HINDRANCES AND HELPS 



During the more leisure period of winter, the 

 practical mind of the farmer will gravitate 

 more easily toward mechanical employments, 

 than toward those which are intellectual. He 

 will have his agricultural journal and others, 

 may be, to whose reading he will bring a ripe 

 and hardy judgment. But his thoughts will 

 be more among his cattle and his bins, than 

 among books. "He cannot get wisdom that 

 glorieth in the goad, and that driveth oxen." 

 There may be a spice of exaggeration in the 

 dogma of Ecclesiasticus ; but whoever under- 

 takes the occupation of working farmer, must 

 accept its fatigues and engrossments, and honor 

 them as he can. It is a business that will not 

 be halved. Vulcan can make no Ganymede — 

 strain as he will. The horny hands, the tired 

 body, the hay-dust and the scent of the stables 

 are inevitable. The fine young fellow, flush 

 with Johnston's Elements, and buoyant with 

 Thomson's Seasons, may rebel at this view of 

 the case; but let him take three hours in a 

 hay-field of August— behind a revolver (rake), 

 with the reins over his neck, the land being 

 lumpy, and the colt dipping a foot over the 

 traces at the end of every bout, and I think 

 he will have a sweaty confirmation of its gen- 

 eral truth. Or let him try a day at the tail 



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