Sharp eye for bullshit(whoever is hiding here)said: "I'd say The Farmer's Boy is a shameless tear-jerker, in which the farmer - far from suffering during an agricultural depression - is sufficiently prosperous to take on an additional labourer and then bequeath the farm to him."

Ah well - another assumption based on ignorance perhaps? When I first worked on the land, in the middle of a thriving, robust, living tradition in North Cornwall, I wondered why the old men cried in thier beer when the Farmer's Boy was sung. I found out - they'd lived through the agricultural depression of the 30s. The etic view sees a prosperous farmer: the emic view understands the eponymous 'hero'.

Tom Brown