Citizens Retiring to the Country 205 



of the practical economy of husbandry, every bushel of 

 corn that he raises costs him the price of a bushel and a 

 half in the market. Used in town to a neat and orderly 

 condition of his premises, he is disgusted with old tottering 

 fences, half drained fields and worn-out pastures, and em- 

 ploys all the laboring force of the neighborhood to put his 

 grounds in good order. 



Now there is no objection to all this for its own sake. 

 On the contrary, good buildings, good fences, and rich 

 pasture fields are what especially delight us in the country. 

 What then is the reason that, as the country place gets to 

 wear a smiling aspect, its citizen owner begins to look serious 

 and unhappy? Why is it that country life does not satisfy 

 and content him? Is the country, which all poets and 

 philosophers have celebrated as the Arcadia of this world, 



- is the country treacherous? Is nature a cheat, and do 

 seed-time and harvest conspire against the peace of mind 

 of the retired citizen? 



Alas! It is a matter of money. Everything seems to be 

 a matter of money now-a-days. The country life of the 

 old world, of the poets and romancers, is cheap. The 

 country life of our republic is dear. It is for the good of 

 the many that labor should be high, and it is high labor 

 that makes country life heavy and oppressive to such men 



- only because it shows a balance, increasing year after 

 year, on the wrong side of the ledger. Here is the source 

 of all the trouble and dissatisfaction in what may be called 

 the country life of gentlemen amateurs, or citizens, in this 

 country- -"it don't pay." Land is cheap, nature is beau- 

 tiful, the country is healthy, and all these conspire to draw 

 our well-to-do citizen into the country. But labor is dear, 

 experience is dearer, and a series of experiments in un- 

 profitable crops the dearest of all; and our citizen friend 

 himself, as we have said, is in the situation of a man who 

 has set out on a delightful voyage, on a smooth 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 



