322 PISCATAQUIS CENTRAL SOCIETY. 



her half of wliat remained ; still the produce of his vineyard was 

 undiminished. This result was the consequence of his bestowing as 

 much labor on the third part left after his daughters had received 

 their portions, as he had been accustomed to give to the whole vine- 

 yard." 



A further means of securing an interest in farm labor, and of 

 promoting contentment in rural occupations, may be found in pro- 

 viding home comforts, and in beautifying home surroundings. The 

 department of taste has been too much neglected among farmers as 

 something that "would not pay," and not unfrequently have they 

 been obliged to jjay dearly for the neglect, not only in dreariness 

 and monotony, but in the discontent of their children and their early 

 departure to more congenial employment and the more exciting 

 scenes of city life ; and often in their seeking haunts of intemper- 

 ance, and those scenes of revelry and exhilcrating mirth which are 

 the usual accessories of the initiatory departments of dissipation. 

 No expenditure within the limits of enlightened economy, can be 

 unwise, whose object is to cultivate and refine the taste. I am a 

 rigid utilitarian, but am yet to be convinced that a potato patch in 

 a front yard is -more profitable than a grass plat, or raising cabbages 

 therein a wiser economy than cultivating dahlias. A cultivated 

 taste is everywhere in the presence of beauty and is ministered to 

 by every object of nature. Dr. Channing said, that but a very small 

 part of the world could be converted into food and raiment and the 

 gratification of the senses, but the whole creation may be made to 

 minister to a sense of the beautiful. Merely to eat and drink is a 

 very small part of our business here, and we do wisely to labor to 

 other purposes and to other ends. We should not live merely to 

 eat and drink and to pursue sensuous ideals, but we should eat and 

 drink to live and fulfill our high destiny ; and in extracting pleas- 

 ure from every legitimate source, we are not only fulfilling the 

 dictates of a sound philosophy but complying with the precepts of a 

 true religion. ***** 



The ladies, I know, will second my appeal in behalf of the culti- 

 vation of the beautiful in our hearts and homes, and lead in every 

 enterprise whose object is the perfection of taste, and the realization 

 of the ideal in the actual. 



God has blended the beautiful with the useful everywhere. 



