Portrait of a Farmer

By Don Shearon First Published October 14, 1971With Fairbury's Chamber of Commerce preparing to host its 22nd annual agri-business banquet next Monday evening, this seems an appropriate time to revive a “Portrait of a Farmer,” which has been making the rounds for quite a long while.No one seems able to identify its author. But following the piece's publication in the Congressional Record at the request of former Rep. Richard L. Roudebush of Indiana, the “portrait” began to be reprinted in various sections of the country.That it is not factory-fresh can be seen when one considers that Mr. Roudebush retired from Congress at the end of 1970, having completed five terms in the House.While the author is unknown, it is obvious that he (or she) is not entirely unacquainted with farmers and farming. The qualities of patience, self-reliance, ambition, honesty and determination—all etched into the “portrait”—are commonly shared by men of the soil.It is precisely for this reason that the Fairbury Chamber of Commerce annually entertains farmer friends of this area. The yearly get-together is one way to say “thank you” to the rural folk who feel as we do, that “Fairbury Is Your Kind of Town—for Everything !”Portrait of a Farmer - Author Unknown“Farmers are found in fields plowing up, seeding down, returning from, planting to, fertilizing with, spraying for and harvesting if. Wives help them, little boys follow them, city relatives visit them, but it takes Heaven to stop them.“When your car stalls along the way, a farmer is a considerate, courteous, inexpensive road service. When a farmer's wife suggests he buy a new suit, he can quote from memory every expense involved in operating the farm last year, plus the added expense he is certain will crop up this year. Or else he assumes the role of the indignant shopper, impressing upon everyone within earshot the pounds of pork he must produce in order to pay for a suit at today's prices.“A farmer is a paradox—he is an ‘overalled’ executive with his home, his office; a scientist using fertilizer attachments; a purchasing agent in an old straw hat; a personnel director with grease under his fingernails; a dietician with a passion for alfalfa, animals and antibiotics; a production expert faced with a surplus; and a manager battling a price-cost squeeze. He manages more capital than most of the businessmen in town.“He likes sunshine, good food, state fairs, dinner at noon, auctions, his neighbors, Saturday nights in town, his shirt collar unbuttoned, and above all a good soaking rain in August.“He is not much for droughts, ditches, throughways, experts, weeds, the eight-hour day, helping with the housework, or grasshoppers.“Nobody else is so far from the telephone or so close to God. Nobody else gets so much satisfaction out of modern plumbing, favorable weather and good ice cream.“Nobody else can remove all those things from his pockets and on washday still have overlooked: Five ‘steeples,’ one cotter key, a rusty spike, three kernels of corn, the stub of a pencil, a square tape, a $4.98 pocket watch and a cupful of chaff in each trouser cuff.“A farmer is both faith and fatalist—he must have faith to continually meet the challenges of his capacities amid an ever-present possibility that an act of God (a late spring, an early frost, tornado, flood, drought) can bring his business to a standstill. You can reduce his acreage but you can't restrain his ambition.“Might as well put up with him—he is your friend; your competitor; your customer; your source of food, fiber, and self-reliant young citizens to help replenish your cities.“He is your countryman—a denim-dressed, business-wise, fast-growing statesman of stature.“And when he comes in at noon having spent the energy of his hopes and dreams, he can be recharged anew with the magic words: ‘The market's up!’”

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