455 



strong in his consciousness of rectitude, leave his father's fai-m to be- 

 gin a city life, without feeling commiseration for him. It is not only 

 the gradual learning of evil, and the nan-owing of the feelings, and the 

 stunting of the inner man which too often result ; it is not the weary 

 disappointments, and the wearing off" of the gloss, from ambitious hopes 

 — which sooner or later are the fate of most men, who set before themselves 

 the one goal of wealth, but I view in imagination the after-life, the old 

 age of what he is, and what he might have been — and do you believe 

 that if he could have foreseen all this, he ever would have left his home? 

 Certainly not, for the mere bauble of a falsely called " respectabili- 



I never throw n flower nway, 



Without an inward sigh; 

 To think that aujjht so beautiful, 



So speedily should die. 



We all know that it is too often the case, that if a boy shows more 

 than an ordinary ability, the father or mother is ambitious to send him 

 to college, and then to the city, while a heavy, stupid boy is kept at 

 home to be the farmer. And this leads me to ask, whether in a farm- 

 er's life there is not quite as much scope for education and talent as in 

 any other; and whether a highly cultivated mind, devoted to this pur- 

 suit, cannot make as much pecuniary profit from it as from any of the 

 professions ? I have no hesitation in declaring my belief that it is so. 

 Agriculture is a progressive art ; the great fortunes made by manufac- 

 tures and mechanics, are the result of improvements introduced by them, 

 together with steady industry. Farming is quite as open to profitable 

 discoveries and improved processes, as any other productive business. 

 Even the very best of our farmers know veiy little of what may be 

 accomplished by farming when thoroughly studied and understood. 

 Most men are content with 40 bushels of clean corn to the acre. Skill- 

 ful men raise 100 bushels on the same area. Those who are the most 

 skillful have raised 200 ; but is there any reason why we should stop 

 here ? There is, of coui-se, a limit somewhere, but we do not believe 

 that it is yet reached. Improved varieties, improved processes, impro- 

 ved manuring and draining may yet go far beyond our present bei^t. 



I observed before, that the reason why American labor is successful 

 in its results, is because it is intelligent labor — because we work with 

 mind as well as body. Now all these terms are comparative. Let us 



