INTRODUCTION. 



Home is the resort 



Of love, of joy, of peace and plenty, where, 

 Supporting and supported, polish'd friends 

 And dear relations mingle into bliss. 



Why is home the most desirable place that can be found to the man 

 of correct taste ? Why does he enjoy himself better there than elsewhere ? 

 Why do his affections centre in it, as the atoms in a crude mass of matter 

 tend to their common point of magnetic attraction ? It is because every 

 thing appertaining to it is in harmony with his own nature ; and he is so 

 familiarized with the whole that he is as much a part and parcel thereof 

 as a leg, or an arm, or a hand, or a foot is a part of the human structure ! 

 When in that hallowed precinct the same system of instinct and pulsation 

 is common to him and every one sharing it with him; there is, as it were, 

 but one current of blood to give vigor to the whole frame ; but one 

 measure of animal heat to warm every part ; and but one mental aspira- 

 tion to impart that general buoyancy and elasticity which characterize the 

 entire organization with moral beauty. Remove him from this commu- 

 nion of interest and mental and physical action, and in a measure he 

 becomes paralyzed like an amputated limb, or like an individual translated 

 from the knowledge and influence of social institutions to some uninhabited 

 and desolate part of the earth. Home is dear to him because he is 

 familiar with everything pertaining to it ; because in it with all dear to 

 him he has a joint interest and, because there is about it a fragrance 

 which perfumes the atmosphere breathed by all, and above it a halo that 

 dispels every dark and cold shadow which gathers upon the soul. 



The American Farmer at Home ; or a Family Text-Book for the Countryo 



