486 State Board of Agriculture, &c. 



who, if his early life hud been elzewhere, would have 

 undertaken another profession. He loves mechanics, or 

 metaphysics, or theology, or fine arts, or natural history, or 

 politics. Let him not, then, smother these inclinings 

 because of his circumstances, but develop them to his 

 advantage in farming, as far as he may. 



It has been sufficiently shown here that a farmer may be 

 a whole man ; healthy, industrious, intellectual, sociable, 

 tasteful, sympathetic, religious. And to be such a man is 

 certainly a worthy aim. To use the means to be such, a 

 man is fairly required. 



By these facts it is required : The body is likely to do 

 longer and better service. A healthy mind in a healthy 

 body is a proverb that looks in both directions. From 

 such sources true happiness and contentment are wont to 

 come. It relieves manual labor, that might sometimes be 

 only a drudgery, to have some interesting subject of 

 thought to hold easily in the mind. And it seems to me 

 that a farm that has a goodly amount of intelligent con- 

 tentment worked into it must be a better farm than one 

 without it. 



The family, too — really a part of the farmer who has 

 one, and a strong arm of assistance or resistance to his 

 efforts — feels the influence of his varied culture, of his 

 strength in thinking as well as laboring, and his apprecia- 

 tion of the beautiful and reverential as well as of tlic use- 

 ful and common. Life in such a household is less of a bur- 

 den than it would otherwise be, and the aspect of affairs 

 there is cheerier and more inviting. 



The cliildren catch inspiration from the parents. They 



