries of Flora's kingdom the tender, beautiful and sweet-scented flowers, shrubs and roses. But the farmer's garden may contain the hardy rose, the peony, the dahlia, the pink, the tulip, the snow-ball and the lilac for the eye ; currant, pie-plant, tomato, cucum- ber, beet, parsnip, ocre, pea, bean, lettuce, radish, asparagus, egg-plant, early cabbage, parsley, horse radish, carrot, celery and onion for the table; and I would have it large enough to add a good Isabella and Catawba grape bower, a strawberry bed, of the large kind, a pateh of
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the mountain sweet watermelon, and fine nutmegs and eantelopes, with rows of the best bearing raspberries on the sides, and a good bee-stand to furnish honey for the family. The garden should be well manured ; there is no danger of making it too rich. I prefer putting on the manure in the fall, and letting it lie till spring, by which time it can be raked off, and the garden made without incumbrance.
I do not wish to be understood as advocating any extraordinary or lavish expenditures, either npon the farm or garden. I only contend for what is within the power of our farmers to perform, by using indus- try and economy. I insist that our farmers, being so bountifully supplied with the clements of comfort, shall, by their industry, enjoy the blessings providence bestowed upon them. I am the advocate of strict economy in every department of life. The farmer and the me- chanie should be patterns of economy, as they are of industry. They get their means by the sweat of the brow, and they should learn how to use and take care of their money when obtained. The secret of wealth is not in the knowledge of the way to get money, but how to keep it when obtained. The thrifty farmer or mechanic, will avoid going in debt beyond his probable means, never relying upon next year's crop or labor to extricate him from deht. Next year may never come to him, or it may come, not with healing or prosperity, but with drouth, blight, and disappointment in its wings. Avoid the tempta- tion of buying more land than you can pay for; remember that the farmer's thrift does not depend so much upon the size as upon the manner of the cultivation of the farm. There was much force in the remark of the farmer, that he intended to make a great addition to his farm, by making it smaller and taking better care of it.
WOODS AND SHADE TREES .- There is nothing that strikes the in- telligent traveler, and especially those from the South, with more sur- prise, when passing through our beautiful timbered country, than to see the indiscriminate and wanton destruction of our lovely forest trees. The contrast between the North and South in this respect, is too marked to escape observation. In the South, the buildings of the farmers are uniformly placed in the midst of a grove of native forest "trees, giving shade, health, and beauty to the mansion, the moment it becomes the family residence ; while in the North, our towering for- est trees are cut down in hot haste, to make way for the farm-house, and their place supplied with little switches, that may, or may not, as they happen to live or die, in the course of the next generation, come about as near the native trees that have been destroyed in beauty, grandeur and shade, as the sunflower does to the great luminary from which it takes its name.
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