1856.] Cultivation of Taste among Farmers, 125 



CULTIVATION OF TASTE AMONG FARMEKS. 



The following truthful sentiments, beautifully expressed, we copy from 

 *' The American Farmer,'" and commend them to the attention of all 

 readers, as " words fitly spoken." Says the " Farmer " : 



"It is to be feared that many of even the more enlightened class of 

 citizens, have little appreciation of the refined and beautiful in nature. 

 Farmers, who enjoy peculiar facilities for studying nature, and who ought 

 to read her intelligible forms with peculiar profit, too often look on forests 

 and meadows as valuable only to furnish food for cattle, and fuel for 

 fire. Nor is it strange. They who have to grapple with necessities, 

 come naturally to think those things only useful, which minister to their 

 bodily wants. We were well ac<iuaintcd with a gentleman who among 

 cattle or in the field, had an admirable taste, but who was quite indif- 

 ferent to the beauties of a flower-garJen. We used to take him into the 

 garden, and pluck some choice fiower, with " See here, is'nt this a beau- 

 tiful thing ;" but he always smiled and said, "What do you think I 

 care about it, I had just as lief look at a dandelion ;" and away he would 

 go, looking at the cucumber vines. Now, he had not so much an unnat- 

 ural as an uncultivated taste. For the rich plumage and graceful 

 flight of birds he had an excellent eye, and could listen to their notes 

 with extreme pleasure: but he looked on ornamental shrubs and flowers 

 as equally superfluous and useless. Like many others, he much pre- 

 ferred to see the ground adorned with ornamental beets and cabbages. 



" But it is a wrong opinion to suppose that the excellence of things 

 lies only in their utility. The Creator, it is evident, had something else 

 in view when he made the world ; nay, even loves beauty for itself alone. 

 Else, why the delicate and varied hues of innumerable insects that float 

 in the air ; or why the beautiful organic structure of mosses and sea- 

 weeds ; or the systematic arrangement of chemical atoms ! These are 

 invisible to us except through the microscope, but they are perfectly 

 apparent to nicer perceptions, and no doubt administer delight. 



" But if farmers take delight only in building fences, and plowing 

 fields, and rearing cattle, this, they should remember, can aiFcrd but 

 little pleasure to their wives. Their appropriate sphere of action is. or 

 ought to be, about the house. It matters little with them, whether their 

 husband's farms be enclosed with a stone fence or a hcflge. whether it 

 be stocked with Devons or short-horns; but it does matter greatly wheth-er 

 her flower-garden be set off with tulips or twitch-grass. Her nice and 



