250 MY FARM. 



who rises at four, and works all day, as farmers 

 work, or who is even a-field all day, is sleepy at nine 

 P. M. It is not, perhaps, a graceful truth ; but it is 

 a physiological one. Nothing provokes appetite for 

 sleep so much, as out-of-door life. You may over 

 strain the nervous system, and dodge the night ; but 

 a strain upon the muscular system must have its 

 balance of repose. There are, indeed, exceptional 

 cases, where a working man with an undue prepon 

 derance of brain, will steal hours between his labor 

 for intellectual cultivation ; but he does it under 

 difficulties, which he is the first to recognize and de 

 plore. Even the most skilled of working farmers 

 arrive at their conclusions by an intuitive sagacity, 

 which is wholly remote from the logical processes 

 of books ; and their straight-forward common-sense, 

 however correct in its judgments, grows into a dis 

 taste for the subtle arts of rhetoric. 



During the more leisure period of winter, the 

 practical mind of the farmer will gravitate more 

 easily toward mechanical employments, than toward 

 those which are intellectual. He will have his 

 Agricultural-journal and others, may be, to whose 

 reading he will bring a ripe and hardy judgment. 

 But his thoughts will be more among his cattle and 

 his bins, than among books. &quot; He cannot get wis 

 dom thatglorieth in the goad, and that driveth oxen.&quot; 



