380 BOAKD OF AGRICULTURE. 



more truly in the city home with its refinements and ameni- 

 ties. More sad to me, because I had chosen to speak on this 

 subject that I might instil the lesson of the value of the 

 country home, and the glorious inspiration caught from its 

 surroundino;s. 



In the same strain you remember Whittier's lines : — 



" I call to mind old homesteads where no flower 

 Told that spring had come, but evil weeds, 

 Nightshade and rough-leaved burdock, in the place 

 Of the sweet door-way gi-eeting of the rose 

 And honeysuckle ; where the house wall seemed 

 Blistering in the sun, withovxt a tree or vine 

 To cast the tremulous shadow of its leaves 

 Across the curtainless windows — 

 Blind to the beauty evei'ywhere revealed : 

 Treading the mayflowers with regardless feet. 



In daily life 

 Showing as little actual comprehension 

 Of Christian charity and love and duty 

 As if the Sermon on the Mount had been 

 Out-dated like a last year's almanac. 

 Eich in bi'oad woodlands and half-tilled fields, 

 And yet so bare and pinched and comfortless. 

 Not such should be the homesteads of a land 

 Where whoso wisely wills and acts may dwell 

 As king and law-giver in broad-acred state, 

 With beauty, art, taste, culture, books to make 

 His hour of leisure rich. 

 Our yeoman should be equal to his home 

 Set in the fair, green valleys purple-walled. 

 A man to match his mountains, not to creep. 

 I would fain in\'ite the eye to see and heart to feel 

 The beauty and the joy within their reach, 

 Home and home loves and the beatitudes 

 Of nature free to all." 



Again, in an editorial in a leading Boston daily, only a few 

 days since, criticising a book recently published, we have 

 the idea of that editor on the country home, and you will 

 note the delicate compliment of its title, " The New Heathen- 

 dom " : — 



" There is one fact that comes out plain in every discussion 

 and must be removed before the country can be reclaimed. 

 That is, that the very thing for which it is praised, the quiet, 

 the freedom from worldly care, the promotion of meditation, 



