NATURE AND THE CITY. 3 1 1 



the wheat is well threshed, is full-bodied or thin; in 

 short, whether it will sell well. Farmers, as a rule, 

 are too literal disciples of Emerson in their philosophy 

 of the beautiful. The beautiful to them is too fre- 

 quently the useful. Beautiful fields! Why? Because 

 they will raise good crops of wheat. I am reminded, 

 in this connection, of a quaint and characteristic anec- 

 dote by Thoreau in his journal ("Autumn," October 

 7, 1860) : 



"Remarking to old Mr. the other day on the abun- 

 dance of apples, 'Yes,' says he, 'and fair as dollars, too.' That 's 

 the kind of beauty they see in apples." 



Poetry vanishes somewhat when we make money 

 out of Nature ; and farming, followed solely as a scheme 

 for riches, has as much as any other occupation a tend- 

 ency to make men sordid. Yet even as a business it 

 is the nicest of any, and is the most largely practiced; 

 and the reason it is not often more remunerative is 

 that the farmers themselves do not always use good 

 sense. But as a pleasure it is always a profitable 

 pastime. 



It takes considerable intelligence to manage a farm 

 well, and the old supposition that any body can farm 

 is as baseless in reasoning as it is without foundation 

 in fact. The increasing number and importance of our 

 agricultural courses in higher and more elementary edu- 

 cation is the strongest possible testimony to the large 

 part which the successful cultivation of the soil holds 

 in our national life. 



I remember telling an old farmer once how a man 

 whom I had visited was feeding his pigs with soap- 



