242 SELECTIONS FROM ADDRESSES. 



beautiful of the Creator's works, are insensible to their charms, 

 how shall others find subjects of consideration in them, who are 

 unacquainted with their details? The agriculturist should 

 have an enthusiasm for his labors, such as the artist, the painter, 

 the sculptor, have for theirs. By the facilities that education 

 secures to him, he can render the country more attractive 

 than the city ; and can show that the life he leads, while pro- 

 motive of competence or even wealth, is by no means incom- 

 patible with taste, or with those pursuits which render life 

 agreeable and human existence a blessing. 



And what sources of admiration and of research, most curi- 

 ous and minute, there are on every side, on every hill, plain, 

 swamp, and river ; in the rocks which cover the soil, in the reek- 

 ing manure-heap, in the growing and bursting grain, in the dis- 

 eases which attack it, in the tiny insect, in the friendly birds, in 

 clouds and rain and snow, in forest and glen, in the atmos- 

 pheric changes, and in the succession of the seasons ! He who 

 would observe these will not urge the plea of want of time ; he 

 who does observe them, will find such observation to his profit 

 as well as pleasure. Nothing that God has made is unworthy 

 our study ; nothing we investigate in his creatures which tends 

 to no good result. Books and treatises on natural history and 

 natural philosophy should be among the choicest reading of 

 young persons residing in the country ; how infinitely bet- 

 ter than the worse than worthless trash, which a cheap peri- 

 odical literature, (if it be not a profanation of the word litera- 

 ture to couple it with such productions,) deluges our times. 

 What entertaining and instructive volumes those of Dr. Harris 

 on the " Insects of Massachusetts injurious to Vegetation," or 

 that later work of George B. Emerson, in his fascinating trea- 

 tise on the " Forest Trees and Shrubs" of this state ; a book, 

 indeed, which ought to lie on every farmer's table in his parlor 

 or library. 



The farmer should be an ornithologist, at least so far as to 

 know the value of those minstrels of the air which cheer him 

 with their songs, and are far more his friends than his foes. It 

 is not only a gratifying circumstance, but one which attests to 

 the elevation of agriculture, to notice a better spirit annually 



