| Abstract
| - Rest satisfied and thank god that my lot is to be an american farmer…[w]here is that station which can confer a more substantial system of felicity than that of an american farmer possessing freedom of action, freedom of thought, ruled by a mode of government which requires but little from us?.7 know no other landlord than the lord of all land, to whom i owe the most sincere gratitude….The instant i enter on my own land, the bright idea of property, of exclusive right, of independence, exalt my mind….What should we american farmers be without the distinct possession of that soil? It feeds, it clothes us; from it we draw even a great exuberancy, our best meat, our richest drink; the very honey of our bees come from this privileged spot. —j. Hector st. John de crevecoeur, letters from an american farmer (1782) baby i know that we've got trouble in the fields when the bankers swarm like locusts out there turning away our yields and the trains roll by our silos silver in the rain and leave our pockets full of nothing but our dream in the golden grain.—nanci griffith, “trouble in the field” (1988)
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