FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 123 



by either inhaling or drinking such impurities, which with proper care might 

 easily be avoided. The location of the house should be selected with the most 

 scrupulous care, for in the house we spend by far the larger part of our lives. 

 Every night when we lay ourselves down to repose, and nature strives to undo 

 the evils we have wrought upon our bodies through the day, we can put ourselves 

 under the influence of pure air or impure vapors, as we please. Every night when 

 nature strives to build up and strengthen us for the coming day we can supply 

 her with the pure air of heaven filled with life-giving power, or we can load 

 her down with accumulated filth from which she must select her material for 

 present use. If I think aright, man was not intended to spend his life in mis- 

 ery. What a pitiful sight it is to see a liuman being chained to disease with 

 which he must drag out a miserable existence ! Man was not so intended. 

 He was made for a purpose, and Avhat a gratifying sight it is to see one who 

 has fulfilled tiiat purpose and is ready, as testify his whitened locks, to put 

 this world behind him, yet in the full possession of his mental and a goodly 

 proportion of liis physical powers ! Such is the result of health, which not 

 every one can have, but by looking well to our surroundings we can materially 

 increase the chances for it. Again I say don't neglect the sink or cellar 

 drains. 



When John Johnson of New York, that old pioneer of underdraiuing, com- 

 menced to drain his lands his neighbors laughed at him for burying his crockery 

 under ground where he never would see it again; but that crockery has many 

 times been resurrected since then in his multiplied bushels of grain and has 

 helped materially to gain for him a lasting and a coveted position among the 

 grandest farmers of the age. How his bosom must have swelled with com- 

 mendable pride as he gazed upon his crops, which far outstripped those of his 

 neighbors, and thought of his grand victory over those waste lands of nature. 

 Not only are grains of all kinds benefited by drainage, but fruits, and flowers, 

 and grasses, and trees, and shrubs, and herbs of all descriptions flourish many 

 fold better with warm, dry feet in the spring, and warm, moist ones during 

 the severe drouth of nearly every summer of our lives. A revolution in our 

 cultivation must be wrought if we would keep pace with other trades and sci- 

 ences. Never has farming made such rapid strides in improvement as during 

 the past few years, and I verily believe that in the near future we are to see 

 wonderful improvements. The idea that any fool can become a farmer who 

 has not wit enougii to live at any other business is fast losing ground, and we, 

 if we would succeed, must cultivate our lands more thoroughly. It is said 

 between the years 1856 and 1863 that the United States and Russia exchanged 

 places in regard to the amount of wheat exported to England. In 1856 Russia 

 supplied England with 44-100 of the total import; but in 18G3 the United 

 States supplied 44-100 and Russia only 21-100, and among the direct reasons 

 of this change is that in the United States more skill is used in producing it. 

 The ellect of this is very disastrous to Russia, and one after another of her 

 once flourishing business houses is falling in ruins. Of late the traffic in meat 

 between the United States and Europe has assumed new features and the 

 income to the people of this nation therefrom is most gratifying. Let us as 

 we rejoice at our success beware lest we too fall. If we would retain our high 

 position in respect to other nations in supplying the world with provisions we 

 must plow deeper, we must fertilize more plentifully, we mnst cultivate more 

 thoroughly, and we must drain our farms; then, with the blessings of our 

 Father in heaven, who sends the sun and the rain with reasonable prospects, 

 may we look for bountiful harvests, happy liearts, and larger profits. 



