64 



Practice vs. Theory — Farmers^ Microscope. 



Vol. III. 



persons traveling in France. In summer 

 they take the place of coat and waistcoat; in 

 winter over-all. At the end of the journey 

 it is only to take them off and shake the dust 

 from them — and in hot and dusty weather 

 they are real luxuries. For the use of coach- 

 men, who have often to attend to their horses 

 during a journey, they are the acme of per- 

 fection; while as a loose Sunday indoor dress, 

 to us who are destined to toil for JJIS days in 

 the year, they invite to luxurious ease, and 

 are absolutely irresistible in their soporific 

 effects. I find that they can be obtained at 

 No. 14 North Sixth street, made from a pat- 

 tern imported direct from France, of every 

 texture, color, and consistency. Assuredly 

 they must come into very general use. 



J. P. 



i For the Farmers' Cabinet. 



Practice vs« Tlieory, or tbe HanUs -vs* the 

 Head. 



" No divorce, I beseech you, my friends." 



Having recently been present during a very 

 interesting and amusing conversation between 

 two farmers about your " Farmers' Cabinet," 

 I will undertake to give you some account of 

 it, or at least a short abstract of the subject 

 matter of it. They were both good, and 

 pretty intelligent farmers, but their views of 

 somethings, and particularly of matters writ- 

 ten or printed in regard to agriculture were 

 W.S different as the two sides of a bake-iron. — 

 The one was descanting on the benefits and 

 advantages of the Farmers' Cabinet to farm- 

 ers generally, and now and then he read a 

 racy article from it to prove his position ; the 

 other contended that any thing printed on the 

 subject of farming was mere theory, and of 

 no use, but rather calculated to lead people of 

 little experience astray from the good old way 

 of doing things that had been practised from 

 the earliest times. He said that these printed 

 things only dissipated people's ideas and with- 

 drew their attention from work, and he 

 thought were ruining our young people by 

 keeping them thinking all the time instead 

 of working. On the other side it was con- 

 tended that teaching people to think enabled 

 them to work to much greater advantage, and 

 that all the improvements which had been 

 made in the world, were the result of think- 

 ing, and that thinking was not at all incom- 

 patible with action, hut on the contrary was 

 the very base and foundation of it, and that 

 a discovery or improvement being made, the 

 promulgation of it in print was doing the 

 greatest good to mankind, as it tended to keep 

 up the equilibrium of knowledge, and enabled 

 one man to work with the tools of another 

 without cost. At last the contest assumed 

 the form of a regular combat between the 



Head and Hands ; a little on the plan of 

 that detailed by Esop, of the quarrel that took 

 place between the Belly and the Limbs, when 

 the latter fairly rebelled, and refused any 

 longer to work for a fat and indolent Paunch, 

 which they considered ae entirely useless, 

 and unable to provide for itself However, 

 after a short trial, at keeping up separate es- 

 tablishments, finding it not to answer expec- 

 tation, a truce ensued, and they agreed to go 

 on amicably together, and found a mutual ad- 

 vantage in it. Now I suspect this contest 

 between the Head and the Hands will termi- 

 nate in the same way, by each returning qui- 

 etly to the performance of its appropriate 

 duty again, as members of the same indisso- 

 luble firm of " Head and Hands," each at- 

 tendng to its own department, while they are 

 both working for the common good, for 1 

 should like to know what sort of a farmer a 

 man would make either without a head or 

 without hands. I was thoroughly convinced 

 by the arguments of the parties, that every 

 man in this free country has an undoubted 

 right both to think and work, either jointly 

 or separately as much as he pleases, and that 

 there is not much danger of our carrying either 

 to excess ; but above all I was confirmed in 

 the conviction that every intelligent farmer 

 should write down the results of his experi- 

 ments, and the cogitations of his mind on 

 agricultural and rural affairs, and forward 

 them for insertion in the Farmers' Cabinet. 



To the Editor of the Farmers' Cabiuet. 



Farmers' ITIicroNCope. 



Sir,— Perhaps there are many of my brother farmers 

 who do not know that they have, in the telescope, or 

 common spyglass, an excellent microscope also. It is 

 hut to screw off the small object glass, apply it close 

 to the eye, and bring any object within the range of 

 its proper focus, and they will be surprised and grati- 

 fied with the result. To those, who, like myself, 

 fond of looking into things, such an instrument will 

 prove a very pleasant walking companion. I never 

 leave home without it, and am often struck with as- 

 tonishment at the extreme beauty which I tind dis- 

 played in the formation of the most common flower, or 

 even weed, the appearance of which, without its aid, 

 was any thing but interesting. In botanical and geo- 

 logical re.searrhes, this little, simple pocket apparatus 

 is of the greatest service ; and the facility with which 

 it can be removed and replaced, is not the smallest of 

 its recommendations. 



J. P. 



Begin early, is the great maxim for every 

 thing in education. A child of six years old 

 can be made useful ; and should be taught to 

 consider every day lost in which some little 

 thing h;ts not been done to assist others. 



Children can very early be taught to take 

 care of their own clothes. 



Method and punctuality are sure friends 

 to the man of business. 



Do not make too much haste to be rich. 



