42 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



balance each other — if indeed so favorahlc a result as this "vrere 

 produced — we should not expect in the hands of most farmers. 

 That it is profitable, under its present management, we have no 

 good reason to doubt. But were it not so, we should still 

 account the cultivator of such a farm a public benefactor. A 

 knowledge of his modes of operation and their results would 

 be a public benefit ; and the imitation of his example, with 

 judicious reference to the different circumstances in which it 

 may be applied, would be a source of individual and public 

 wealth and happiness. There are, besides the actual returns 

 in dollars and cents, by which most men do, and perhaps ought, 

 to e^stimate the present value of their lands, the satisfactions 

 arising from the successful accomplishment of one's plans, bring- 

 ing health and cheer ; from the knowledge of superior means 

 of support and comfort afforded one's laborer's ; from the sight 

 of valuable and permanent improvements made, by which others, 

 if not one's self, will reap large benefit ; stone walls that are 

 built for ages, and in the construction of which it is difficult to 

 imagine further improvement ; waste, or almost worthless lands 

 reclaimed and rendered bountifully productive ; trees planted, 

 from which generations are to pluck the choicest fruit ; and the 

 whole farm made beautiful by skill and culture. Tiiere is in 

 these facts much to compensate any failure of remuneration in 

 hard money, if such failure ensues. Then, too, in the case of 

 Mr. French, there is another and higher satisfaction, the worth 

 of wliich is understood by every mind possessed of right sensi- 

 bilities. He cultivates and adorns, improves and preserves his 

 paternal acres ; the spot which was his early home, and is now 

 endeared to him, beyond all others, by associations and remem- 

 brances of the purest and most inspiring sort ! Who would not 

 wish to preserve the soil on which his fathers trod and toiled, 

 where his own first breath was drawn, from passing into stran- 

 ger-hands ? Who would not cheerfully labor through years of 

 hardest business life, for means to be expended in reclaiming 

 and enriching, in preserving and adorning the place, which shall 

 go down, with his ancestral name, to future generations ? Who 

 would not love to be the benefactor of liis own and his parents' 

 neighbors and friends, wliilc he lives, and to mingle his ashes 

 with theirs, when he dies ? 



