MY FARM OF EDGEWOOD 



into a new and a more admiring estimate of 

 the country life. 



Arcadia with its sylvan glories comes drift- 

 ing to my vision, and the pleasant Elian fields 

 sloping to the sea. A stately Greek gentleman 

 — Xenophon — who has won great renown by 

 his conduct of an army among the fastnesses 

 of Armenia, and on the borders of the Caspian, 

 has retired to his estates on the Ionian waters, 

 and writes there a book of maxims for farm 

 management, which are not without their sig- 

 nificance and value to every farmer to-day. 

 And hitherward, across the blue wash of the 

 Adriatic, in the midst of the Sabine country, 

 which is northward and eastward of Rome, I 

 know a Roman farmer — Cato — who has been 

 listened to with rapt attention in the Roman 

 Senate, and who— centuries before the time 

 when Horace was amateur agriculturist, and 

 planted Soracte and Lucretilis in his poems — 

 wrote so minutely, and with such rare sagacity, 

 upon all that relates to country living, and to 

 country thrift, that I might to-morrow, in 

 virtue of his instructions only, plant my bed 

 of asparagus, and so dress and treat it (al- 

 ways in pursuance of his directions) as to in- 

 sure me for the product a prize at the County 

 Fair— if, indeed, the shoots did not rival those 



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