AGRICULTURAL HEAD-WORK. 33 



see no security that a lapse of memory may not sometimes leave 

 our young friend in the condition of the damsel, who had an 

 excellent rule by which to tell whether eggs were good or not ; 

 she would just place them in a dish of cold water ; for if they 

 were good they would certainly float, — or sink ; and here mem- 

 ory failed, because the why was not also given. 



But, is it worth while to trouble ourselves with the secrets of 

 nature and art, if we can get along quite as w^ell without the 

 labor ? I once knew a man, a very lazy fellow, who thought it 

 morally wrong to attempt to fnid a remedy for canker-worms, as 

 something not meant for man to know ! To me, an attempt to 

 measure knowledge by its adaptation to the absolute necessities 

 of eating and drinking has about the same greatness in it. But 

 knowledge quickens intelligence ; and intelligence is a good 

 guide in every kind of labor. I hate to see a man using force 

 enough to turn a grist-mill in splitting a log, because an unin- 

 telligent or blundering blacksmith has shaped his wedges con- 

 trary to the dynamic laws of the inclined plane ; or a snow- 

 shoveller spending his strength, needlessly, against the grain of 

 a drift, which has a grain, lying the way of the wind, as much 

 as the trunk of a tree has a grain according to the flow of its 

 sap, in the formation. Intelligence will remove such defects 

 in manual labor. Any thing that whets up the mind also en- 

 riches it with new powers and makes the hand-work something 

 more agreeable than before. 



Agricultural Heacl-ivork : This, the agriculturist wants, not 

 only as the complement of his hand-work, and for its success, 

 but to give dignity and interest to it. In the strife of interests 

 which are competing for preeminence among men, agriculture 

 can stand no equal chance with other industrial enterprises, 

 unless it will take to itself that which gives prominence and 

 success to the others, and that is, mental activity. Taken by 

 themselves, ploughing, planting, tilling and harvesting, are 

 very menial employments, and represent, in their terms, little 

 more than severe drudgery. But let them be combined with 

 great and earnest thoughts, such as relate to the chemistry of 

 the soil, the laws of vegetable physiology, the reasons for 

 atmospherical changes, and the relation of production to 

 human necessity, and you then have science, philosophy, art 



5 



