What the Sister Arts Teach as to Farming (1853)

AUTHOR: Greeley, Horace

In this address, Greeley emphasizes general frugality and industriousness: “Some men waste the better part of their lives in dissipation and idleness; but this does not excuse in others the waste of time equally precious in mere animal effort to heap up goods and comforts which we must leave behind so soon and for ever” (19). In the case of farming, this extends to a duty to care for farmed animals and plants (Greeley thus explicitly embraces the idea of stewardship of nature): “Plants and domestic animals rightfully look to their owner for efficient protection; and he who allows his sheep to be killed by wolves, his fowls to be carried off by foxes, or his grain to be devoured by insects, is culpably faithless to his dependents and his duty” (26). This stewardship model derives from Greeley's conviction that humans are the apex of creation and thus entitled to all natural resources so that “Man the Cultivator” may “advance boldly and confidently to take his proper post as lord of the animal kingdom and wielder of the elements for the satisfaction of his wants and the development of his immortal powers” (30).

In addition to a thorough education in the “knowledge of Nature and her immutable Laws” (11), such stewardship also requires health and thus, for Greeley, a predominantly veg*n diet, because “men who work must eat, though their food be not the best; but give us an abundance of the choicest fruits and vegetables, with farmers who know how to grow them, and truly educated housewives, who delight in preparing and serving them, and we shall enjoy health, elasticity and longevity to an extent now unknown. A flesh diet is the dearest, the least palatable and the least wholesome, and all that is needed to wean men from it is the presentation of a better” (28). Unfortunately, as things are, “[t]here is not now one grape-vine or fruit-tree, except of the coarsest and commonest kinds, where there should be twenty, taking one State with another; and one consequence of this is an enormous and perilous consumption of flesh as food, to an extent unknown in other countries. We are nationally surfeited with pork and tainted with Scrofula, not because we are so fond of pork, but because, for an important portion of each year, the majority of our population can get little beside” (28). However, Greeley is sure that the day is coming “when a fuller and truer Education shall have refined and chastened [the farmer's] animal cravings, and when Science shall have endowed him with her treasures, redeeming Labor from drudgery while quadrupling its efficiency, and crowning with beauty and plenty our bounteous, beneficent Earth” (33).

Last updated on September 29th, 2024

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