OBSERVATION AND EXPERIMENT. 9 



be found in the writings of those in whom theory and practice 

 go not hand in hand — a too hasty generalization ; they need 

 the curb of a thousand unforeseen failures which practical 

 experience alone can give. This class are apt to map out the 

 hours of the farmer after the day's work is done to various 

 intellectual pursuits. Certainly they are to a degree right ; 

 every farmer ought to devote a portion of his time to the 

 improving of his mind, but in this hard-working Yankee land, 

 over-worked as the farmer now is during a large portion of the 

 year, the proposition, in a general application, is impracticable. 

 The idea, which is very prevalent, that the body can be 

 exhausted by work and yet the mind be left bright for study, is 

 an absurdity, as every one who has tried the experiment 

 knows. The mental powers cannot work without a supply of vital 

 vigor any more than the body, and after the body has exhausted 

 the vitality of the system, what is there left for the mental 

 powers ? It has been remarked of pugilists, that as a class, 

 they are but little above idiots, almost the whole of their vitality 

 having been absorbed in the excessive culture of their bodily 

 powers. It is a great misfortune to any tiller of the soil to find 

 himself usually incapacitated after the labors of the day are 

 closed, for profitable reading or study; the wisest philanthropist 

 for such a class is he who can teach a fellow mortal how to 

 lessen the number of his wants, or introduce improvements in 

 agriculture, such as improved implements, whereby equal work 

 can be done as thoroughly and more speedily and with less 

 wear and tear of the man than under the old svstem. Mowing 

 machines, grain threshers, the steam plough, and like products 

 of human ingenuity, march nearer the van of an improved 

 civilization than many of us conceive of. 



