,<r-^. 



DKVOTED TO AGRICULTUKE, HORTICUIiTUKE, AJSTD KENDEED ARTS. 



NEW SERIES. 



Boston, Octol)er, 1868. VOL. IL~NO. 10. 



R. P. EATON & CO., Plblishers, 

 Office, 34 Merchants' Row. 



MONTHLY. 



SniON BROWN, 

 S. FLETCHEK, 



i Editors. 



INFLUENCES. 



CTOBER is the pi- 

 oneer of Winter 

 with us here in 

 New England. 

 It admonishes 

 us of the ad- 

 vancing forces 

 that are to pos- 

 sess the land. 

 It gives us a 

 foretaste of the 

 short days and 

 long evenings, 

 which it is as 

 much our duty to im- 

 prove as it was to make 

 hay when the sun shone. 

 During the busy season we have 

 little time for social gatherings, 

 neighborhood visits, or mental 

 improvement, and there is danger that the 

 habit thus formed will follow us into the more 

 leisure sea>on of winter. Probably no class 

 of American citizens neglect social and intel- 

 lectual intercourse to so great a degree as do 

 farmers in the more sparsely settled por- 

 tions of our country. This tendency to in- 

 dividual or family isolation should be carefully 

 guarded against. Men are, by their very 

 constitution, social beings. Instinct draws 

 them together. Their natural condition is 

 that of society. In social life man finds his 



T4 



most rapid and complete development. The 

 life of the hermit is an unnatural life. The 

 mind of the solitary is always narrow and con- 

 tracted. His faculties become enfeebled, and 

 his intellect dwarfed. 



It is only in society that the faculties, moral 

 and intellectual, can have full play. Those 

 who have tastes, interests or pursuits in com- 

 mon, naturally associate together. Thought 

 suggests thought. The mind is quickened,, 

 and men learn to observe and reason. Ideas, 

 perhaps crude and indefinite, are thrown out, 

 discussed, compared, and assume definite 

 form and shape, and become principles and 

 rules of action. An idea originating in one 

 mind, becomes common property, and is 

 added to the available stock of knowledge in 

 the community. But not only are the intel- 

 lectual powers and resources increased by 

 social intercourse, but the taste and the man- 

 ners are improved, kindly feelings are called 

 out and strengthened, and the heart and the 

 life are made better by it. 



We have been led into this train of remark 

 by observing the effects of Farmers' Clubs, 

 and other associations for mutual improve- 

 ment and assistance. We do not refer particu- 

 larly to increase of agricultural knowledge 

 or improvement in agriculture among the 

 members, but to their intellectual, moral and 

 social improvement. Young men who had 

 never been accustomed to write, or to speak 

 in public, in a short time have become able to 



