1856. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



87 



grimeval forests — the remains of a vegetable world, 

 lay this expectation be realized ! and may her ex- 

 cellent population be thus redeemed from poverty 

 and misery. 



For tlie New England Farmer. 



READING, A PREVENTIVE OF 

 DOTAGE. 



Messrs. Editor and Proprietor : — The annual 

 consultation is over, and our folks conclude that we 

 must allow ourselves the luxury of reading the Far- 

 mer another year. I have sometimes thought it 

 would be interesting to trace back to the pockets of 

 your "patrons" the dollars which, at this season of 

 subscribing, are flocking into the treasury of the Far- 

 mer, and by some sort of clairvoyant faculty to review 

 the various processes of reasoning by which close- 

 calculating farmers satisfy themselves thus to part 

 with their money. But as I am neither a clairvoyant 

 nor a "medium," — as neither the spirits of the dead 

 nor of the living will respond from their misty 

 deeps to any invocation of mine, I must be content 

 with the far less poetical task of divulging one of 

 the considerations which in my case, did much to 

 "kick the beam" against the subscription price of 

 the Farmer. 



It is a common remark that the scenery of the 

 "Hill of Life," over which all of us are wending 

 our de^^ous ways, is ever changing. To those who 

 have just commenced its ascent, every step towards 

 its glowing summit discloses a wider and more glo- 

 rious prospect ; while to those who are on the 

 downward slope, the prospect gradually narrows 

 and mingles with the shades of approaching 

 night. I find myself in the latter class. I am 

 growing old. And it is natural, therefore, that I 

 should be influenced by considerations different 

 from those which move the young, and that we 

 should even perfoi'm the same act from ditferent 

 motives. Various and cogent are the reasons that 

 are especially urged upon the young for agricultu- 

 ral reading and study. Are there not those as pe- 

 culiarly applicable to the aged ? 



I think it was Mrs. Child who said of female 

 education, one great object should be to teach them 

 to grow old gracefully. Would not a similar truth 

 in respect to the education of the other sex be 

 expressed by saying, they should be taught to grow 

 old usefully ? Those who are students all their 

 lives generally enjoy a "green old age" intellectu- 

 ally, while those who neglect the cultivation of their 

 minds, or who suspend it in middle Hfe, often end 

 their days in a state of dotage that exhibits hu- 

 manity in its most deplorable aspect. Benjamin 

 Franklin, John Quincy Adams, and many others 

 whose names will recur to every reader, were hard 

 students all their lives, and their intellectual facul- 

 ties were undimmed by age, although they lived 

 far beyond the usual limit of human life. Like the 

 sinews of the body, the energies of the mind are 

 strengthened and enlarged by exercise, and are 

 dwarfed and shrivelled by disuse. Farmers culti- 

 vate the one, and neglect the other. They work 

 too much, and study loo little. Removed from 

 those excitements of thought and discussion which 

 are afforded by the denser population of the village 

 or city, farmers have probably ever been more sub- 

 ject to mental decline in old age than any other 

 class. An erroneous idea respecting education has 

 probably done much to aggravate the evil. While 



farmers are careful to secure for their children a 

 good "schooling," they too often require the books 

 to be closed when the school closes, and allow them 

 to be opened again only when the school opens, 

 with the belief that an education once a quued is 

 something that cannot be lost ; something of which 

 no reverses, no inattention, no lapse of time, can 

 deprive themselves or their children. 



I believe that cases of extreme imbecility or sec- 

 ond-childhood are less frequent now, in this coun- 

 try, than they were a hundred years ago. And this 

 opinion is based mainly upon what old people, with 

 whom I was familiar in my boyhood, told me of 

 those who were aged, when these old friends of 

 mine were young — a period of just about one hun- 

 dred years ago. Among many similar instances, 

 my grandfather used to relate the case of an old 

 man who had forgotten his own children, and who 

 on the return of one who had been long absent, 

 resolutely denied that he ever had such a son ! 



At the present time, Avhen newspapers are is- 

 sued daily, and even several times a day ; when 

 magazines and books are made by steam ; and the 

 news of the day carried all over the country by 

 flashes of Hghtning, it is no easy thing to get our- 

 selves back among the realities of even one hun- 

 dred years ago. At that time no paper was j)ub- 

 Hshed in New England out of Boston. Mr. Thom- 

 as says that, "in 1754, four newspapers only were 

 printed in New England ; these were all published 

 in Boston, and, usually, on a small sheet ; they 

 were published weekly, and the average number of 

 copies did not exceed six hundred from each press." 

 This weekly circulation of about twenty-four hun- 

 dred papers, in all New England, was mostly con- 

 fined to literary and professional men — in the 

 words of one of their editors, to "Gentlemen, Mer- 

 chants, and Others, his usual Customers." Farm- 

 ers, then, did not read papers, for there were none 

 for them to read ; and books, excepting the Bible, 

 Psalter and Almanac, were no more common. 

 About this time, however, newspapers began to 

 multiply, books were printed, pamphlets were cir- 

 culated, and the discussion of colonial rights 

 which preceded the Revolution, gave to the people 

 an interest in pohtical events and principles, which 

 that long struggle, and the subsequent establish- 

 ment and operation of an independent government, 

 have not only kept aHve but greatly deepened. 



With this view of the subject, after all that may 

 be said against political papers and political excite- 

 ments; after all the shame-flicedness we may have 

 to put on for the extravagances into which we and 

 our friends are sometimes led ; after all the ani- 

 mosities that a "campaign" engenders are duly la- 

 mented, — we may still believe that they j^roduce at 

 least one very important beneficial result. They 

 exercise, invigorate and strengthen the powers of 

 the mind ; a good that may safely be weighed 

 against many evils that alarm some of our quiet- 

 loving citizens. 



Now, if such has been the effect of papers whose 

 conductors have too often looked to office-holders, 

 or office-seekers for support, or wlio have some- 

 times regarded and used their journals as steppmg 

 stones for their own political elevation, may we not 

 reasonably indulge much larger hopes and more 

 sanguine anticipations of the benefits which are to 

 accrue from the rapidly increasing demand and sup- 

 ply of agricultural papers ? If pohtical questions 

 have done tlius much to keep the mind from the 



