138 TEN YEARS IN SWEDEN. 



first he would have much to contend with, especially in a 

 land like Sweden, where a total ignorance of %he language 

 and the habits of the people, the severity of the climate, and 

 the length of the winter, would try him sorely. And pro- 

 bably as a speculation, many of our English colonies offer a 

 far better field, at a much smaller outlay of capital. 



Happily, moreover, few men are more averse to leaving 

 old England, and settling in a foreign country than the 

 farmers, and no wonder. I spent my early years much 

 among them, and since then I have mixed much with farmers 

 of other lands, but in no other country have I found a class 

 of men who lead such truly happy lives as the farmers of 

 England. No matter what new country he may seek, the 

 British farmer is sure to leave behind him, home comforts 

 which he can never meet with abroad. Whatever faults he 

 may find with old England, and however much he may 

 grumble at her taxes, her institutions, and the imaginary 

 ruin which too often stares him in the face, he loves her at 

 heart perhaps better than any other of her sons. He is, as it 

 were, peculiarly a part and parcel of her soil, and trans- 

 planting him to a foreign land, is like lopping a branch off 

 the old British oak. His native village church, in which so 

 many quiet Sabbath mornings have been spent ; the innocent 

 occupations of his early rural life j the neat homestead, the 

 well- tilled fields, the well- shaped cattle, which it was his just 

 pride to gaze upon, while feeding in meadows such as one 

 never sees out of England ; the social meetings at his weekly 

 market ; the merry chat at the covert side, will haunt his 

 memory to the last ; and every one of these must be relin- 

 quished the moment he turns his back upon old England. 

 The adventurer or man of business leaves his native home 

 with scarcely a sigh of regret, and in the thrill of adventure 

 or the all-engrossing pursuit of money-making, will soon 

 forget the land of his birth, and like a true citizen of the 

 world, accommodate himself at once to the manners and 

 customs of the strangers among whom he is thrown ; but 

 not so the farmer, especially one who has passed the meri- 

 dian of life. 



