From Old Books and Periodicals
Delivered before the Bureau County Agricultural Society, October, 1859, by Owen Lovejoy, M. C.
My fellow farmers, brothers of the Plow,
I make you my salutatory bow.
Accept my greeting hardy sons of toil,
Who own, at once, and cultivate the soil.
I crave your audience for a half hour's time
To hear some thoughts I've woven into rhyme.
And first of all our gratitude is due,
To Him whose goodness, like the falling dew
Descends on all alike, and crowns the year
With the rich fruits which you exhibit here.
Spring came and fled, and Summer is no more;
But Autumn, with its rich and varied store,
Now spreads its board, a sumptuous bill of fare,
That all, the bounties of the year may share.
How liberal nature, with no stinted feast,
She brings supplies to all, both man and beast.
Traverse the earth for many a weary day,
Visit all climes, and all their tribes survey,
And when you've made the circuit of the sun,
Alighting where your journey first begun,
Beyond these shores, in all that toilsome round,
A scene like this, can nowhere else be found.
In ages past, and still in other climes,
Where despots wield a sceptre stained with crimes,
As if for insult, with the laborer's name
Are ever coupled epithets of shame.
Serf, slave, and villain, are the terms applied
To those who labor, by the sons of pride.
But here, the laborer is a man of wealth,
The bone and sinew of the commonwealth;
Invested with the franchise of election,
He spurns control, and scoffs at all subjection.
Owner and tiller of his loved freehold,
He laughs at fear, and cannot be controlled.
Knows no dependance, save upon his God,
Bows to no sceptre-cowers at no one's nod;
Would you the value of these blessings know,
Visit the Rhine, the Volga, or the Po.
Alas! that I'm compelled the truth to speak,
You'll learn it all beyond the Chesapeake.
Of all the cereals that our soil can raise,
The palm, beyond a doubt, belongs to Maize.
O, may some rural muse inspire my verse,
As I its culture and its claims, rehearse.
For what, to CORN, can bring just estimation,
Unless it be poetic inspiration.
The Red man's story, in the legend given,
Gives Corn, like manna, its descent from Heaven.
And this the mode, if we can but believe it,
In which the Ancient Red Skin did receive it.
Hiawatha prayed and fasted,
Seven days the conflict lasted,
Seven days no food he tasted,
And was weak, and wan and wasted,
Wasted to a skeleton,
When at last his fate came on.
"Twas the hour the sun sinks low,
When the skies are all aglow,
That he wrestled with his foe.
Though his strength seemed all departed,
Yet he struggled, lion-hearted,
With the mighty Mandowin,
To obtain this boon for men.
From on high with power imbued,
He at last his foe subdued.
Earned from men a fadeless crown,
As his foe fell lifeless down.
He then a grave with care selected,
As the dying foe directed,
Far away from where the vine,
Round the elm its tendrils twine,
Out upon the open plain,
Warmed with sunshine, wet with rain,
Safely kept from worm and crow,
Where no weed had leave to grow.
From this grave, with care kept clean,
Clothed in yellow robes, and green,
Sprung our Maize, our Indian Corn,
Thus 'twas sown and thus 'twas born.
And since thus the legends tell us,
Who shall doubt that it befell thus.
Here behold what we inherit,
Wondrous gift of the Great Spirit.
Now your thoughts turn away from this plant's derivation
And we'll treat, if you please, of its right cultivation.
In the growing of corn, 'tis the farmer's first need,
To choose in due time, and secure the best seed.
This, you'll please to consider, a sine qua non;
Without it, but little of good can be done;
Without it your plowing and planting are vain,
And fruitless your hopes and your labor for gain.
The farmer who says he can go to his crib
And pick out good seed, tells a very great fib;
A very great blunder, at least, he will make,
And find it too often a fatal mistake.
You talk of good luck; or of skies unpropitious,
Good seed is the luck the most sure to enrich us.
Poor seed is poor luck, and though sunshine and rain
Are lavished upon it, they're lavished in vain.
Our seed time and harvest are promised, 'tis true,
But to seed which is faulty, no harvest is due.
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