lU MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



or conqueror through the bar vest-fields where his ancestors 

 toiled like galley-slaves, without seemg in the machine some- 

 thing more than an appliance for increasing the products of 

 the soil : it becomes an instrument for a still higher use, for 

 the culture and refinement of the farmer himself. For, say 

 what you will about the dignity of labor, — and no one, I am 

 sure, can have a higher appreciation of that truth than J 

 have, — too much labor with the muscles tends to the repres- 

 sion of the social and intellectual life. A man who spends 

 twelve or fourteen hours a day in the severest manual toil 

 is not likely to have much vigor left for any thing else. He 

 will think onl}' of liis supper and his bed as he goes wearily 

 to his home at night. Nathaniel Hawthorne in his diary, 

 kept when he was a member of the communit}'^ at Brook 

 Farm, gives a very amusing description of the depressing 

 effect of his unaccustomed manual labor upon his power of 

 mental production : " In the midst of toil," he says, " or after 

 a hard day's work, my soul absolutely refuses to be poured 

 out on paper. It is my opinion that a man's soul may be 

 buried and perish under a dung-heap, just as well as under 

 a pile of money." " Oh, labor is the curse of the world, 

 and nobody can meddle with it without becoming propor- 

 tionably brutified." This, of course, is written in a spirit of 

 pleasantry and exaggeration; and yet it embodies a truth. 

 I find in ni}^ own experience that any bodily exercise or 

 labor approaching severity is fatal to mental activity for the 

 rest of the day. And so I have the inestimable privilege 

 of being lazy for conscience' sake. Every man has a cer- 

 tain maximum of energy : if he puts it all into his muscles, 

 of course he has none left for his brain. If the labor is 

 necessary, there is nothing to be said ; and no doubt, to the 

 mass of farmers, whatever ameliorations the future may 

 bring, it alwaj^s will be necessary to a degree that will con- 

 stitute a special obstacle in the direction of higher cultui-e. 

 I have dwelt tlms long upon it, because, to my mind, it is 

 one of the most obstinate facts with which we have to deal in 

 estimating the possibility of a more satisfactory, intellectual, 

 and social life for farmers as a class. 



