126 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



country, nor do we want one. But considering the untold 

 advantages of a farmer's life in other respects, in its inde- 

 pendence and comfort, in its family associations gathering 

 for successive generations around a fixed homestead, in its 

 freedom from debasing temptations, arid in its close commun- 

 ion with nature, which is so helpful towards communion 

 with God, — with all these great and inalienable advantages, 

 it would certainly seem that farming ought to be able to 

 take on enough of the amenites of life to lift it to the queen- 

 ship of human occupations, to make it in reality what it has 

 always been in romance and song, the ideal life of mankind. 

 This is certainly a consummation devoutly to be wished, and 

 it is one the realization of which farmers hold in their own 

 keeping. 



