the night, not paying for the place they have occupied. Corn shocks
never make false assignments. Mountain brooks are always "current."
The gold on the grain is never counterfeit. The sunrise never flaunts
in false colors. The dew sports only genuine diamonds.

Taking farmers as a class, I believe they are truthful, and fair in
dealing, and kind-hearted. But the regions surrounding our cities
do not always send this sort of men to our markets. Day by day there
creak through our streets, and about the market-houses, farm wagons
that have not an honest spoke in their wheels, or a truthful rivet
from tongue to tail-board. During the last few years there have been
times when domestic economy has foundered on the farmer's firkin.
Neither high taxes, nor the high price of dry-goods, nor the
exorbitancy of labor, could excuse much that the city has witnessed
in the behavior of the yeomanry. By the quiet firesides of Westchester
and Bucks counties I hope there may be seasons of deep reflection and
hearty repentance.

Rural districts are accustomed to rail at great cities as given up to
fraud and every form of unrighteousness; but our cities do not absorb
all the abominations. Our citizens have learned the importance of
not always trusting to the size and style of apples in the top of a
farmer's barrel, as an indication of what may be found farther down.
Many of our people are accustomed to watch to see how correctly a
bushel of beets is measured; and there are not many honest milk-cans.
Deceptions do not all cluster around city halls. When our cities sit
down and weep over their sins, all the surrounding counties ought to
come in and weep with them.

There is often hostility on the part of producers against traders,
as though the man who raises the corn were necessarily more honorable
than the grain dealer, who pours it into his mammoth bin. There ought
to be no such hostility. The occupation of one is as necessary as that
of the other. Yet producers often think it no wrong to snatch away
from the trader; and they say to the bargain-maker, "You get your
money easy." Do they get it easy? Let those who in the quiet field and
barn get their living exchange places with those who stand to-day amid
the excitements of commercial life, and see if they find it so very
easy. While the farmer goes to sleep with the assurance that his corn
and barley will be growing all the night, moment by moment adding to
his revenue, the merchant tr