320 AMERICAN HUSBANDRY. 



broken up by the civil and political convulsions of 

 the age, and the inordinate thirst for acquiring wealth 

 and fashionable consequence through mercantile and 

 other speculations, so that honest, productive labour 

 has been thrown entirely into the background, and 

 considered not only ungenteel, but menial and ser- 

 vile. Yet I venture to lay down this proposition, 

 that he who provides for the wants and comforts of 

 himself and family, aiTd renders some service to so- 

 ciety at large by his mental and physical industry, 

 performs one of the high duties of life, and will ul- 

 timately be rewarded, in the conscious rectitude of 

 his life, by a greater measure of substantial happi- 

 ness than he who makes millions by fraud and spec- 

 ulation, to be squandered in extravagance, or wasted 

 in folly by his children or grandchildren. The rev- 

 olutions that are constantly taking place in families 

 sufficiently admonish us that it is not the wealth we 

 leave to our children, but the industrious and moral 

 habits in which we educate them, that will secure to 

 them worldly prosperity and the treasure of an ap- 

 proving conscience. 



Tjie farmers, I have remarked, share in the errors 

 of the day. Not content with the gains which are 

 ever the reward of prudent industry, and which might 

 be greatly increased by the culture of the mind not 

 content with one of the most independent conditions 

 in society, hundreds and thousands of them seek 

 other and new employments, and some those of a 

 truly menial character, to get rid of labour (the great- 

 est blessing to man), and to raise themselves in the 

 scale of fashionable society. And if they cannot 

 participate themselves in this imaginary greatness 

 (and it is seldom anything more than imaginary), 

 they are anxio as to reflect the evil upon their pos- 

 terity ; to rear their sons to the law the railroad to 

 office, to political power and turmoil ; to make them 

 merchants, a useful but greatly overstocked busi- 

 ness, or to place them in some other genteel em 

 ployment, which shall exempt them from the toite 



