BREAKFAST-TAIIALE CONVERSATION. 305 



A BREAKFAST-TABLE CONVERSATION, 



Between the Editor of The Farmers' Library, and a hard-worhing, practical 

 Northern Farmer. About what ? Read and you shall know. 



The fashion prevails lately in England, to a certain extent, to substitute public 

 breakfasts fur dinners at great meetings and fairs of Agricultural Associations. — 

 These occasions give rise to public discussions, more or less extended ; but, for 

 our part, we have never been able to discover that much information could be 

 imparted or acquired where people come together to see, rather than to talk or 

 to listen — where, in fact, everything is calculated to divert and distract, rather thaa 

 ♦.o compose the senses and instruct the mind. Hence we have often found that there 

 was more information to be obtained in half an hour's horseback or fireside con- 

 versation, with such a man as friend Jones, of Delaware, or with Mr. Crawford, 

 superintendent of Dr. Stewart's Doden estate (a Napoleon in his way), or evea 

 with an experienced negro manager on a large plantation in the South, such as Col. 

 Hampton's man Lymus, than is to be gathered in the confused scene of an annual 

 public fair or exhibition, by the conversations or discussions to which they give 

 rise, such as they are. To see half that is to be seen, and to exchange salu>a- 

 tions with the hundreds you meet, is as much or more than can be done with 

 satisfaction. That, then, is a false view of the advantages of such annual fairs, 

 which refers them to the benefits to be derived from oral interchange of knowl- 

 edge. 



In excursions about the country, and sojournings at watering places, last sum- 

 mer, for health and observation, pastimes among the most agreeable were found 

 in occasional visits, unceremonious and without any formal introduction, but none 

 the less respectful on our part, to plain, practical farmers, in the midst of their 

 liimily circle, or their field labors, as it might happen — to such farmers as had. 

 won, throughout their bailiwicks at least, the humble but honest renown of be- 

 ing industrious, frugal, thriving managers of their own little estates ; and who, 

 by skill and diligence, had gotten to be what is expressively termed, "well to 

 live in the world." And how much more to be coveted and enjoyed, the unpre- 

 tending fame and livelihoods thus acquired, than the much bruited renown and 

 overgrown fortune of the millionaire, gotten (as the professed gambler makes his 

 by the turn of a card) by dashing, hit-or-miss speculations in trade — which may, 

 perchance, elevate their projector to the giddy and dangerous hight of sudden 

 adluence, or which may plunge himself and family into irretrievable bankruptcy, 

 dragging down with him, as most frequently hapj)ens, his and their most reliable 

 and confiding friends, into one abyss of common ruin. 



How still more enviable is the humble estate and condition of such a farmer, 

 than the ill-gotten wealth amassed by the surer and more cautious schemings of 

 the wily shaver, who, gloating over the embarrassed fortunes of his neighbor and 

 friend, generously grants him one pecuniary favor after another, at the rate of 

 cent, per cent., until, having griped his last dollar, he leaves him in helpless 

 dr.d hopeless despair, ♦o fall into the gulf of ruin to which he had kindly assisted 

 tv condvct him ! 



Iti-Jl) 30 



