541 



domesticity of his arrangements. Each one is therefore required, as a 

 necessary consequence, to possess a greater amount of information — to 

 have a more expensive preparation — to discharge a greater range of 

 duties — to live under more responsibilities. 



The ignorant man may gain a subsistence — the half educated thrive — 

 the learned, live, prosper, and diffuse in a wider circle the blessings of 

 knowledge and plenty. Whoever acts well his part and does credit to 

 his calling, tvill add something to the world's stock of knowledge, by 

 his reading, reflection and experience. And thus agriculture may ulti- 

 mately attain to the distinctiou of being one of the learned professions. 

 Then it will cease to be the burlesque of farming, that its own votaries 

 consent to the misnomer that denies that the intellect has any partici- 

 pation in a laborer's services. A soldier has companions in arms, the 

 patriot a coadjutor, the author a cotemporary, the statesman a compeer, 

 the professional man a colleague, the mechanic a journeyman ; even a 

 criminal has a parliceps criminis or accomplice, but a farmer dignifies 

 his laborer and companion by a suggestive appellation, and calls him a 

 hand, as if a " hand " expressed all that was useful or requisite in his 

 rural occupation. 



"But the man's a man for a' that." The individual that calls himself 

 or submits to be called a hand, dii-honors his head, dethrones reason, 

 and sets up in its place that in \^ hich is the seat of neither physical or 

 intellectual vitality. That organ, though useful, does not deserve the 

 distinction of representing the man. By rejecting such improprieties of 

 speech, something may be done to at least reclaim the calling from an 

 indignity that does'not belong to any industrial pursuit — an odium that 

 never can deservedly at'achto honorable and useful toil. 



To the husbandman, economy is a word of grave import. His suc- 

 cess cannot be more certainly promoted than by due attention to its dic- 

 tates. Mr. Webster says that economy signifies "a frugal and judicious 

 use of money — a prudent management of all the means by which prop- 

 erty is saved or accumulated — a judicious application of time, of labor, 

 and of the instruments of labor." 



This prudence becomes not only the farmer, but every business man. 

 It is, however, particularly important to the husbandman. It is for him 

 the key to unlock the treasures of the earth — the talisman of his suc- 

 cess. It is the Midas that shall turn to gold everything it touches. 

 How completely it points out the essentials, and indicates the saving, 



