278 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



some excellent daiigliters, and one day they asked their father if 

 he would get them a musical instrument, as some of their acquaint- 

 ance had one; the father replied, "yes, I will get you one;" but 

 time went on, and they saw no instrument, and they asked him 

 again; he went up chamber and brought down a spinning wheel, 

 and said to his daughters, "that is the best musical instrument in 

 the world, it is a Heaven-born music that no manufacturer can 

 excel." 



Now those girls married young, and married good, substantial 

 farmers, and one of them has always lived within a good stone's 

 throw of our worthy Secretary, T. S. Gold ; another one in another 

 county, and I presume they have made just as good wives as if 

 they had had a piano, for I do know they have been excellent 

 wives and mothers, and it saved the farmer enough to comfortably 

 set out the girls in those days of "farm life," for their wants were 

 few compared to the present day. "Farm life," as it was in those 

 days, is nearly the same now in our new west. Many a night 

 have I staid in log-houses in the western country, some of them 

 with only loose boards laid on the ground for a floor, and as prayer 

 and praise went up from them each morning, I many times thought 

 there was more real happiness in those log-houses than in many 

 mansions of the east, that are crowded with thousands of dollars, 

 that would be considered worse than useless by the farmer's wife 

 of the olden time. They had no aspirations for anything beyond 

 what they needed. With that they were therewith content, which 

 saved no small sum to be laid by to secure farms for the boys and 

 household goods for the girls when needed. 



Now is there not something about those farmers and families 

 of olden time worth remembering ? They have taught us that 

 they have fought a good fight, in the battle of life, in clearing 

 these hills and valleys for our inheritance, and in founding our 

 primary institutions of learning, and building those great, old- 

 fashioned meeting-houses, where everybody went to meeting. It 

 was the farmers of New England that have done all this. Who 

 have ever showed more heroism or philanthropy ? Who have 

 ever filled more honored graves than the early farmers of New 

 England ? They have taught us that earnest and persistent labor, 

 with true economy, will accomplish all things. 



In passing to " Farm Life as it is," we notice many very pleasant 

 things, for we see on every side thrifty, well-to-do farmers follow- 

 ing in the footsteps of their illustrious predecessors. Could Adam 



