THE OLD AND THE NEW. 21 



berry-biislies, again subdued, and brought under tillage, and 

 the once fruitful fields that are now wildernesses again 

 rejoicing, and blossoming as the rose ; but we may also hope, 

 that with his increased prosperity, and his added leisure, 

 and the strengthened sense of tlie dignity of his vocation, 

 some improvement will also take place in the social life of 

 the farmer. Many things can be done to make the farm- 

 life brighter and more attractive. Mr. Waring thinks that 

 the farmers of any given district might group their homes in 

 villages, — not living upon their farms, but going back and 

 forth between the farm and the home daily, and that the loss 

 of time in travelling would be more than made up by the gain 

 of being near to school and church and lecture-hall, and 

 having such greatly improved opportunities of social enjoy- 

 ment and culture. I am not at all sure that this plan would 

 work in all neighborhoods; especially would it be difficult 

 to realize in such a town as Blandford, where the distances 

 are so long, and the hills so steep. But the thing is worth 

 thinking of; and the suggestion of a more perfectly devel- 

 oped social life, of more frequent assemblies for social pur- 

 poses, to be held in the leisure season, — assemblies in which 

 innocent diversion shall be combined with mental improve- 

 ment, — is a suggestion that I know the farmers of Blandford 

 are ready to heed. The evidence that they are awake to the 

 importance of cultivating the social element, and believe not 

 only in getting a living, but in taking the good of life as 

 they go along, I have seen while I have been among them. 



And such signs as these are full of promise. When farm- 

 life is relieved in part of its lonesomeness, and when its 

 lack of opportunities for mental quickening shall be supplied, 

 many of our brightest boys and girls, that are now inclined 

 to run away from the farms to the towns, will be held fast 

 to the soil ; and some of that mental energy, which in the last 

 half-century has gone into the development of our mechan- 

 ical and commercial and manufacturing industries, will be 

 expended upon the improvement of our agriculture. 



