AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 31 



relief in the feverish dreams which occupy the hours of repose. 

 There is a fatigue which drives away sleep — a premature old 

 age whose deep furrows are never filled, whose infirmities know 

 no cure — the fatigue and old age of excessive mental applica- 

 tion — compared with which, the weariness of the tired laborer 

 is but the ebbing tide of high and exuberant health and strength. 



The farmer, it is true, grows weary and old. But as night 

 comes on it brings " tired nature's sweet restorer " to his frame, 

 as surely as the dews fall upon the thirsty grass, and the petals 

 of the flower close themselves against the chills of evening. 

 The fresh air in which his muscles are hardened by labor, is the 

 tonic for his blood, and he earns as the richest portion of his 

 reward, " a sound mind in a sound body." Old age overtakes 

 him, with its rigors and its weaknesses — but it comes at the 

 appointed time, and may be to him the still and placid evening 

 of a refulgent day. If his books have been the companions of 

 his leisure and weary hours, they will not forsake him now, for 

 they never fail — those faithful friends, whom we have but to 

 know well, to love well. No disappointed ambitions shadow 

 his declining hours ; no memory of reckless personal hostility 

 distracts his repose; the black fingers of malignant slander have 

 not marred his page of life ; the storms of controversy have not 

 blasted him ; the violence of opposition, and the necessities of 

 his calling have led him into no devious ways ; the sweetness of 

 whose temporary triumphs, becomes at last the very " bitter- 

 ness of spirit." A life in the forum or the market place offers 

 no such close. The intricacies of politics, the struggles of the 

 bar may require such repose, but they seldom find it. Cheered 

 as it may be by the tastes which education gives, the world can 

 show no calmer happiness. It is the very existence of all others 

 to be made tranquil and happy by that love of books of which 

 I have spoken, as one of the richest fruits of healthy mental 

 culture. 



And, gentlemen, the appropriate reading of the farmer has 

 peculiar charms. Agricultural literature has temptations which 

 few can resist. It forms a most important chapter in the history 

 of the world. It contains the true economy of nations in their 

 rise and fall. The connection between the sciences and the 

 useful arts, the application of physical forces and of close 

 analysis to the cultivation of the earth, the laws governing the 



