NB: This Letter has not yet been emended and is in the early stages of being annotated.
LETTER II.
ON THE SITUATION, FEELINGS, AND PLEASURES,
OF AN AMERICAN FARMER.
AS you are the first enlightened European I had ever the pleasure of being acquainted with, you will not be surprised that I should, according to your earned desire and my promise, appear anxious of preserving your friendship and correspondence. By your accounts, I observe a material difference subsists between your husbandry, modes, and customs, and ours. Every thing is local. Could we enjoy the advantages of the English farmer, we should be much happier, indeed; but this wish, like many others, implies a contradiction; and, could the English farmer have some of those privileges we possess, they would be the first of their class in the world. Good and evil, I see, are to be found in all societies, and it is in vain to seek for any spot where those ingredients are not mixed. I therefore rest satisfied, and thank God that my lot is to be an American farmer, instead of a Russian boor or a Hungarian peasant. I thank you kindly for the idea, however dreadful, which you have given me of their lot and condition. Your observations have confirmed me in the justness of my ideas, and I am happier now than I thought myself before. It is strange that misery, when viewed in others, should become to us a sort of real good; though I am far from rejoicing to hear that there are in the world men so thoroughly wretched. They are no doubt as harmless, industrious, and willing to work, as we are. Hard is their fate to be thus condemned to slavery worse than that of our negroes. Yet, when young, I entertained some thoughts of selling my farm. I thought it afforded but a dull repetition of the same labours and pleasures. I thought the former tedious and heavy: the latter few and insipid. But when I came to consider myself as divested of my farm, I then found the world so wide, and every place so full, that I began to fear lest there would be no room for me. My farm, my house, my barn, presented, to my imagination, objects from which I adduced quite new ideas: they were more forcible than before. Why should not I find myself happy, said I, where my father was before? He left me no good books it is true; he gave me no other education than the art of reading and writing: but he left me a good farm and his experience: he left me free from debts, and no kind of difficulties to struggle with.—I married; and this perfectly reconciled me to my situation. My wife rendered my house all at once cheerful and pleasing: it no longer appeared gloomy and solitary as before. When I went to work in my fields, I worked with more alacrity and sprightliness. I felt that I did not work for myself alone, and this encouraged me much. My wife would often come with her knitting in her hand, and sit under the shady tree, praising the straightness of my furrows and the docility of my horses. This swelled my heart and made every thing light and pleasant, and I regretted that I had not married before. I felt myself happy in my new situation, and where is that station which can confer a more substantial system of felicity than that of an American farmer, possessing freedom of action, freedom of thoughts, ruled by a mode of government which requires but little from us? I owe nothing but a pepper-corn to my country, a small tribute to my king, with loyalty and due respect. I know no other landlord than the Lord of all land, to whom I owe the most sincere gratitude. My father left me three hundred and seventy-one acres of land, forty-seven of which are good timothy meadow, an excellent orchard, a good house, and a substantial barn. It is my duty to think how happy I am that he lived to build and to pay for all these improvements. What are the labours which I have to undergo? What are my fatigues when compared to his, who had every thing to do, from the first tree he felled to the finishing of his house? Every year I kill from 1500 to 2000 weight of pork, 1200 of beef, half a dozen of good wethers[DP1] in harvest; of fowls my wife has always a great stock: what can I wish more? My negroes are tolerably faithful and healthy. By a long series of industry and honest dealings, my father left behind him the name of a good man. I have but to tread his paths to be happy and a good man like him. I know enough of the law to regulate my little concerns with propriety, nor do I dread its power. These are the grand outlines of my situation; but as I can feel much more than I am able to express, I hardly know how to proceed. When my first son was born, the whole train of my ideas was suddenly altered. Never was there a charm that acted so quickly and powerfully. I ceased to ramble in imagination through the wide world. My excursions, since, have not exceeded the bounds of my farm; and all my principal pleasures are now centered within its scanty limits: but, at the same time, there is not an operation belonging to it in which I do not find some food for useful reflections. This is the reason, I suppose, that, when you were here, you used, in your refined style, to denominate me the farmer of feelings. How rude must those feelings be in him who daily holds the ax or the plough! How much more refined, on the contrary, those of the European, whose mind is improved by education, example, books, and by every acquired advantage! Those feelings, however, I will delineate as well as I can, agreeably to your earnest request. When I contemplate my wife, by my fire-side, while she either spins, knits, darns, or suckles our child, I cannot