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with their hundred acres, some of our farmers grow poor, and 

 become hopelessly insolvent. In many cases not a tenth part 

 of such farms is cultivated. Instead of asking how he can 

 make every acre of his farm productive, the farmer inquires 

 how he can .subsist wit),i the least possible expenditure of labor 

 in its cultivation, or of capital in its improvement. No good in \ 

 life can be attained without labor ; and sometimes, oftentimes, 

 large and valuable tracts of land lie unproductive and worth- 

 less, because the farmer is unwilling to expend any thing in 

 their redemption and improvement. 



Then again in the families of many farmers there are too \ \ 

 many unproductive hands. In the changes which, since the / 

 introduction of extensive manufactories of cotton and woolen' 

 among us, have taken place in our habits of domestic labor, 

 some of the internal resources of the farmer have become dried 

 up, and new occasions of expenditure introduced. I cannot 

 better illustrate this matter than by a recurrence to a conversa- 

 tion, which I had with one of the most respectable farmers in 

 this county. " Sir," said he to me, '' I am a widower, and have 

 only one daughter at home. I have gone to the utmost extent 

 of my limited means for her education. She is a good scholar, 

 and has every where stood high in her classes, and acquitted 

 herself to the satisfaction of her instructers. She is expert in 

 all the common branches of education. She reads Latin and 

 French ; she understands mineralogy and botany ; and I can 

 show you with pleasure some of her fine needle-work, em- 

 broidery and drawings. In the loss of her mother, she is my 

 whole dependence ; but instead of waiting upon me, I am 

 obliged to hire a servant to wait upon her. I want her to take 

 charge of my dairy, but she cannot think of milking ; and as 

 her mother was anxious that her child should be saved, all 

 hardship, for she used to say the poor girl would have enough 

 of that bye and bye, she never allowed her to share in her la- 

 bors ; and therefore she knows no more of the care of a dairy, 

 or indeed of housekeeping, than any city milliner ; so that in 

 fact I have sold all my cows but one. This cow supplies us 



