HIGH FARMIXG WITH BRAINS. 33 



leisure, for leisure is not emptiness. And nights and sab- 

 baths in the country, if fences are good and debts are paid, 

 are nearer rest than any thing else with which God ever 

 blessed this weary earth. 



I assume that very little American farming has reached 

 this third stage : New-Jersey garden-culture is the nearest 

 approach, — the degree, I mean, where waste can no longer 

 be afforded, where a settled occupancy and crowded popu- 

 lation compel earth and man to do their best. I believe it 

 will be the mission of New England, in " New-England farm- 

 ing restored," to develop and propagate this higher culture. 

 " Every principle of civilization," says Guizot, " before it can 

 be of any use to Europe, must first pass through France." 

 So New England has given birth and early strength to opin- 

 ions that were one day to become laws, though New York 

 has had an equal work in crystallizing them into codes : so 

 New England has originated the methods of American labor. 

 And when we reach the point where new lands can not or 

 will not be sought, but old lands restored, the skill, enter- 

 prise, economy, and capital of New England, will be required 

 and found ready for the work. Brains^ too, are needed for a 

 good crop. " How did you raise those cranberries ? " was 

 inquired of one who had the premium crop. " Brains," was 

 the brief answer. " Where on airth," was the next question, 

 " did you get brains enough to kiver a cranberry-mash ? " 

 Sldll and economy too,' and not expenditure for costly 

 manures. " John," said his lordship to his farmer, — " John, 

 do you know that the whole strength of a cord of manure 

 does not weigh seventy pounds, and that the rest is useless ? 

 John, the time will come when the fertilizer will be carried" 

 to the field in one pocket ? " — " Ay, your lordship, and the 

 crop brought back in the other." 



And now may I be pardoned — nay, I shall ask no pardon 

 of man or woman for the truth I am about to say — for indi- 

 cating the evil which reaches widest, and strikes us deepest; 

 an evil that is giving over our national character, religion, 

 and life into foreign hands ? I do not mean intemperance, 

 with disease, madness, ruin, and death for its executors, for 

 its curse compared with this is only a specialty ; it is not the 

 lack of faith, to which tendency the New-England mind, they 

 say, through its activity, predisposes itself ; not the betrayals 