describe the various emotions of love, of gratitude, of conscious pride, which thrill in my heart, and often overflow in involuntary tears. I feel the necessity, the sweet pleasure, of acting my part, the part of a husband and father, with an attention and propriety which may entitle me to my good fortune. It is true these pleasing images vanish with the smoke of my pipe, but, though they disappear from my mind, the impression they have made on my heart is indelible. When I play with the infant, my warm imagination runs forward, and eagerly anticipates his future temper and constitution. I would willingly open the book of fate, and know in which page his destiny is delineated. Alas! where is the father, who, in those moments of paternal extacy[DP2] , can delineate one half of the thoughts which dilate his heart? I am sure I cannot. Then again I fear for the health of those who are become so dear to me; and, in their sicknesses, I severely pay for the joys I experienced while they were well. Whenever I go abroad it is always involuntary. I never return home without feeling some pleasing emotion, which I often suppress as useless and foolish. The instant I enter on my own land, the bright idea of property, of exclusive right, of independence, exalt my mind. Precious soil, I say to myself, by what singular custom of law is it that thou wast made to constitute the riches of the freeholder? What should we American farmers be without the distinct possession of that soil? It feeds, it clothes, us: from it we draw even a great exuberancy, our best meat, our richest drink; the very honey of our bees comes from this privileged spot. No wonder we should thus cherish its possession: no wonder that so many Europeans, who have never been able to say that such portion of land was theirs, cross the Atlantic to realize that happiness! This formerly rude soil has been converted by my father into a pleasant farm, and, in return, it has established all our rights. On it is founded our rank, our freedom, our power, as citizens; our importance, as inhabitants of such a district. These images, I must confess, I always behold with pleasure, and extend them as far as my imagination can reach; for this is what may be called the true and the only philosophy of an American farmer. Pray do not laugh in thus seeing an artless countryman tracing himself through the simple modifications of his life. Remember that you have required it, therefore, with candour, though with diffidence, I endeavour to follow the thread of my feelings, but I cannot tell you all. Often, when I plough my low ground, I place my little boy on a chair which screws to the beam of the plow. Its motion and that of the horses please him: he is perfectly happy, and begins to chat. As I lean over the handle, various are the thoughts which croud[DP3] into my mind. I am now doing for him, I say, what my father formerly did for me: may God enable him to live that he may perform the same operations for the same purposes when I am worn out and old! I relieve his mother of some trouble while I have him with; the odoriferous furrow exhilarates his spirits, and seems to do the child a great deal of good, for he looks more blooming since I have adopted that practice. Can more pleasure, more dignity, be added to that primary occupation? The father, thus ploughing with his child, and to feed his family, is inferior only to the emperor of China ploughing as an example to his kingdom. In the evening, when I return home through my low grounds, I am astonished at the myriads of insects which I perceive dancing in the beams of the setting sun. I was before scarcely acquainted with their existence; they are so small that it is difficult to distinguish them: they are carefully improving this short evening space, not daring to expose themselves to the blaze of our meridian sun. I never see an egg brought on my table but I feel penetrated with the wonderful change it would have undergone but for my gluttony. It might have been a gentle useful hen leading her chicken with a care and vigilance which speaks shame to many women. A cock, perhaps, arrayed with the most majestic plumes, tender to its mate, bold, courageous, endowed with an astonishing instinct, with thoughts, with memory, and every distinguishing characteristic of the reason of man! I never see my trees drop their leaves and their fruit in the autumn, and bud again in the spring, without wonder. The sagacity of those animals, which have long been the tenants of my farm, astonish me: some of them seem to surpass even men in memory and sagacity. I could tell you singular instances of that kind. What then is this instinct which we so debase, and of which we are taught to entertain so diminutive an idea? My bees, above any other tenants of my farm, attract my attention and respect. I am astonished to see that nothing exists but what has its enemy; one species pursues and lives upon the other. Unfortunately our kingbirds are the destroyers of those industrious insects; but, on the other hand, these birds preserve our fields from the depredation of crows which they pursue on the wing with great vigilance and astonishing dexterity. Thus divided by two interested motives, I have long resisted the desire I had to kill them, until last year, when I thought they increased too much, and my indulgence had been carried to far. It was at the time of swarming, when they all came and fixed themselves on the neighbouring trees, whence they caught those that returned loaded from the fields. This made me resolve to kill as many as I could, and was just ready to fire, when