WHAT TO DO WITH THE FARM. 13 



possessor of a well-situated and well cultivated farm, I know 

 that from the contemplation of its changing aspects — the swale 

 and swell of meadows green, the waving luxuriance of culti- 

 vated fields, the thrift of trees and vines, bowing and swaying 

 under their burdens of purple and gold ; and the show of 

 animals (sheep, cattle and horses,) browsing on the pastures, or 

 reposing in the grateful shades ; I should derive more pleasure 

 than from all the sculptures and pictures that ever crowded 

 palace halls and palace walls. 



Finally, we would suggest that each proprietor of a farm 

 should read and think about his calling and his farm. There 

 is, or has been, a senseless prejudice among certain farmers 

 against books and treatises devoted to their calling ; a vast deal 

 of " cant," and not a little attempted concealment of mental 

 sluggishness, by an outcry against " book-farmers " and " book- 

 farming." If there is any man or set of men in danger of 

 trusting too entirely to books, and discarding practice in their 

 agricultural operations, then let some one whose methods are 

 faultless, and whose success is great, exhort them to drop the 

 books and follow his example. Till such cases occur we must 

 think that the reading of well-written works on his calling, and 

 devoting much careful thought to the subject, will be necessary 

 to the highest success of every farmer. The truth is, the world 

 is greatly indebted to those who have thought and written upou 

 agriculture, and also to those whose studies have related to the 

 general topic, whether their field has been that of natural history 

 or natural philosophy ; whether comparative anatomy, entomol- 

 ogy, meteorology, botany or chemistry. The improvements in 

 stock, fruits, crops, implements and methods of farming, are 

 made by men who read and think ; and the man who talks most 

 about the superiority of practical farming, is indebted to some 

 " book-farmer " for that which is most valuable in the animals, 

 the crops, the fruits and the implements on his farm, and for the 

 best modes he pursues in working it. Nay, the grain crop and 

 the hay crop of the present season, which have saved the natiou 

 from famine, from calamities greater even than those of war, 

 could not have been gathered without the aid of those machines 

 which have been given to the world, by ingenious inventors, i. e., 

 by men who have devoted long and intense thought to these 

 things ; and who, seeing the demand, have sought to meet it, 



