THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



143 



similar associations, there are few matters now in any 

 way associated with agriculture but have received at 

 least some passing attention. The Reading Club, how- 

 ever, has wound up its summer session with one that 

 scarcely comes so accustomed to the ear. It is neither 

 Manures, nor Weights and Measures, nor the Condition 

 of the Labourer, nor our Systems of Tenure. It is rather 

 — to be no further mysterious— what the poets have been 

 singing about, than we as farmers and farmers' friends 

 have been talking and wi'iting about—" The Farmer's 

 Life : its means of usefulness compared with those of 

 any other occupation." 



Mr. Bourn made the most of his subject. To be 

 sure, he did not go very much into the comparison 

 suggested by the wording of it. The Farmer's Life, 

 however, was everything in itself. Mr. B*urn only 

 more and more strengthens the Arcadian visions we 

 have all of us indulged in since we first came from 

 under the tegmine fagi : — 



" I argue that he ought to feel, amidst the animating 

 and elevating scenes necessarily before and all around 

 him, a spirit of devotion, and a great measui-e of thank- 

 fulness, a3 he begins, goes through, and finishes his 

 day's duties — more by far than those whose occupations 

 lead them to the crowded city, the close counting-house, 

 warehouse, or factory, where the rays of the sun hardly 

 penetrate, where Nature is almost entirely shut out, 

 where the air inhaled again and again yields no re- 

 viving power. Oh I how gladly does the merchant re- 

 sort, after each day spent in the confined and smoky 

 atmosphere of the town, to the fresh fields of the 

 country — to the very locality where, gentlemen, you 

 happily-lotted farmers, pursue your calling. You are 

 placed for your business where they nearly all choose 

 to go for enjoyment. No occupation so conduces to a 

 reverential tone of thought as the farmer's. It has 

 been said 



' God made the country ; man the town.' 



Each product of the fruitful earth, as it proceeds onward 

 fi'om the seed to its latest growth, from sowing-time to 

 harvest, calls aloud to man to observe with gratitude the 

 ways of that Providence which has formed him, and 

 never fails to feed him. * * * The study of the anatomy 

 of the diseases of animals, necessarily the companions 

 or objects of attention to the farmer, is a branch of use- 

 fulness peculiarly his own — and the feathered tribe give 

 their aid, some yielding him a luxurious food, whilst 

 others of them afford him only a gratification to his 

 sense of hearing by their strains of unlearnt music. 

 Oh ! the life of the farmei', for all that cheers and 

 animates the mind of man to the contemplation of bis 

 Maker — of the Maker of the earth he walks on — of all 

 things living around him ! And if in his duties the 

 farmer has a constantly exciting call for rejoicing and 

 thankfulness, how much more than to the dwellers in 

 cities is allotted to him the opportunity of usefully em- 

 ploying his leisure time ! The master or artizan em- 

 ployed in the close courts or streets, or dwellings of a 

 city, have no rural sights or sounds in their immediate 

 neighbourhood to cheer or animate them after the 

 fatigues of their daily labour. No, their strength and 



health have been consumed — aye, exhausted in the 

 pent-up shop, factory, or counting - house during 

 the day, often for more hours of protracted la- 

 bour than the farmer and his labourer, in the foul 

 and pestilential atmosphere of a polluted city, amidst 

 all its abominations and crime-creating influences." 

 Aud then " Kirke White," and " the Farmer's Boy" 

 come to his aid to make the picture even more perfect 

 still. And so Mr. Bourn, though not perhaps quite so 

 fully reported as he should have been, sits down, having 

 made out a very good case. The farmer is the hap- 

 piest man alive ; and if he is not in every way the most 

 useful, he ought to be. 



Unfortunately, however, Mr. Bourn is not a farmer. 

 Like his friend Thomson, he has been depicting the 

 plea&ures of early rising simply from the force of his 

 imagination while lying in bed. Or as with Walter 

 Scott telling us how to visit Melrose " aright," when 

 he never saw it by moonlight in his life. Or, profiting 

 by the example of Sheridan Knowles, and dwelling on 

 the delight with which he backed the flying steed, the 

 probabilities being that his steeds never went out of a 

 hunting trot. So it was with Mr. Bourn, carried away 

 in the height of his imagination to a very Utopia of 

 his own creation. But the Reading Club could hardly 

 stand this. Mr. Haslam, who followed, admitted that 

 "Mr, Bourn had certainly culled out the flowers of 

 the agricultural life, and placed them before the club 

 in a manner that could not fail to gratify; but he (Mr. 

 Haslam) confessed that he could have sat much longer 

 to have heard him say more about the means of useful- 

 ness of the farmer's life, as compared with persons of 

 other occupations. Persons who visited a farm-house 

 occasionally, walked over the well-cultivated lands, 

 and partook of the hospitalities of the farmer, could 

 form no idea at all about the machinery working be- 

 hind, or of the disasters which almost daily occurred. 

 True it was that the farmer contributed largely to the 

 social comfort of the people, but no one could judge of 

 the usefulness of the farmer's life without he saw and 

 was thoroughly acquainted with all that was going on 

 every day in the year. Were they to look at his use- 

 fulness in the great and increased means of growing 

 corn which he might possess ? Would that make the 

 farmer's life more useful without contrast ? Whilst he 

 was prepared to say that the cultivation of the soil was 

 the foundation of what was necessary for a country, 

 yet there were other and higher branches of life not 

 connected with farming which were more calculated 

 for usefulness among men. Could it be said that the 

 farmer's position was better for the difi'usion of know- 

 ledge which rendered his life more useful than any 

 other ? Many farmers for years past had carried on 

 their business on the scientific principles developed by 

 the age, and had demonstated that they were a class 

 highly intelligent and educated, and were anxious and 

 really did much for the benefit of the nation, but he 

 (iMr. Haslam) could not admit that the farmer's life 

 presented, on comparison with that of others, superior 

 means of usefulness." 

 The actual farmers present would seem to have be- 