a bunch of bees, as big as my fist, issued from one of the hives, rushed on one of these birds, and probably stung him, for he instantly screamed, and flew, not as before in an irregular manner, but in a direct line. He was followed by the same bold phalanx, at a considerable distance, which unfortunately becoming too sure of victory, quitted their military array and disbanded themselves. By this inconsiderate step they lost all that aggregate of force which had made the bird fly off. Perceiving their disorder, he immediately returned, and snapped as many as he wanted; nay, he had even the impudence to alight on the very twig from which the beast had driven him. I killed him, and immediately open his craw, from which I took 171 bees. I laid them all on a blanket, in the sun, and to my great surprise, 54 returned to life, licked themselves clean, and joyfully went back to the hive; where they probably informed their companions of such an adventure and escape, as I believe had never happened before to American bees? I draw a great fund of pleasure from the quails which inhabit my farm: they abundantly repay me, by their various notes and peculiar tameness, for the inviolable hospitality I constantly shew[DP4] them, in the winter. Instead of perfidiously taking advantage of their great and affecting distress, when nature offers nothing but a barren universal bed of snow, when irresistible necessity forces them to my barn doors, I permit them to feed unmolested; and it is not the least agreeable spectacle which that dreary season presents, when I see those beautiful birds, tamed by hunger, intermingling with all my cattle and sheep, seeking, in security, for the poor scanty grain, which, but for them, would be useless and lost. Often in the angles of the fences, where the motion of the wind prevents the snow from settling, I carry them both chaff and grain; the one to feed them, the other to prevent their tender feet from freezing fast to the earth, as I have frequently observed them to do. I do not know an instance in which the singular barbarity of man is so strongly delineated, as in the catching and murthering[DP5] those harmless birds at that cruel season of the year. Mr. ****, one of the most famous and extraordinary farmers that has ever done honour to the province of Connecticut, by his timely and humane assistance in a hard winter, saved this species from being entirely destroyed. They perished all over the country; none of their delightful whistlings were heard the next spring, but upon this gentleman’s farm; and to his humanity we owe the continuation of their music. When the severities of that season have dispirited all my cattle, no farmer ever attends them with more pleasure than I do: it is one of those duties which is sweetened with the most rational satisfaction. I amuse myself in beholding their different tempers, actions, and the various effects of their instinct, now powerfully impelled by the force of hunger. I trace their various inclinations, and the different effects of their passions, which are exactly the same as among men. The law is to us precisely what I am in my barn yard, a bridle and check to prevent the strong and greedy from oppressing the timid and weak. Conscious of superiority, they always drive to encroach on their neighbours. Unsatisfied with their portion, they eagerly swallow it in order to have an opportunity of taking what is given to others, except they are prevented. Some I chide; others, unmindful of my admonitions, receive some blows. Could victuals thus be given to men, without the assistance of any language, I am sure they would not behave better to one another, nor more philosophically, than my cattle do. The same spirit prevails in the stable; but there I have to do with more generous animals; there my well-known voice has immediate influence; and soon restores peace and tranquillity[DP6] . Thus, by superior knowledge, I govern all my cattle as wise men are obliged to govern fools and the ignorant. A variety of other thoughts croud[DP7] on my mind at that peculiar instant, but they all vanish by the time I return home. If, in a cold night, I swiftly travel in my sledge, carried along at the rate of twelve miles an hour, many are the reflections excited by surrounding circumstances. I ask myself what sort of an agent is that which we call frost? Our minister compares it to needles, the points of which enter our pores. What is become of the heat of the summer? In what part of the world is it that the N. W. keeps these grand magazines of nitre? When I see, in the morning, a river over which I can travel, that, in the evening before, was liquid, I am astonished indeed! What is become of those millions of insects which played in our summer fields and in our evening meadows? They were so puny and so delicate, the period of their existence was so short, that one cannot help wondering how they could learn, in that short space, the sublime art to hide themselves and their offspring in so perfect a manner as to baffle the rigour of the season, and preserve that precious embryo of life, that small portion of ethereal heat, which, if once destroyed, would destroy the species! Whence that irresistible propensity to sleep, so common in all those who are severely attacked by the frost! Dreary as this season appears, yet it has, like all others, its miracles. It presents to man a variety of problems which he can never resolve. Among the rest, we have here a set of small birds which never appear until the snow falls. Contrary to all others, they dwell and appear to delight in that element.
