104 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



green. Our seasons are all poetical; the phenom- 

 ena of our heavens are full of sublimity and beau- 

 ty. Winter with us has none of its proverbial 

 gloom. It may have its howling winds, and chill- 

 ing frosts, and whirling snow-storms; but it has 

 also its long intervals of cloudless sunshine, when 

 the snow-clad earth gives redoubled brightness to 

 the day ; when at night the stars beam with in- 

 tensest lustre, or the moon floods the whole land- 

 scape with her most limpid radiance ; and then the 

 joyous outbreak of our spring, bursting at once in- 

 to leaf and blossom, redundant with vegetation, 

 and vociferous with life ! — and the splendors of our 

 summer — its morning voluptuousness and evening 

 glory — its airy palaces of sun-gilt clouds, piled up 

 in a deep azure sky; and its gusts of tempest of al- 

 most tropical grandeur, when the forked lightning 

 and the bellowing thunder volley from the battle- 

 ments of heaven and shake the sultry atmosphere — 

 and the sublime melancholy of our autumn, mag- 

 nificent in its decay, withering down the pomp and 

 pride of a woodland country, yet reflecting back 

 from its yellow forests the golden serenity of the 

 sky. Surely we may say that in our climate 'the 

 heavens declare the glory of God, and the firma- 

 ment showeth his handiwork ; day unto day utter- 

 eth speech, and night unto night showeth know- 

 ledge.' " 



You say, "it is a favorite assertion Avith the ed- 

 itors and correspondents of the New England Far- 

 mer, that there is no other pursuit or business pro 

 ductive of an equal amount of pleasure with prac 

 tical farming and gardening." The assertion may 

 have been often made, though I do not this mo- 

 ment recollect by whom made ; it is not an asser- 

 tion of mine. However, Socrates said, "Agricul- 

 ture is au employment the most worthy the appli 

 cation of man, the most ancient, and the .most 

 suitable to his nature ; it is the common nurse of 

 all persons, in every age and condition of life ; it 

 is the source of health, strength, plenty and rich- 

 es, and of a thousand sober delights and honest 

 pleasures ; it is the mistress and school of sobriety, 

 temperance, justice, religion, and, in short, of all 

 virtues." This is a high encomium ; and, in gen- 

 eral terms, is pretty true. If the condition, all 

 things considered, of a class of persons engaged in 

 any one of the leading practical persuits of man be 

 compared with that of an equal number, of like in- 

 telligence, engaged in farming, the result will be 

 likely to prove favorable to the letter class. Indi- 

 vidual comparisons may result quite differently 

 from general ones ; for every man is not best fitted 

 by taste and talent for farming, any more than 

 every man is best fitted for preaching. The truth 

 is, the world is wide, every variety of taste and 

 talent is wanted to carry forward civilization, and 

 may find an appropriate sphere of action ; and the 

 great point is, for each individual to ascertain his 

 proper place, his own peculiar thing to do; and 

 then if he does that thing, with an energy and de 

 cision of purpose which leaps over the ohstacles it 

 cannot cast out of the way, lie will be apt to suc- 

 ceed, '.lay he useful to others, and will probably 

 enjoy life, so far as enjoyment is granted in this 

 state of being. 



To a mind capable of appreciating, as you term 

 it, "the almost infinite value of intellectual cul 

 turc," greater delight is undoubtedly found in it: 

 pursuit than in the mere execution of the manual 

 Operations pertaining to any of the practical call 



ings by which man earns bread. But it is the in- 

 evitable lot of us mortals to gain our bread by "the 

 sweat of the brow." As a general thing, we can- 

 not give ourselves up to the improvement of the 

 mind, but must engage the greater part of our 

 time in hard matter-of-fact labor, only catching 

 the passing hour, as it were, for pure intellectual 

 pleasures and improvements. There are of course 

 a few enviable exceptions to this the general lot, 

 seen in the case of individual men, who, by a pecu- 

 liarly favorable profession in life, or otherwise, are 

 permitted to luxuriate in purely mental pursuits 

 and pleasures; and there are other exceptions, not 

 enviable, of persons who, for want of a necessity 

 laid upon them of exertion, labor hard to kill time 

 and keep off ennui — of persons who, sweating not 

 in the earning of bread, are made to sweat nioft 

 tremendously in digesting it. Our nature here is. 

 compound, of matter and spirit, and the two must 

 be harmonized as well as may be. In general, if 

 we attend too exclusively to the culture of the 

 mind, giving ourselves up to its cravings under 

 such circumstances, the physical nature will be 

 neglected and enfeebled, which will ultimately clog 

 the workings of the mind, and prevent it from at- 

 taining to those useful results it might otherwise 

 reach in connection Avith a vigorous physical frame, 

 — and so too, if Ave giA T e ourselves exclusively to 

 mere manual employments, we develope but little 

 mind, and make no adA r ancement worthy of a be- 

 ing gifted Avith the sublime faculties of. intellect ; 

 and hence we may perhaps account for your affir- 

 mation, "that Avhile farming has very few entice- 

 ments for me, intellectual pursuits afford me the 

 greatest delight ;" you, Avith your reading of other 

 men's thoughts, AA r onder Avhat pleasure can be de- 

 rived from prosecuting the methods of agriculture ; 

 a mere laborer, wonders Avhat pleasure or profit it 

 can be to you to pore over those books : a man 

 employed in pitching over a manure-heap, with 

 a soul but little elevated above a manure-heap, 

 thinks only of the manure-heap, and of getting 

 to the end of it ; Avhile a philosopher, taking 

 this laborer's tools and doing his work, thinks of a 

 hundred scientific principles, all suggested by the 

 manure-heap and the act of pitching it over. If 

 we have the mind to read them, there are deep use- 

 ful lessons in almost every employment of head or 

 hand, however menial the employment may at first 

 seem ; and never Avas there truer saying than that 

 of the poet : — 



" It is the soul that sees ; the outward eyes 



Present the object, but the mind descries ; 



And thence delight, disgust, or cool indifference rise." 



The true idea, then, generally, is to combine in- 

 tellectual with manual pursuits. That such a 

 course will tend to make a full man , a man prac- 

 tically useful, is sufficiently proved by history. — 

 Look at the splendid galaxy of self-made men, who, 

 in addition to carrying forward some practical call- 

 ing, haA'O risen to the highest eminence, have be- 

 come intellectual giants, — men who, with freedom 

 from the attenuating physical tendencies of a too 

 exclusively closet-life, haA r o, by their original, ele- 

 vated, manly and practical mode of dunking, en- 

 riched the world by contributions to every depart- 

 ment of knowledge. Of the A-arious principal prac- 

 tical callings by which men earn bread, none is 

 more favorable to intellectual culture than agricul- 

 ture, — as I shall presently attempt to show. The 

 professional man, combining somcAvhat the culti- 





