Litchfield Enquirer

THE AMERICAN FARMER.

Extract from an Address of the Hon. John Rowan, of Ky., delivered at Louisville.

Who is there among us who beholds the condition of our farmers, and does not exult in the consciousness that he is an American citizen, and pant to superadd the character of farmer? The house of the farmer is the abode of the virtues. It is a school in which lessons of practical wisdom are taught. It is the temple in which the precepts of our holy religion are inculcated. It is the castle of sovereignty, for it is owned by its occupant, and he is a freeman. It is the residence of peace, order, harmony and happiness.
Patriotism and piety unite in consecrating the place, and in suffusing every countenance with their sacred unction. Indeed, what condition in life is so likely to produce that patriotism, which will stand the country in stead upon emergencies, or that piety which will afford solace in extremity, as that of the farmer? He occupies a constant, intimate, and sensible relation with Heaven. His mind is subdued into a love of order, by constantly beholding that which prevails around him. The regular succession of the seasons, of day and night, and of seed time and harvest, admonish him to the observance of regularity and order in all his conduct. He looks to heaven through its rains and its dews, for the reward of his labors, in the abundance of his crops. He makes the sacred volume of Revelation the man of his council, and source of his consolation. He unites with his wife and children in tones of supplication and strains of praise around the family altar, on the morning and evening of each day. He acknowledges no sovereign but Heaven and the people; he bows with appropriate reverence to the will of each, and exults in the freedom of his own--for homage is a free will offering, claimed at his hand by the convictions of his reason. Matron chastity and infantile innocence sweeten, and Religion hallows the atmosphere of his home, and render it resistlessly attractive. He loves his country because the farm and the domicile of which he is the proprietor, and with which his affections are identified, are a part of that country. His patriotism, connected by his affections with the soil, and by his piety with Heaven, partakes of the stability of the former, and the purity of the latter. It inspires him with a holy enthusiasm in the cause of his country, when his honor or its safety is concerned.
I would not be understood to mean that the farmers are exclusively the patriots of the country: far from it. I only mean that the situation of the farmer is more favorable to the growth and propagation of that exalted virtue, and indeed of all the virtues, than any other condition of life.