56 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



farm of New England. The worn-out and deserted farms 

 of New England? — that expression, indeed, has a sad and 

 sorrowful significance. Where are the young men whose 

 strong arm should have redeemed, and restored to fertility, 

 the impoverished acres of the old homestead? They have 

 fled to the cities, making haste to be rich. He who shall 

 devise effectual means of keeping farmers' sons at home 

 should be regarded as a public benefactor. The farmer's 

 boy exchanging home for city life, or taking a journey into a 

 far country, is suggestive of the prodigal son, the sad history 

 of whose folly has become a household word. I fancy that 

 I can see the old man in his big arm-chair, with tears in his 

 eyes, saying to his neighbors, " If I had only had this music 

 and dancing in my house when I ought to have had it, my 

 boy never would have gone away from home." It is only 

 through mental and physical labor that a healthy develop- 

 ment of mind and body can be attained. " By the sweat 

 of thy brow shalt thou eat thy bread," was a beneficent pen- 

 alty, the most lenient sentence that Almighty benignity could 

 devise. To live without labor of some kind is a flagrant vio- 

 lation of a physical law, the consequences of which sooner or 

 later must be met. The man whose energies are quickened 

 by his necessities, and who depends for the comforts of life 

 on success in business, acquires a certain discipline which is 

 absolutely essential to the development of human character. 

 He who, from day to day, earns his daily bread by honest 

 labor, devoting a portion of his time to moral and intellec- 

 tual culture, is in a plane of existence yielding more true 

 happiness than he who occupies above or below him. This 

 I consider the position held by the farmer. 



There is no calling in life exempt from its trials, or that 

 has not its reverses. 



The merchant is haunted by protested notes and unpaid 

 bills. The manufacturer finds a market glutted by over- 

 production, and can only see a profit in the shrewdest man- 

 agement and the closest economy; while his hopes and fears 

 rise and fall with fluctuating prices. 



The mechanic, for the sake of employment, allows his 

 employer to fix the wages ; doctors and lawyers live chiefly 

 by the misfortunes of others; ministers claim that they do 

 not get their pay till in the next world ; while the honest, 



