FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 253 



suit of our noble calling incorporate some, if not all of the excellent ideas 

 embodied in the remarks of Mr. Mitchell, of Connecticut, on fences, to-\vit: 

 ^'Lay out your land for the easiest and most economical working; give no land 

 to permanent pasture, which will j^ay better by tillage ; make access to every 

 field easy; order your homestead and its surroundings so that your children 

 will love it and hate to leave it ; abandon fences as fast as you can ; watch 

 your State Legislature and see that it aids you, and when the barriei's are down 

 iind the great tax lifted, learn to trust your neighbor and so to live that he may 

 trust you." 



DISCUSSION. 



Prof. Beal. — Has any one present had any experience in the use of barbed 

 wire for fencing? 



No answer. 



Mr. J. A. Scott. — This is an i-mportant subject and at present we must have 

 fences of some sort. I have made a good fence with posts ten feet apart, spik- 

 ing split oak bars to the posts. It is strong and durable ; is much in use in 

 Ohio. 



Prof. Beal next read a paper on "The Apple Orchard." See lectures and 

 addresses as above. 



The following essay was read by Miss Jennie M. Chatterton : 



''farmers' homes." 



The vexed question of the comparative advantages of town and country life is 

 one that will never be decided. With many the opinion prevails that if, as is 

 so often asserted, "God made the country and man made the town," then the 

 former portion of the earth's surface was created for the exclusive benefit of 

 country men : and without much inquiry into the extent of its resources, they 

 are quite willing to leave the latter in full possession of their heritage. 



To some, also, the country appears a sort of arcadiaof smoothly shaven lawns, 

 tasteful residences, and fruits and flowers unlimited, where the waters teem 

 with fish, the woods with game, and one has nothing to do but live and enjoy 

 the good the gods provide. Others, still, enlightened by glimpses during occa- 

 sional brief sojourns of the under side of farm life, which, — so curiously are 

 things turned, — is sometimes the outside, are ready to go to the opposite ex- 

 treme and declare that to the highest degree of all occupations farming com- 

 bines the maximum of hard and constant drudgery with the minimum of relax- 

 ation and enjoyment. An external source of these various opinions may possi- 

 bly be found in a certain old proverb : "A man is known by the house he lives 

 in and by the hat he wears." 



Oracular wisdom of this sort, illiberal though it may seem, is conceded to be 

 pretty strongly grounded on fact. It is doubtless a surprise to the good Ameri- 

 can citizen, fond of quoting with sonorous emphasis, 



" The rank is but the guinea's stamp, 

 A nnin 's a man for a' that," 



when he finds himself bowing with an extra shade of obsequiousness to some 

 local millionaire, the owner of a mansion corresponding to his fortune; or 

 involuntarily setting some shining light of literature considerably lower than 

 the angels after an injudiciously honest biographer has revealed the wretched- 

 ness of his furnished lodgings and the importunity of his creditors; and the 



