A Merchant's Tribute to Farm Life

Divinities of their religion. I do not ask so much for it, but I do ask that it be regarded as one of the respectable occupations of life to be a farmer. While I regard agricultural pursuits as the safest and surest road to success, yet I consider the merchant, banker, and artisan, as active co-laborers, and almost indispensable to the tillers of the soil; for without the aid of the merchant the handling and distributing the surplus products of the farm, much of it would go to waste.

The feverish risk and excitement of a commercial life makes me enjoy all the more the few months I spend each summer amidst the green pastures and fertile fields of my quiet valley home.

My first occupation was the cultivation of the soil, and I have a love to this day for the life of a farmer. It was in agricultural pursuits that I laid the foundation of health, which has been so essential to me in my arduous commercial duties.

It is indeed pleasant to revisit the scenes of my youth, and exchange for a few months, the heat, dust and strife of the city, for the healthful mountain breezes of my Nacoochee home; but the great advantage is the change for our children. It does them good to come into the country and rough it, and learn about pigs, goats, cows, and the like, and look upon green pastures, high mountains, and lofty cascades.

If they get their dainty fingers soiled, and delicate complexions sunburnt, and now and then come in contact with people unlike those they meet in the city, it will not injure them morally, mentally, or physically; on the contrary, their constitutions will be strengthened, and their wits sharpened.

They have spent seven summers in their mountain home and have never had occasion for medicine or a physician. In these wilds the children have excellent opportunities for studying the book of Nature. G. W. W.