THE VALUE OF TIME. 45 



THE VALUE OF TIME. 



Steamboat Marj' Washington, Rappahannock, June 13, 1S47. 



Mr. Editor : The size and scope of your journal enable you to spread before 

 your readers a variety of matter over and above the description of new imple- 

 ments and processes employed in practical Agriculture, and the results of such 

 experiments as accident may hit upon, or science suggest. Ytiu have well 

 judged. Sir, that the mind, like the palate, calls for some variety, and having 

 myself been often gratified by the perusal in The FaPwMers' Library of things 

 not strictly practical, will, with your permission, endeavor to contribute occa- 

 sionally to that diversity in which I have myself found such agreeable amuse- 

 ment. As a longer preface would ill comport with the reflections which prompt- 

 ed what I am about now to say, let me at once declare that in my judgment 

 there are few topics on which men who live in the country, and more especially 

 those who most complain of " hard times," stand more in need of some words 

 of exhortation and reproof than on their insensibility to the precious value of 

 TIME. When, Mr. Editor, you come to reflect on the shortness of the average 

 period of human life, and how every man of proper feeling must desire not 

 merely to maintain his own independence, but to provide for his family that 

 blessing without which there can be no security for virtue itself; and then when 

 you consider how large a portion of existence, even in a condition of ease and 

 health, must necessarily be consumed in repairing the natural wear and tear of 

 the constitution, is it not amazing to think how many hours and days, amount- 

 ing in the aggregate to years, are thrown away, more especially, perhaps it may 

 be said, in the country than in cities, not merely in listlessness, but in hanging 

 about country taverns and stores, and in the low and vulgar squabbles and in- 

 trigues that consume the time of party politicians ? Reflecting on this subject, it 

 occurred to me, strange as it may appear, that there is no example to which 

 these gentlemen of the country ever pressed with difliculties, may be referred, 

 with mor€ hope of good efi'ect, than to the invariable, untiring habits of system- 

 atic application to business which characterize men of the largest forlu7ies in 

 our largest cities, where time is measured by the second, as gold is weighed 

 by the grain. How ditferent with many, even among those who are esteemed 

 the most industrious farmers. With them, when meeting on the road, so in- 

 veterate is the custom of halting to while away precious time in common-place 

 inquiries and remarks, that even their horses, partaking, as if by mesmeric influ- 

 ence the social temper and indolent habits of iheir riders, mutually slacken their 

 pace as they approach each other, and seem, like them, to exchange their social 

 salutations. After half an hour passed in stereotype inquiries about the health 

 of family and neighbors, and remarks about the weather, the prevalence of the 

 drouth, the ravages of the fly, the bloody details and glories of the war, &c., they 

 at last separate, and proceeding each perhaps a mile farther on his way, they 

 both meet another neighbor, and after the usual inquiries the leg is thrown over 

 the pommel of the saddle, and, discussing the " hardness of the times," another 

 half hour is swallowed up in the great abyss of more precious time forever and 

 irretrievably lost. Hence it was, as I remember, Mr. Editor, that my lamented 

 father, in sending me, when a boy, on a journey of business, used to tell me, at 

 parting, to remember, that in nothing could industry be practiced with more ef- 

 fect than in travclimr. In this consists the moral of Esop's fable of the Hare 

 and the Tortoise. But go from the country to the large town, (not the country 

 village,) where country people are apt to think most men live in ease and idle- 

 ness, and you will find every man on the run, and tiie wealthiest generally the 

 most impatient of the loss of a moment ; so much do they dread it that in the 

 streets tlicy neither look to the right nor the left, for fear of deadening their 

 Way by even a nod of recognition to their most intimate friend from tiie country. 

 A case which fell under my own observation, and to which I was in fact a party, 

 may serve to show to your readers in the country what sort of men are these 



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