It is my bees, however, which afford me the most pleasing and extensive themes. Let me look at them when I will, their government, their industry, their quarrels, their passions, always present me with something new; for which reason, when weary with labour, my common place of rest is under my locust trees, close by my bee-house. By their movements I can predict the weather, and can tell the day of their swarming; but the most difficult point is, when on the wing, to know whether they want to go to the woods or not. If they have previously pitched in some hollow trees, it is not the allurements of salt and water, of fennel, hickory leaves, &c. nor the finest box, that can induce them to stay. They will prefer those rude, rough, habitations, to the best polished mahogany hive. When that is the case with mine, I seldom thwart their inclinations. It is in freedom that they work. Were I to confine them, they would dwindle away and quit their labour. In such excursions we only part for a while. I am generally sure to find them again the following fall. This elopement of theirs only adds to my recreations. I know how to deceive even their superlative instinct. Nor do I fear losing them, though eighteen miles from my house, and lodged in the most lofty trees in the most impervious of our forests. I once took you along with me in one of these rambles, and yet you insist on my repeating the detail of our operations. It brings back into my mind many of the useful and entertaining reflections with which you so happily beguiled our tedious hours.
After I have done sowing, by way of recreation, I prepare for a week’s jaunt in the woods, not to hunt either the deer or the bears, as my neighbours do, but to catch the more harmless bees. I cannot boast that this chace[DP8] is so noble or so famous among men, but I find it less fatiguing, and full as profitable; and the last consideration is the only one that moves me. I take with me my dog, as a companion, for he is useless as to this game. My gun, for no man you know ought to enter the woods without one, my blanket, some provisions, some wax, vermilion, honey, and a small pocket-compass. With these implements I proceed to such woods as are at a considerable distance from any settlements. I carefully examine whether they abound with large trees; if so, I make a small fire, on some flat stones, in a convenient place. On the fire I put some wax: close by this fire, on another stone, I drop honey in distinct drops, which I surround with small quantities of vermilion, laid on the stone; and then I retire carefully to watch whether any bees appear. If there are any in that neighbourhood, I rest assured that the smell of the burnt wax will unavoidably attract them. They will soon find out the honey, for they are fond of preying on that which is not their own; and, in their approach, they will necessarily tinge themselves with some particles of vermilion, which will adhere long to their bodies. I next fix my compass, to find out their course, which they keep invariably strait[DP9] , when they are returning home loaded. By the assistance of my watch, I observe how long those are returning which are marked with vermilion. Thus, possessed of the course, and, in some measure, of the distance, which I can easily guess at, I follow the first, and seldom fail of coming to the tree where those republics are lodged. I then mark it; and thus, with patience, I have found out sometimes eleven swarms in a season; and it is inconceivable what a quantity of honey these trees will sometimes afford. It certainly depends on the size of the hollow, as the bees never rest nor swarm till it is all replenished; for, like men, it is only the want of room that induces them to quit the maternal hive. Next I proceed to some of the nearest settlements, where I procure proper assistance to cut down the trees, get all my prey secured, and then return home with my prize. The first bees I ever procured were thus found in the woods by mere accident; for at that time, I had no kind of skill in this method of tracing them. The body of the tree being perfectly sound, they had lodged themselves in the hollow of one of its principal limbs, which I carefully sawed off, and, with a good deal of labour and industry, brought it home, where I fixed it up in the same position in which I found it growing. This was in April. I had five swarms that year, and they have been ever since very prosperous. This business generally takes up a week of my time every fall, and to me it is a week of solitary ease and relaxation.
The seed is by that time committed to the ground. There is nothing very material to do at home, and this additional quantity of honey enables me to be more generous to my home bees, and my wife to make a due quantity of mead. The reason, Sir, that you found mine better than that of others, is, that she puts two gallons of brandy in each barrel, which ripens it, and takes off that sweet, luscious, taste, which it is apt to retain a long time. If we find any where in the woods, no matter on whose land, what is called a bee-tree, we must mark it. In the fall of the year, when we propose to cut it down, our duty is to inform the proprietor of the land, who is entitled to half the contents. If this is not complied with, we are exposed to an action of trespass, as well as he who should go and cut down a bee-tree which he had neither found out nor marked.
