NOBLENESS OF AGRICULTURAL PURSUITS. 541 



in southeastern Minnesota. My place is located about two 

 miles from the Mississippi river, and five miles northwest from 

 La Crosse, Wisconsin, at which place I find my principal mar- 

 ket. The farm lies to the southeast. About fifteen acres of 

 my land may be styled level, and about equal parts of the 

 remainder are hill sides, sloping to the southeast and northeast, 

 making it naturally adapted for a fruit farm and garden, the 

 high bluffs surrounding it proving protections from the north 

 and west winds, and giving a temperature in Winter several 

 degrees milder than in unsheltered locations. This fact makes 

 it possible to raise a great variety of crops. 



WHEN SETTLED. 



I came to this State in June, 1856, a poor man, with health 

 impaired from exposure and privations endured in the Mexican 

 war. I purchased the place and set about improving it, with 

 the full determination of making it a pleasant and attractive 

 home. I had barely means to make a small payment on the 

 land (paying twelve per cent, interest several years on two 

 hundred and fifty dollars), purchase a cheap horse and cow, 

 and erect a small board shanty to shelter my family, depending 

 upon the labor of my hands for whatever more I hoped to 

 make. I expended the larger part of the profits of my business 

 in making improvements of a permanent character. My son 

 and I have always felt that there was true dignity in labor, but 

 have never lost sight of the fact that man is something more 

 than a mere machine, that he has a mind that requires food 

 and cultivation in order that he may look back over the years 

 of his life and feel that he has not lived in vain. 



AGRICULTURAL PURSUITS NOBLE. 



Agriculture is an art and a science, the individual the 

 artist, the science consisting in the combined experience of 

 the most successful men of the present and past ages. To 

 avail myself of the benefit of science, I have been a regular 

 subscriber and constant reader of several agricultural and 

 horticultural periodicals, and a purchaser of the best books 

 bearing upon my business, and my library now contains ov-er 



