196 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 



squandered in bushwhacking, he is very likely to 

 come out at the little end of the horn, and, strag- 

 gling back to some populous settlement, more needy 

 and seedy than when he set forth to wrest a farm 

 from the wilderness, declare the pioneer's life one of 

 such dreaiy, hopeless privation that no one who can 

 read or cypher ought ever to attempt it. 



A poor man, who undertakes to live by his wits on 

 a farm that he has bought on credit, is not likely to 

 achieve a brilliant success; but the farmer whose 

 hand and brain work in concert will never find nor 

 fancy his intellect or his education too good for his 

 calling. He may very often discover that he wasted 

 months of his school-days on what was ill-adapted 

 to his needs, and of little use in fighting the actual 

 battle of life ; but he will at the same time have 

 ample reason to lament the meagerness and the 

 deficiency of his knowledge. 



I hold our average Common Schools defective, in 

 that they fail to teach Geology and Chemistry, which 

 in my view are the natural bases of a sound, practical 

 knowledge of things knowledge which the farmer, 

 of all men, can least afford to miss. However it 

 may be with others, he vitally needs to understand 

 the character and constitution of the soil he must 

 cultivate, the elements of which it is composed, and 

 the laws which govern their relations to each other. 

 Instruct him in the higher mathematics if you will, 

 in logic, in meteorology, in ever so many languages ; 

 but not till he shall have been thoroughly grounded 



