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OUR HOMES. 77 



classes in particular, I have a word of advice : Buy a piece of 

 our good mother earth. Take the nearest available acre— one 

 that nature has treated with a fair degree of kindness — improve 

 upon it ; both you and the land will be made the better by the act. 



Having thus, inferentially, pi-esented the claims of our State to 

 our continued regard — honestly and fairly, as I believe — it only 

 remains to me to speak of our homes as they ought to be. What 

 shall we make them ? is an interesting inquiry. 



While pursuing this task, my convictions have all the way 

 gained strength, that the effort will end in disappointment. My 

 subject as announced naturally promises a different train of 

 thought from my design, and might lead a stranger to expect a 

 production differing widely from such attempts by country farm- 

 ers. If I have already failed, I cannot hope to effect a redemption 

 in the few minutes left to me, in which to present the claims of 

 matters that employ the lives of men and raises them to the dig- 

 nity of professions,' and whose works are before us in many 

 attractive volumes. 



A home pre-supposes a house ; a house is always a teacher ; it 

 becomes an agent of civilization. When the house embodies fit- 

 ness, truth and dignified simplicity, it sustains the national roots 

 of these republican virtues. The dwelling exerts a mighty influ- 

 ence on its inhabitants. 



It has been said of the farmers of New England, that there is 

 no race of country-livers in the world, who, with equal intelli- 

 gence, are so destitute of all sense of the graces of life and home. 

 If this be true of us, how wide is the margin for our improvement! 

 One reason why the correction of this want of balance in New 

 England character is retarded, is, that a large majority feel un- 

 settled ; they purpose to sell, and look up a new home. This 

 feeling of unrest is the bane of all permanent improvement. 

 When our people manifest more of a settled feeling, then we can 

 talk with better courage of improvements, of trees, and home 

 attractions. This lack of settled feeling fosters a want of per- 

 manence in all we build. 



A single illustration may apply to many localities in the State. 

 In the immediate vicinity of my home, there is an apparent abun- 

 dance of slate, as good, and as favorably located for quarrying as 

 at Brownville or anywhere ; a broad vein of lime-rock, tracable 

 across several farms, where it out-crops in steep hills, afibrding 

 natural drainage for extensive excavations — the lime pure and 



