XXXHI. 



INTELLECT IN AGRICULTURE. 



IP a man whose capital consists of the clothes on 

 his back, $5 in his pocket, and an ax over his right 

 shoulder, undertakes to hew for himself a farm out 

 of the primitive forest, he must of course devote 

 some years to rugged manual labor, or he will fail 

 of success. It is indeed possible that he should find 

 others, even on the rude outposts of civilization, who 

 will hire them to teach school, or serve as county 

 clerk, or survey lands, or do something else of like 

 nature : thus enabling him to do his chopping trees, 

 and rolling logs, and breaking up his stumpy acres, 

 by proxy ; but the fair presumption is that he will 

 have to chop and log, and burn off and fence, and 

 break up, by the use of his own proper muscle ; and 

 he must be energetic and frugal, as well as fortunate, 

 if he gets a comfortable house over his head, with 

 forty arable acres about him, at the end of fifteen 

 years' hard work. If he has brains, and has been 

 well educated, he may possibly shorten this ordeal to 

 ten years; but, should he begin by fancying hard 

 work beneath him, or his abilities too great to be 



(i95) 



