120 NATURAL HISTORY 



survey ? many are ready to ask as though it were 

 a waste of money, or at least a poor return for it. 

 But go through our country, and see such books 

 studied by thousands of the young, who but for 

 them would have never had a thought awakened 

 respecting such objects, and we shall be satisfied 

 that they are no waste no mere gratification of 

 scientific men but the educators of thousands, and 

 will, in the end, not only elevate, but return far 

 more than their money value. 



In this view of the subject which we have pre- 

 sented, that thought dignifies labor, we see why 

 farming was more honorable among the ancients 

 than among the moderns. They honored it practi- 

 cally, while we profess to do so. "We think the reason 

 is at once apparent, and illustrative of our position, 

 when we compare farming with the other pursuits 

 of those times. It came nearer to the learned profes- 

 sions than it now does. When we consider the state 

 of the other sciences, and see also the knowledge 

 of Agriculture displayed in the works of Yirgil 

 and Cato, we find it to be the science of those times. 

 It was not pursued by the learned and brave of those 