We have twice a year the pleasure of catching pigeons, whose numbers are sometimes so astonishing as to obscure the sun in their flight. Where is it that they hatch? for such multitudes must require an immense quantity of food. I fancy they breed toward the plains of Ohio, and those about lake Michigan, which abound in wild oats; though I have never killed any that had that grain in their craws. In one of them, last year, I found some undigested rice. Now the nearest rice fields, from where I live, must be least 560 miles; and either their digestion must be suspended while they are flying, or else they must fly with the celerity of the wind. We catch them with a net extended on the ground, to which they are allured by what we call tame wild pigeons[DP10] , made blind, and fastened to a long string. His short flights, and his repeated calls, never fail to bring them down. The greatest number I ever caught was fourteen dozen, though much larger quantities have often been trapped. I have frequently seen them at the market so cheap, that, for a penny, you might have as many as you could carry away; and yet, from the extreme cheapness, you must not conclude that they are but any ordinary food; on the contrary, I think they are excellent. Every farmer has a tame wild pigeon in a cage, at his door, all the year round, in order to be ready whenever the season comes for catching them.
The pleasure I receive from the warblings of the birds in the spring is superior to my poor description, as the continual succession of their tuneful notes is for ever [DP11] new to me. I generally rise from bed about that indistinct interval, which, properly speaking, is neither night nor day; for this is the moment of the most universal vocal choir. Who can listen, unmoved to the sweet love-tales of our robins, told from tree to tree? or to the shrill catbirds? The sublime accents of the thrush, from on high, always retard my steps, that I may listen to the delicious music. The variegated appearances of the dew-drops, as they hang to the different objects, must present, even to a clownish imagination, the most voluptuous ideas. The astonishing art which all birds display in the construction of their nests ill-provided as we may suppose them with proper tools, their neatness, their convenience, always make me ashamed of the slovenliness of our houses. Their love to their dame, their incessant careful attention, and the peculiar songs they address to her while she tediously incubates their eggs, remind me of my duty, could I ever forget it. Their affection, to their helpless little ones, is a lively precept; and, in short, the whole economy, of what we proudly call the brute creation, is admirable in every circumstance and vain man, though adorned with the additional gift of reason, might learn, from the perfection of instinct, how to regulate the follies, and how to temper the errors, which this second gift often makes him commit. This is a subject on which I have often bestowed the most ferocious thoughts. I have often blushed within myself, and been greatly astonished, when I have compared the unerring path they all follow, all just, all proper, all wise, up to the necessary degree of perfection, with the coarse, the imperfect, systems of men, not merely as governors and kings, but as masters, as husbands, as fathers, as citizens. But this is a sanctuary in which an ignorant farmer must not presume to enter. If ever man was permitted to receive and enjoy some blessings that might alleviate the many sorrows to which he is exposed, it is certainly in the country, when he attentively consider those ravishing scenes with which he is every where surrounded. This is the only time of the year in which I am avaricious of every moment: I therefore lose none that can add to this simple and inoffensive happiness. I roam early throughout all my fields. Not the least operation do I perform which is not accompanied with the most pleasing observations. Were I to extend them as far as I have carried them, I should become tedious. You would think me guilty of affection, and perhaps I should represent many things as pleasurable, from which you might not perhaps receive the least agreeable emotions. But, believe me, what I write is all true and real.
