RELATIONS OF AGRICULTURE TO MAX. 3 



of wheat indicates the intellectual condition of the nation. It 

 contains more l)rain-food than other grains. It has been asscrt- 

 od, too, that the use of tea and colfee has increased the aver- 

 age brain of the South of Europe. We may further instance 

 the use of milk, which nourishes brain, and bone and muscle, 

 and which is greatly increased by improved cattle. There is 

 and must be one essential dillerence, I repeat, between peoples 

 who live on rice, potatoes and water, and those who live on 

 wheat, beef and wine. But agriculture not only gives man 

 higher and better life, but to his own children it gives longer 

 life. " Length of days are in her right hand." This marks its 

 elevated character, for very truly, says Cicero, " by jio other 

 way can men approach nearer to the gods than by conferring 

 health on man." " God made the country, — man made the 

 town." The former is in accordance with the laws of nature ; 

 the latter is artificial, and to an extent destructive. 



Agriculture requires labor in variety ; it develops all the 

 muscles and brings into play all parts of the human machine, 

 and this labor is not in excess to break down the constitution ; 

 hence the larger, taller, better-formed, handsomer men, are 

 from the country, where they have pure air to breathe, simple 

 and pure food to eat, an honest earth under them, and God's 

 sunshine or the magnificence of the star-light heavens above. 

 In the town, idleness on the one hand enervates, and on the 

 other, much toil destroys ; men are hived in narrow streets and 

 crowded in tenant houses and close workshops, which beget 

 disease and deformity. The country admits of a happy me- 

 dium ; a tranquil, middle life, where there is an abundance 

 for the support of physical nature, thought enough for the 

 maturity of mental jjowcrs, and associations that lift the soul 

 heavenward. 



" O he can speak the vigorous joys of heahh — 

 Unclogged the body, unobscured the mind ; 

 The morning rises gay, witli pleasing stealth, 

 The temperate evening falls serene and kind." 



On the other hand, all things in the city arc in extremes ; 

 wealth and poverty, luxury and starvation, refinement and bar- 

 barian degradation, education that sharpens the wit, and idiotic 

 stupidity that makes man the easy prey of his fellow, who has 



