52 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



Look at the sturdy farmers of New England, if you wish to 

 find the bone and muscle of the country. They are quite 

 another set of beings from those walking ghosts, who are 

 brought up on sweetmeats and spend most of their days in 

 dwellings heated up to seventy-five or eighty of Fahrenheit, 

 through the agency of modern salamanders. 



A prudent and systematic farmer, finds his medicine in his 

 field, instead of on the apothecary's shelf, and his physician in 

 a kind Providence, whose services are freely and gratuitously 

 rendered. No doctor's bill to pay here. Show me a temperate 

 and industrious farmer, and I will show you, physically, one of 

 nature's noblemen. You will, ordinarily, find in him a 

 consolidated frame, and a constitution that is not broken down 

 and upset by every wind that blows. Exceptions there may 

 be ; I speak of the pursuit of agriculture, only in a comparative 

 view, and in this regard, I venture to say, that it is more favor- 

 able to health and longevity than any other employment of 

 man. 



Li addition to this, look at its intellectual advantages. Our 

 Maker has given us three volumes to study with reference to 

 our intellectual culture ; the volumes of Nature, Providence 

 and Scripture. The pursuit of agriculture legitimately leads 

 to the study of all these, but more especially the volume of 

 nature. To the intelligent and reflecting farmer, this volume 

 must become one of deep interest, and what is the tendency of 

 its study but to elevate, expand and improve the intellect of 

 man ? In agricultural pursuits, we are led to contemplate 

 God in nature. We go forth into the fields He has made and 

 behold the rocks and hills and vales as they come immediately 

 from His creative hand. We look abroad upon the waving 

 forests, whose tops well-nigh lose themselves in the clouds ; 

 we view the extended landscape, and as the eye sweeps over 

 the wide fields of its vision we see what variety and beauty the 

 Great Architect of nature has given to that wondei'ful planet 

 which He has fitted up for the accommodation of man. 



Now these magnificent works of God, are from their very 

 nature, adapted to employ the intellect, and wake up its slum- 

 bering energies, incomparably beyond any thing presented in 

 the works of human invention. And then too, the agriculturist 

 dwells so much among tlie beauties of God's creation, sur- 



