CITIZENS RETIRING TO THE COUNTRY. 



citizen friend, himself, as we have said, is in the situation of a man who has set out on 

 a delightful voyage, on a !?mooth sea, and with a cheerful ship's company ; but who 

 discovers, also, that the ship has sprung a leak — not large enough to make it necessary 

 to call all hands to the pump — not large enough perhaps to attract anybody's atten- 

 tion but his own, but quite large enough to make it certain that he must leave her or 

 be swamped — and quite large enough to make his voyage a serious piece of business. 



Everything which a citizen does in the country, costs him an incredible sum. In 

 Europe, (heaven save the masses,) you may have the best of laboring men for twenty 

 or thirty cents a day. Here you must pay them a dollar, at least our amateur must, 

 though the farmers contrive to get their labor for eight or ten dollars a month and 

 board. The citizen's home once built, he looks upon all heavy expenditures as over ; 

 but how many hundreds — perhaps thousands, has he not paid for out-buildings, 

 for fences, for roads, &c. Cutting down yonder hill, which made an ugly blotch in the 

 view, — it looked like a trifling task ; yet there were $500 swept clean out of his 

 bank account, and there seems almost nothing to show for it. You would not believe now 

 that any hill ever stood there — or at least that nature had not arranged it all, (as you 

 feel she ought to have done,) just as you see it. Your favorite cattle and horses have 

 died, and the flock of sheep have been sadly diminished by the dogs, all to be replaced 

 — and a careful account of the men's time, labor and manure on the grain fields, shows 

 that for some reason that you cannot understand, the crop — which is a fair one, has 

 actually cost you a trifle more than it is worth in a good market. 



To cut a long story short, the larger part of our citizens who retire upon a farm to 

 make it a country residence, are not aware of the fact, that capital cannot be profita- 

 bly employed on land in the Atlantic states, loithout a thoroughly practical hrwioledge 

 of farming. A close and systeiuatic economy, upon a good soil, may enable, and 

 does enable some gentlemen farmers that we could name, to make a good profit out of 

 their land — but citizens who launch boldly into farming, hiring farm laborers at high 

 prices, and trusting operations to others that should only be managed under the mas- 

 ter's eye — are very likely to find their farms a sinking fund that will drive them back 

 into business again. 



To be happy in any business or occupation, (and country life on a farm is a matter 

 of business,) we must have some kind of success in it ; and there is no success with- 

 out profit, and no profit without practical knowledge of farming. 



The lesson that we would deduce from these reflections is this ; that no mere ama- 

 teur should buy a large farm for a country residence, Avith the expectation of finding 

 pleasure and profit in it for the rest of his life, unless, like some citizens that we have 

 known — rare exceptions — they have a genius for all manner of business, and can mas- 

 ter the whole of farming, as they would learn a running hand, in six easy lessons. 

 Farming, in the older states, where the natural wealth of the soil has been exhausted, 

 is not a profitable business for amateurs — but quite the reverse. And a citizen who 

 has a sufiicient income without farming, had better not damage it by engaging in so 

 ensive an amusement. 

 But we must have something to do ; we have been busy near all our lives, and 



