QQ BOARD OP AGRICULTURE. 



To those who live in town or village, the outward ideal of the 

 felicitous home is somewhat varied, with the features narrowed in 

 limit, but embracing the shaded street and the well stocked and 

 well kept garden. All these have their influence on mind and 

 character. 



Men in cities who toil for wealth, have their incentive in their 

 ideal of home — many of them of country life, meaning to realize 

 it Avhen the city task is done. 



My friend in New York lives over the country pleasures of his 

 boyhood. Being of a mechanical turn, he brings out the model of 

 his country house that is to be, and dissects it to show me the 

 conveniences of its parts. If its exhibition does not essentially 

 contribute to the wayside knowledge gained in my city visit, it 

 does him good. He is growing old in his toil for those he loves; 

 and the only country house he will ever enjoy as his own, is his 

 ideal and its miniature that he exhibits. 



City bred men, when the desire for country possessions takes 

 them, shape their demands by the mode of advertising farms for 

 sale. Some of the good points required in a fai'm of fifty acres are 

 these : — land smooth, free from stones, rich, gently undulating, 

 giving fine views, easy to till, good buildings, healthy location, 

 convenient to schools, churches, mills, railroads, steamboats and 

 the world general]}', good society, plenty of choice fruits, good 

 water, no incumbrances, and the price very low. They expect to 

 find a plenty of such places any day. There is just a spice of 

 presumption in such expectations ; 3'et advertisements still read, 

 "suitably divided into tillage, meadow, pasture, &c.," not taking 

 much account of a systematic rotation. There would be better 

 sense in describing the house as being suitably divided into cook- 

 ing, eating and sleeping quarters. 



Ideals of stable homes and domestic comforts seem at present 

 not to be the ruling passion. This is rather an era of stupendous 

 movements of Iniman enterprise and energy. Tiie railway across 

 this continent and the two others projected ; the ship canal across 

 the Isthmus of Suez ; the telegraph cables uniting Europe and 

 America, and others to be laid to make the islands of the ocean 

 telegraphic stations ; the Isthmus of Darien to be cut by a ship 

 canal ; wliolc nations engaged in migratory movements, seemingly 

 breaking up to re-form themselves under more favoring conditions ; 

 the spirit of emigration agitating different peoples under different 



