394 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Sept. 



hands of the manufacturer. In all places substan- 

 tial bounties and luxuries are presented to sight, 

 that serve to make all men "venerate the plow." 



Apples are reddening on the orchard trees, un- 

 der the ripening influences of the sun, or lie in 

 golden and crimson heaps in the fields. Peaches 

 with downy cheeks, wearing the blush of mellow 

 ripeness, or drooping heavily from their boughs, all 

 waiting to be eaten. Quinces in glittering rows 

 along by the garden fences and enclosures, out- 

 rival in golden splendor the fruits of the sweet- 

 scented orange-groves of the tropics. Every way- 

 side in the country is bordered with this profusion ; 

 and a glittering variety of fruits hangs from thou- 

 sands of boughs, and spangles the green turf of 

 every field and orchard. 



What a variety of hues do the fields exhibit, ac- 

 cording to their different produce! There we ob- 

 serve the ashen gray of the oat field ; the brilliant 

 yellow of the wheat and rye; the green of the 

 clover patch ; the olive green of the pastures, all 

 occasionally interchanging with the red and russet 

 of the tardy buckwheat. Vegetables of divers sorts 

 in their perfection, attract the gaze of the traveller. 

 Here are onions that would draw tears from the 

 whole nation, and cabbages exhibit heads with de- 

 velopments that would astonish the phrenologist. 

 In fields that in the miry spring were covered with 

 grey rocks that glistened upon the blank soil, pump- 

 kins now lie lazily upon the earth, their golden 

 globes glistening between the hills of ripening 

 maize; and squashes, with their long and graceful 

 necks that rival those of the swan, are nestling un- 

 der the broad leaves of their teeming vines. 



Now look abroad upon the hills and over the 

 ■pastures ! How would the lover of the picturesque 

 or of cheerful pastoral scenes delight to behold the 

 grazing inhabitants of these happy fields ! What 

 is more picturesque than a herd of cows feeding on 

 the sheltered slope of a hill, or a flock of sheep 

 bounding over the open whortleberry pastures ! 

 Providence has benevolently made all these objects 

 dehghtful to man, that he may be tempted to join 

 in the labors of the husbandman, in those pursuits, 

 which, as being the most noble of occupations, were 

 assigned to the great progenitor of our race, before 

 he fell from his original purity, and when he en- 

 joyed the companionship of heaven. Man, urged 

 by necessity, leaves these peaceful and beautiful av- 

 ocations, to tempt the seas, or to engage in the 

 strife of the city ; but never, in his solitary mo- 

 ments, does his heart cease to yearn after his an- 

 cient rural home, the rustic employments of his 

 youth, his wanderings among the hills and woods, 

 and all the simple delights of country life ! 



After the survey of all these bounties and luxu- 

 ries which the autumn displays, who does not, in his 

 heart, if he stops to consider his obligations to his 

 fellow-men, bless the husbandman and his labors, 



and join in lauding his employment as the most 

 noble and valuable of pursuits ! Though it is very 

 generally believed that the labors of the farm are 

 not likely to lead to any superfluous wealth, — who 

 does not know that there is no safer means of se- 

 curing a competency and a frugal independence ? 

 The present season teems with abundant proofs of 

 the comforts and blessings that reward his toiling 

 exertions. Agricultural fairs invite the community 

 to witness the proofs that his toil is not in vain, and 

 the numerous varieties of rural implements for 

 facilitating his labor, prove that ingenuity as well 

 as industry mark the progress of agriculture. 



Though the New England farmer is ready to 

 avail himself of labor-saving machinery, he is no 

 niggard of his own labor. With a hearty willing- 

 ness to afford employment to those who can serve 

 him, he is himself no stranger to toil, which he re- 

 gards as one of the luxuries of life. He considers 

 toil as really no part of the curse which was inflict- 

 ed on mankind, when the original sentence was 

 pronounced upon Adam. He regards it as one of 

 the necessary conditions by M-hich we are enabled 

 to secure the united blessings^of health, cheerfulness 

 and competence ; that when guided by intelligence 

 it is ennobling, and that ignorance only can degrade 

 it. No man so frequently beholds the rising sun ; 

 none so frequently hears the song of the earliest 

 birds, or breathes the gales of the morning, while 

 they are stiil sweet with the emanations of opening 

 flowers. Whether he is holding the plow or pitch- 

 ing sheaves,]or "driving his team a-field" or trading 

 with the purchaser of his produce — he is plainly the 

 best living example among us of freedom and in- 

 dependence. 



Let every individual farmer, while this honora- 

 ble pride animates his breast, see that he be not, by 

 his ignorance, or his prejudice, or his backwardness 

 to adopt the improvements of the age, unworthy to 

 take rank with others of his own class. Let him 

 not become a mere dull and ponderous animal, a 

 slow-spoken, heavy-witted saunterer, as somebody 

 has described the Saxon clodpole, whose cart- 

 wheels never yet rolled out of the ruts made by the 

 wheels of the fifth generation back, whose head is 

 as empty [as one of his own pumpkins ; a mere 

 Grubbinol or Bumkinet, wh,o is elevated only one 

 grade above his own oxen, and who might learn 

 wisdom from his horse. There are a few such dolts 

 still among our rural population; and they are 

 each individually wiser in their own conceit than if 

 they possessed the wisdom of Solomon. They look 

 with supreme contempt, for contempt is the off- 

 spring of ignorance, upon the new improvements, 

 feeling the utter absurdity of supposing that the 

 boys they instructed should be able to teach them, 

 their instructors, any real knowledge ! 



Let every tiller of the soil honor his profession 

 and make himself worthy of it, by keeping pace 