Some time ago, as I sat smoking a contemplative pipe in my piazza, I saw, with amazement, a remarkable instance of selfishness displayed in a very small bird, which I had hitherto respected for its inoffensiveness. Three nests were placed almost contiguous to each other in my piazza. That of a swallow was affixed in the corner next to the house, that of a phebe[DP12] in the other; a wren possessed a little box, which I had made on purpose, and hung between. Be not surprised at their tameness. All my family had long been taught to respect them as well as myself. The wren had shewn before signs of dislike to the box which I had given it, but I knew not on what account. At last it resolved, small as it was, to drive the swallow from its own habitation, and, to my very great surprise, it succeeded. Impudence often gets the better of modesty, and this exploit was no sooner performed than it removed every material to its own box with the most admirable dexterity. The signs of triumph appeared very visible; it fluttered its wings with uncommon velocity; an universal joy was perceivable in all its movements. Where did this little bird learn that spirit of injustice? It was not endowed with what we term reason! Here then is a proof that both those gifts border very near on one another, for we see the perfection of the one mixing with the errors of the other! The peaceable swallow, like the passive Quaker, meekly sat at a small distance, and never offered the least resistance. But, no sooner was the plunder carried away, than the injured bird went to work with unabated ardour, and, in a few days, the depredations were repaired. To prevent, however, a repetition of the same violence, I removed the wren’s box to another part of the house.
In the middle of my parlour I have, you may remember, a curious republic of industrious hornets. Their nest hangs to the ceiling by the same twig on which it was so admirably built and contrived in the woods. Its removal did not displease them, for they find, in my house, plenty of food; and I have left a hole open, in one of the panes of the window, which answers all their purposes. By this kind usage they are become quite harmless. They live on the flies, which are very troublesome to us throughout summer. They are constantly busy in catching them, even on the eyelids of my children. It is surprising how quickly they smear them with a sort of glue, lest they might escape; and when thus prepared, they carry them to their nests as food for their young ones. These globular nests are most ingeniously divided into many stories, all provided with cells and proper communications. The materials, with which this fabric is built, they procure from the cottony furze, with which our oak-rails are covered. This substance, tempered with glue, produces a sort of pasteboard, which is very strong, and resists all the inclemencies of the weather. By their assistance I am but little troubled with flies. All my family are so accustomed to their strong buzzing, that no one takes any notice of them; and, though they are fierce and vindictive, yet kindness and hospitality have made them useful and harmless.
We have a great variety of wasps. Most of them build their nests in mud, which they fix against the shingles of our roofs, as nigh the pitch as they can. These aggregates represent nothing, at first view, but coarse and irregular lumps, but, if you break them, you will observe that the inside of them contains a great number of oblong cells, in which they deposit their eggs, and in which they bury themselves in the fall of the year. Thus immured, they securely pass through the severity of that season, and, on the return of the sun, are enabled to perforate their cells, and to open themselves a passage from these recesses into the sunshine. The yellow wasps, which build under ground, in our meadows, are much more to be dreaded; for, when the mower unwittingly[DP13] passes his scythe over their holes, they immediately sally forth with a fury and velocity superior even to the strength of man. They make the boldest fly, and the only remedy is to lie down and cover our heads with hay, for it is only at the head they aim their blows; nor is there any possibility of finishing that part of the work, until, by means of fire and brimstone, they are all silenced. But, though I have been obliged to execute this dreadful sentence, I have often thought it is a great pity, for the sake of a little hay, to lay waste so ingenious a subterranean town, furnished with every conveniency, and built with a most surprising mechanism.
I never should have done, were I to recount the many objects which involuntarily strike my imagination in the midst of my work, and spontaneously afforded me the most pleasing relief. These may appear insignificant trifles to a person who has travelled through Europe and America, and is acquainted with books and many sciences. But such simple objects of contemplation suffice me, who have no time to bestow on more extensive observations. Happily these require no study: they are obvious: they gild the moments I dedicate to them, and enliven the severe labours which I perform. At home my happiness springs from very different objects. The gradual unfolding of my children’s reason, the study of their dawning tempers, attract all my paternal attention. I have to contrive little punishments for their little faults, small encouragements for their good actions, and a variety of other expedients dictated by various occasions. But these are themes unworthy your perusal, and which ought not to be carried beyond the walls of my house, being domestic mysteries, adapted only to the locality of the small sanctuary wherein my family resides. Sometimes I delight in inventing and executing machines, which simplify my wife’s labour. I have been tolerably successful that way. And these, Sir, are the narrow circles within which I constantly revolve; and what can I wish for beyond them? I bless God for all the good he has given me. I envy no man’s prosperity, and with no other portion of happiness than that I may live to teach the same philosophy to my children, and give each of them a farm, shew them how to cultivate it, and be, like their father, good substantial independent American farmers.--An appellation which will be the most fortunate one a man of my class can possess, so long as our civil government continues to shed blessings on our husbandry. Adieu.