Wheeling Register

Our farmers! God bless them! whose intelligent toil
And patient endurance of the seasons and soil.
Feed the nation at home with the bounty of God
While their full laden ships supply nations abroad.
The farmer, look at him! Independent and free!
Where another more useful, more jovial than he
he stands, in the midst of broad acres, and cries
This good farm is my own, from the ground to the skies"
Dig as deep as he will, none may question his right',
or to build.
if so pleases him, clear up out of sight:
But farmers cautious, as you everywhere find,
And while sturdy of body, are well balanced in mind.
What if others around him play extravagant tricks,
the working his farm he tenaciously sticks
To good, plain common sense, well knowing this will.
or sooner or later,
bring most grist to the mill.
The farmer, not a dullard nor sluggard is he,
From the follies and vices of city life free:
With him early to bed that he early may rise,
to be healthy, wealthy and wise.
Up, abroad in the fields, with his horses and plough,
Stalwart will of his own, ruddy health on his brow,
With the first peep of day you may see him at work,
While his boys, like himself, honest toil never shirk.
Easy task. sayest thou, simply breaking the sod.
Thinking not of the miles by the ploughman thus trod
Of the stumps and the stones that are found in his way,
To the temper most trying whatever you say.
Soft-handed, faint-hearted only try it awhile.
And methinks you will own, with a good natured smile,
Farm life work, after needs some muscle and grit,
That not all for such labor by nature are fit.
But the farmer, you say, is not always afield-
That house, barn and barn-yard, come pleasant changes may yield,
That the lowing of oxen and the sweet breath of kine
To the poet and others are all but divine.
Hard, indeed, were our lot if dependent on these
For our market supply of milk, butter and cheese.
Even farmers and wife with their help must work hard
Would they wring from the farm a substantial reward.
And they do it—these workers—with a ready good will:
At it early and late, with no time to sit still.
Save when neighbors and friends, dropping in now and then,
Make more work for the women—extra chores for the men.
The farmer, God bless him, and the farmer's good wife.
Without whom he would have little comfort of life:
The farmer, of all men, most in need of a spouse.
In his dairy to work to make a home of his house.
May he reap, as he sows, not alone for himself,
Bountiful wife or their children, nor laying up
That he works all the year in the heat and the cold,
But for something still better than silver and gold
In the farmer our churches and schools find a friend
True as steel social rights to maintain and defend.
While acknowledged by all in his useful vocation
As the sinew and bone of the state and the nation.
We are proud of our farmers whose muscle and brain
Keep the nation supplied with both cattle and grain:
East and West, North and South, honest farmers are found,
Both in peace and in war, in the very foreground.
Even kings, we are told by wise Solomon, bow
To the man that may handle the sickle and the plough
We can do without kings, but pray who would be willing to say"
What our markets, and fairs, and our picnics so gay
Without farmers would be, who will venture
While their rosy-cheeked daughters and go-a-head boys
With their love making ways, every circle enjoys.
Our farmers, God bless them! may they every
From all plagues, but of love and of politics there be
True hearted, ever loyal, our national pride.
free:
In themselves growing richer, while for all they provide.
May 9, 1881.