THE TOBACCO WORM AND FLY. 363 



which we cannot resist the mclination to copy, before we are called to breakfast. 

 By-the-by, there is no sort of reading more useful for your sons, than the lives 

 of men who, under difficulties, have attained eminence in their day. Many have 

 been the men, such as Decatur and Porter, who have had their youthful ambi- 

 tion awakened, and been stimulated to deeds of daring enterprise, by readino- the 

 life and adventures of such men as Capt. Cook. But to the extract ; if you have 

 a son old enough to understand, with a spirit to feel the force of it, give it to hira 

 to " read out " to you, as they used to call it when my father used to make me 

 read him one of Sterne's Letters to Maria, or some passages from Tristam Shandv, 

 or whatever striking Essay on Agriculture happened at the lime to appear in the 

 newspapers, such as Taylor's " Arator " letters, that first appeared in a George- 

 town newspaper. — "That man was never happy — happy upon reflection and while 

 looking to the Past or the Future— who could not say to himself that he had 

 made something of the faculties that God gave, and had not lived altogether 

 without progression, like one of the inferior animals. We do not speak of mere 

 wealth or station ; these are comparatively nothing — are as often missed as at- 

 tained even by those who best merit them— and do not of themselves constitute 

 happiness, when they are possessed. But there must be some consciousness of 

 an intellectual or moral progress, or there can be no satisfaction, no self-con- 

 gratulation in reviewing what of life may be already gone, no hope in the pros- 

 pect of what is yet to come. All men feel this, and all men feel it strongly; 

 and if they could secure for themselves the source of happiness in question by a 

 v/ish, would avail themselves of the privilege with sufficient alacrity. Nobody 

 would pass his life in ignorance if knowledge were to be had by merely lookino- 

 up to the clouds for it ; it is the labor necessary for its acquirement that scares 

 theia ; and this labor they have not resolution to encounter — yet it is, in truth, 

 from the exertion by which it must be obtained, that knowledge derives at least 

 half its value ; for to this, entirely, we owe the sense of merit in ourselves 

 which the acquisition brings along with it ; and hence no little of the happiness 

 of which we have just described its possession to be the source. Besides that 

 the labor itself soon becomes an enjoyment." This last remark is eminently 

 true : the labor itself becomes an enjoyment, for there is constantly associated 

 in the mind the idea of the enviable distinction that justly waits on superior 

 knowledge, and the power which it so certainly confers, that the French have 

 cast it into a motto — " Le savoir est puissance " — Knowledge is power. Let 

 these observations meet with a ready reception among youth, says the writer, in 

 whatever rank in life. Honor, and fame, and excellence are not to be achieved, 

 even in farming, by merely wishing for them. It is only by an unwearied 

 striving after a neio and nobler nature — only by being useful to our fellows, and 

 making the most of those qualities of mind which God has given us, that un- 

 common success and happiness are to be obtained in any path, or that we can 

 fulfill the true ends of our existence as beings endowed by Providence with supe- 

 rior faculties. 



Letter from W. N. Doksett, Esq., to J. S. Skinner, Editor of The Farmers* 

 Library, on the Insects that attack the Tobacco Plant. 



December 20, lS-17. 



Dear Sir: Your favor of the 24th ult., to which I am about to attempt a 

 reply, was not received, in consequence of my absence from home, until the 7th 

 inst. I was again compelled to leave home for a week, which necessarily de- 

 layed my reply to the present time. 



It is mv opinion that at least one-fourth of the whole tobacco crop planted in 



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